tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85488572578761008742024-03-13T09:20:09.585-07:00Here's Looking At You, BabyAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03892150686959060142noreply@blogger.comBlogger36125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8548857257876100874.post-65018784837816527772018-11-12T01:01:00.000-08:002018-11-12T01:42:05.360-08:00#6 On Wishing You Were Bilingual, With Children<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">The conversation has moved on</span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-c3753aaa-7fff-ce1b-1c66-ec2c035490bf" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So Son turned five the other day. The usual nostalgic whirlwind of photos popped up on Facebook and other apps, evoking memories of the experiences contained within these crazy first years: endless medical consultations, birth itself, joining a mums’ group, finding the right daycare, getting pregnant again and repeating it all. It’s a time of immense, irreversible change full of ups, downs and total unknowns. It's a time that's often navigated with best-guesses and stabs in the dark. It’s also a time most of us deal with in our native language. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Back in Sydney I admired my non-anglo mum-friends who had done all this in English; they were French, Peruvian, Brazilian and Polish. I wondered what that same time must have been like for them. Now I have a better idea. They were all more bilingual than I am now, but still. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I’m only referring to my own lack of bilingualism, by the way. Well, mine and Husband’s. Don’t worry about the kids, they are fine. More than fine, actually: in one year our previously monolingual son has acquired more or less the same level of Spanish - dialect and all - as his local peers; Daughter arrived with almost zero words and now switches easily between the two languages like it’s a mere trifle to her. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And NB</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">this is not mum-bragging, by the way: it’s what you’ll get if kids their age move countries, to a place where so little English is spoken that their entire day outside the house is spent in the local lingo. Learning through necessity, not curiosity, tots are unquestioning little sponges of language, quick to imitate and assimilate. Unlike we adults, that is, with our hopelessly rigid concept of language and our attempts to translate things word for word. I’m no linguistic professor but I can see it all happening. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s so brilliant and it’s also damning. It highlights how clunky and die-hard my own attempts are in comparison, and I’m an English teacher and language nerd who, I might add, has been learning Spanish on and off for some years. Some days I feel all smug because I think I can rattle off clever phrases in conversation. Then I repeat them to my Spanish teacher and she patiently points out the million mistakes I’ve made. Some days I feel like I could perhaps chat about politics, others I ask a shopkeeper or electrician a question then stand there, blinking like a goon, while they repeat something basic to me that I have clearly not understood. In conversations at the school gates I try to multi-task, listening while forming the perfect sentence in my head to interject with, only to realise that during that time the conversation has moved on so I keep schtum. And in English, most would argue I’m rarely lost for something to say. Maybe this is an improvement, since I’m also funnier, apparently- but no, wait. By this I mean I’m now just goofy and clumsy, the ‘</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">ah, bless</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">’ kind of funny that used to be Manuel in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Fawlty Towers</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, the English Policeman in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘Allo ‘Allo. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Sigh. </span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At least these interactions are good-natured, though. Most truly are, though some are not. Recently I had a strip torn off me by a surly restaurant manager, helpfully joined by an equally obnoxious chef (great!). Though I still could not tell you what eighty percent of their tirade was about I can remember clear as day feeling my face burn with shame as I was struck dumb in every sense of the word. Like a puppy being ranted at, you know you’re being made a tit of - the universal language of shouting / pointing is all clear - but you’ve no idea what you’ve done, much less how to respond. Better Spanish would have empowered me in that situation. Mark my words, though, I still fantasise about having a </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Pretty Woman</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> moment one day, returning with such impressive Spanish word-smithery that those same individuals are reduced to rubble after mere syllables. Not my most positive motive for improvement, but a powerful one. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And let me be clear: this is not an attack on the people of Spain, a country where I’ve probably encountered more kindness than anywhere else. This exchange could have taken place anywhere and serves only to illustrate how powerful learning that place’s language is.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Or something like that, anyway. I envied my kids at that embarrassing point, and it won’t be the last time. I remember coming home that day and wanting to reassure myself that at least </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">they</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> were being empowered, so I asked Son what important words he’d learned that day. His response was a proud one: it was ‘bum,’ ‘willy’ and various things besides. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Forget word-smithery; that would have done fine. Next time I’ll enlist his help first.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Hasta luego for now,</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Erica</span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03892150686959060142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8548857257876100874.post-53039488881639981852018-07-22T01:05:00.000-07:002018-07-22T01:25:45.071-07:00#5 On Bringing Your Kids up in Flamenco Culture <div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">He can bust out a move upon demand </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>#5 On Bringing Your Kids Up in Flamenco Culture </b></span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-20c123d6-c112-6838-cbd6-3211b108fb85" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So with reluctance we have finally come to admit to the cold-light-of-day reality of actually moving somewhere versus watching slightly dated, airbrushed documentaries about it. And yet one thing in Granada never, ever loses its romantic-sepia charm. It’s not the visual beauty, though that certainly remains impressive. Nor is it the sunny weather or the wine. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It’s the music. Specifically, the flamenco music. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You see, in various TV programmes about this area it usually takes about two seconds from the opening credits before you hear the moody strum of one of those Spanish guitar chords; you know the ones I mean. And having initially remarked upon the cheesiness of such strumming, we were taken aback when actually in Granada at how real and serious all that music is. And I don't just mean in the obvious tourist hangouts, where you see smiling musicians and dancers doing their thing then passing a cap around for donations. The darkest strain of the sound haunts from the strangest corners, performed invisibly; it drifts up alleyways, echoes behind doorways and occasionally, when you walk past a large hall whose windows are far too high to peer in, you hear the </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">click-bam-bam </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">of dancers’ shoes being worked with dedication on a hard floor.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It's fitting that the owners of these noises are so mysterious. Though there are happier strains of flamenco, at its heart it's the music of various persecuted people from long ago: Arabs and gypsies, namely, and its moody steps were confined to cave-buildings (yes, those still exist) and behind locked doors. It's best danced by those who have lived life and felt pain and in this way it's more like the blues. Given this comparison it’s also not surprising that many of the most respected dancers - females especially - are older and worldlier in a way that upends many Western preferences for the younger woman. If ladies sing jazz and dance ballet, it's women who sing the blues and it is most definitely women who dance flamenco. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Its magic is not lost on little girls, though. Or little boys, for that matter. They too can be seen dancing it at every festival and alongside every street performer. My own Son is capable of busting out a move when asked, my Daughter often given to twirling around and stamping in her bath towel, going 'I flamenco’. Neither of them has ever had a lesson. That they somehow instinctively know how to do it, after only nine months of living here, reflects just how deep a part of this culture it is. Imagine how that is for local kids. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Actually, imagining is not necessary if you catch such kids doing this first hand. At a local Christmas show, flamenco typically occupied much of the stage time and in one particular bit, the adult dancers parted to the side to allow the the spotlight to fall on a little girl. Sure enough, within seconds she was doing her footwork and swishing her skirt with an attitude far beyond her five or six years. The joyful applause soared and I joined it, in that way you do when a kid does something entertainingly precocious. 'Bless', I thought, 'she's trying her hardest to do what comes more naturally to us adults. Just give her time.’ </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And how wrong I was. Dancing flamenco definitely requires experience, but simply being an adult does not qualify you as being experienced. This I discovered in my first few classes for Flamenco Beginners. For one, the music is not in the common 4-time tempo most westerners are familiar with and that takes some of its own un-learning, at least during each lesson. Also, as you might imagine, the footwork is bloody hard and I realised from day one just how much that little girl had already outdone me. And the professionals whose feet seem to flutter out those same steps like a hummingbird's wings? I can't even. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That said, the steps are actually logical and just require (lots of) practice and eventual speeding up. The truly baffling bit, entirely different again from the foot movements, is the arms and hands. Probably the only bit of the dance that suits the word 'pretty’, my attempts are anything but. Requiring elegant wrist-twisting combined with a gentle curling or fanning of the fingers, my version looks more like either the twiddling fingers of a cartoon villain just about to pinch some loot or, if the arms both do sideways movement, like I am doing the hula. Either is about as unpretty as it gets. Hey-ho.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But so is the magic of flamenco once again restored: its untouchable charm lies in how deceptively difficult even the ‘simplest’ of the performers’ moves are. This brings us back, of course, to the little girl for whose dancing I now have a huge respect. And one day, I hope I'm saying this about my own daughter too.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Un saludo! </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Erica </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Have you seen my funky new site where all my writing and published work is in one place?! </b></span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b><br /></b></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>Check it out at <a href="http://ericabarlow.com/">ericabarlow.com</a></b></span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03892150686959060142noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8548857257876100874.post-21479396525200776632018-06-07T04:07:00.002-07:002018-06-07T04:07:29.913-07:00 #4 On Enforced Relaxation With Children in Spain <div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b>#4 On Enforced Relaxation With Children in Spain </b></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><img alt="" height="358" id="id_626d_e5c0_a98b_fde4" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-YNc-HJxggFA/WxkQR9M5wjI/AAAAAAAATm0/XnYDkz6H6xA7e05-SgJ2Qgrq6BTCnRp2QCHMYCw/s400/%255BUNSET%255D" style="height: auto; width: 298px;" title="" tooltip="" width="400" /></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Don’t they know how important my time is?</span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-a4c63e9a-d904-6866-3a8c-30748ee498c0" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Anyone who knows me will know that I am constantly in overdrive. Overplanning, underestimating and running late are just part of my DNA. And it's not that I don't care. Both things stress me out and yet, on one hand, I take stock and think how ridiculous it is that someone in their late thirties still does a light, slightly sweaty jog to make appointments on time; on the other I curse my own idiocy for thinking that bringing kids into the mix could ever have helped this situation. Duh.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And so it is with kids, and I know I am not alone here (please tell me I'm not). Flapping about, trying to get out of the door in the morning with T-minus-ten seconds before we have to leave (see <a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8548857257876100874#editor/target=post;postID=408114169435943812;onPublishedMenu=publishedposts;onClosedMenu=publishedposts;postNum=4;src=postname" target="_blank">this post</a> for earlier comment on this), unable to locate Son's left shoe whilst also trying to brush his teeth so hurriedly I risk making his gums bleed and he keeps going ‘ow'. Daughter, when we dare to try and put her cardi on, screeches, twists and runs away, knocking the pee-filled-potty so hard it splashes, then she disappears behind the sofa. When we try and coax her out like a frightened kitten, she laughs maniacally at us and our stupid, stressed-out faces. Once finally out of the door, we plough down the street with the pram, tutting and moaning at Son each time he obliviously stops to point at ants or try to pick weedy flowers.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And then I once again take stock. I am grumpy and exasperated or at the very least I am pink and a bit sweaty. I am most probably being short with the kids who don't understand Time or why it matters. It is my fault we are running late. At their best, they are just being kids and at their worst they sense mine and Husband's stress and treat it like a comedy show. Either way this rushing is just not working. What is more, the more time we spend here, the more we realise it is not just the kids who look bemusedly at us, at these times. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">To elaborate: being in a rush with kids may be stupid; being in a rush with kids in Spain is just pointless. There is a convenience store called Coviran here, a bit like our dear Spar franchise in the UK. In this one local Coviran, the lady who runs it sashays around in the same nonchalant manner no matter how busy it is. She usually has a lit cigarette resting nearby, which she will finish, if she so chooses, even if you are waiting at the till. And don't get me wrong, locals complain about her - or at least her fags - as much as anyone; the issue is that she just doesn't give a monkeys.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I have a grudging respect for this woman. She sees your hurry yet does not let your problem become hers. Another such situation is on one bus route which needs to share the same ancient, cobbled road as a million pedestrians, most of whom oblivious tourists taking photos, and often the bus needs to slow down to a near-halt as these people reluctantly drift out of its way. I feel my natural reflex to tut and tense begin to take over, even if I don't have an appointment to keep since - newsflash - it appears I just do not like being held up. Don't people know how important my time is? </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The driver, on the other hand, never beeps. He never so much as sighs. He just chills and trundles the bus along because he realises something important: if you don't like this pace of life, then don't be here. And back to the kids: if you are going to stress about being late, either organise yourself better or just go Spanish, as my kids are happily doing, and chill the hell out. Otherwise, you are just bumming people out, my friend. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Because this makes me realise another thing: inflicting your panicked hurry on someone else, especially someone not inclined to hurry, has a huge self-importance about it. You're like the guy driving up everyone's ass on the motorway to get somewhere 40 seconds sooner. And once I admit this, albeit grudgingly, to myself, a couple of epiphanies happen. Firstly, if you haven't got 40 seconds’ margin for error in your plans, your timing needs some serious work. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Second epiphany: Son recently had a last-minute birthday party to attend and while we'd grabbed a present, we had no wrapping paper. Ducking into a newsagent's near the party to request some, the young guy behind the counter smiled and beckoned me to pass him the presents so he could wrap them for me. The result: over the next five minutes or so, various other customers traipsed in, some held waiting by his so-dedicated gift-wrapping, some served quicker, but nobody complaining. Once finally finished, he passed the gifts to me with a smile. As he saw me fishing around for my wallet, this turned to a bewildered look and he flicked his hand with cheery dismissiveness- ‘</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">no pasa nada</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">’. Literally: 'nothing happens'/ nothing bad will come of this.’ In English terms: don't worry about it.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Don't worry about it? But worrying is my trademark. It's what defines me. I love being on-edge and flustered. Everyone around me loves it, too. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Or maybe it's time to really go to town on that 'when in Rome’ cliche and be a more zen me.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I'll let you know how I get on.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Erica </span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03892150686959060142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8548857257876100874.post-40437943773104114492018-05-22T03:21:00.000-07:002018-05-22T05:07:21.788-07:00Here's Looking At You in Spain, Baby #3: On The Attitude to Children in Spain <div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">#3 On The Attitude to Children in Spain</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> <img alt="" height="300" id="id_ae02_6d53_c14c_9d5c" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-A1ptZhm9dAA/WwPv3JfBY5I/AAAAAAAATYE/Voh56_Ho-VopiWMV31fs71DxNjizlr0EQCHMYCw/s400/%255BUNSET%255D" style="height: auto; width: 298px;" title="" tooltip="" width="400" /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">More VIP treatment than we get </span></span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-5e244882-873e-2bdb-8d9e-e1d899585ffe" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It takes a village to raise a child, it has very often been said. In Spain, I’d argue it takes a city. A country, even.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And just what on earth am I on about? Well, actually it is the way people treat children here, especially little children, and how everyone sees raising children with a sense of community that is so different to the world I am used to. And I’m not just talking about having playdates and being nice to your friends’ kids, or at least those kids with whom you are on first-name-terms, because here it is something bigger. It is the way people approach strangers’ kids, those they do not know - or owe - from Adam. It reveals a pretty different outlook, to say the least.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In one way, this can mean a ‘shared’ approach to discipline. The other day, a couple of friends and I were sat in a plaza where our kids were playing with some loose stones on the ground. Typically, wine+occupied children meant a marvellous sense of relaxation for us. But it was short lived. Suddenly, the atmos was punctured by an old lady’s head appearing from a nearby doorway, whereupon she commenced scolding the children (and, indirectly, us parents) for removing the stones from her doorway. After the initial deep shame you still (yes, still) feel from being told off by an elder, we quietly admitted that not only was it fair enough, but that this old lady had some guts. She neither feared our response nor that of our kids, she’d said her piece then left it at that. She was badass.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But this approach is not just about chastising kids, unabashed. Do not mistake this for a culture where kids are pests and that they should be seen and not heard, because it’s really not the case. What there is here is an overriding affection for little children, other people’s children as much as anyone’s own, and the same fearlessness in showing them that affection. In the supermarket, on the street, on the bus, people of all ages stop in their tracks when they see any random toddler, and they coo and smile at them. They make physical contact with them. Elderly people do it the most of all, often ruffling my son’s hair, chattering away to my daughter and patting her hand, especially if she seems upset. For primary teachers, it's totally normal to cuddle their students all the time which is so different from what my own teacher training taught me. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Kids are practically VIPs here in so many social settings. In a tapas restaurant the other day, the waiter bent down to my children's level, took both their hands and whisked them off behind the bar. They chortled with delight and re-emerged moments later with a chocolate treat each. In another plaza one day, a smiling old man picked up my daughter and started dancing around with her to the flamenco music, while his friends tried to show her how to do the proper hand movements. All was done in plain sight of, and close proximity to, us the parents, which I'm sure helped it to feel so un-weird. Neither the waiter, nor the old man, had ummed or ahhed, they’d just gone and done it which clearly highlighted how normal it all was. And yes, when we first arrived here I would be struck by how different this was to what I was used to. My US, Canadian and Aussie friends have basically said the same. But we also agree that it's hard not to be taken in by the warmth of it all here, by the reminder that kids remain the greatest leveller among people. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Perhaps a bigger difference is with child accidents. If your kid falls over here, someone will rush to pick them up and cuddle them first, then try to decipher who and where the parent is. I have now found myself doing it without a second thought where once I might have hesitated. Again, in the culture I grew up in- and which my kids were initially born into - it just wouldn't be so normal to rush and cuddle a kid you didn’t know. Or, more, accurately, whose parents you didn't know. Your instinct would be to feel concerned that the child was upset, of course, but you'd locate the parent first so they could take over with the physical bit. You'd thereby alleviate yourself of any of the weird or suspicious looks people might give you because warm or physical engagement with someone else's kids is reserved strictly for close friends, family and officially-employed childminders. And those of our parents’ generation assure us it was not always like this, with such a fear about </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">strangers’ intentions towards our kids. E</span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">ven though our culture has always been more standoffish, they argue, it is a growing, media-fed paranoia that is now to blame. Whatever the source of the fear (and I suspect it to be a mixture of the two) the outcome is the same: what happens is that, as with most things, the more self-conscious you are made to feel about your own behaviour, the more critical it makes you of others’, which in turn makes them more self-conscious...and so the cycle is perpetuated. A paranoid-judgy cycle which seems to exist a lot less here.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And look, I'm not saying that child-related crimes never happen, or that you should never trust your instincts when you feel that your kids are in real danger. I'm also not advocating being totally naive around something our parents never had to deal with: over-sharing info about our kids on the internet (and this is coming from me, by the way, who used to share way more than I do now). But neither are Spanish people saying any of these things. And yes, crime statistics can be unreliable because they depend on how many crimes actually get reported at all, but even so the stats do not suggest that Spain is an unsafe place to be a little kid. They in fact suggest the opposite. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And don't get me wrong, it's hard to undo thirty-odd years of what I've become used to. That old British reserve and awkward stiff-upper-lip will probably always be a part of me, too. It's also a part of some of my favourite comedy and literature, to which I fully intend to expose my kids. But if we stick to our plan and stay here for the long term, it'll be interesting to see how those two turn out as a hybrid of the two cultures, especially in their approach to children. In reality, I suspect it'll just be another one in a number of ways in which we'll be embarrassingly old and out of touch. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Bring it.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Erica </span></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03892150686959060142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8548857257876100874.post-50075004288247445102018-05-01T06:34:00.000-07:002018-05-01T06:34:06.426-07:00#2 Here's Looking At You in Spain, Baby: On Settling Into Life in Spain with Young Children: The Early Days <div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><u><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">#2 On Settling Into Life in Spain with Young Children: The Early Days </span></u></b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: xx-small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I was the needy one</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So, if you remember last time, sh**t had got real. And how. It’s been six months now since the start of this adventure, and a journey of life-changing extremes. To explain: for those of you who have ever considered moving to a holiday destination - by which I mean not just holidaying in one - it can be ironically un...holiday-ish. To say the least. On good days, the aching beauty of the place you have chosen shimmers before you and congratulates you on your choice; on bad ones it taunts you like a gorgeous person way out of one's league. For every dull, life-admin task you have to get done (see below), this beauty cruelly mocks you with every bored glimpse you take at it from a window, with every sigh you emit in every long, long queue. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That has been some of the reality, anyway. For the first week or two, this had not sunk in yet and we were most definitely in holiday mode. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On our first evening, you may recall how we wove up the valley early evening, past a sepia landscape whose browns and yellows became more of a peachy blush with the increasing pinkness of the sky (the last bit I just added but stay with me here). And I've mentioned it before but I'll do it again, since the Alhambra really must be seen to be believed. It has a crisp austerity to its form, all squares, right angles and tooth-like battlements, which make for quite a contrast with the bushy hillside where it sits, looming down over the city in silent reproach. Son and Daughter were not immune to its charms. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">‘Look! The Al-ah-hambra!’ Son shouted.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">‘Mehhhh-a-ham-brala’ Daughter mused.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And although we had lived in Australia for six years and were no strangers to heat, there still felt something exotic about the hot, thick wind blowing at us, the warmth that radiated off every hard surface. Down cobbled lanes we sauntered until we realised how late it had got (in Australia the sun sets at 8pm latest) and that we'd better bloody feed the children. This we did in a bustling square where the kids chased cats around while we drank wine and ate morcilla. How thinly we disguised our smugness while holidaymakers we got talking to gasped ‘you're </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">moving </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here?’ and gave us theatrically envious looks. God it was all so great. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And so passed the first week or so. Then reality set in. We had to sign Son up to school, find care for Daughter and do painfully dull things like setting up bank accounts. And all this with the joyous handicaps of minimal Spanish and a family set of passports that had got stolen on our first night, never to be seen again (really don't ask). But, as you do, we somehow cobbled together some crappy semblance of organisation between us with the help of some new friends on the ground. And believe everything you hear about insane bureaucracy in bits of Europe. Signing Son up for school consisted of getting lots of documents stamped in a big hall then standing in a very long, very stagnant queue in a beautiful marbly corridor, the sun beating in on me, for three hours. I typically had underestimated how long it would be until I next ate and stood there feeling more faint and hollow-bodied as the time passed. People in front of me were yelling, shrugging and tutting and every so often an adminny-looking lady would pop her head out of the office door we were stood by to shout Something Important at the queue. Various people responded exasperatedly, some walked away and I just carried on standing there like a dumbass. My very helpful friend (thank Christ for her) informed me that we may as well stick it out, then just as I had nearly given up all hope, a letter suddenly got thrust in my hand and I was informed that even though it was nearly two o’clock Son could start school that day if we wanted him to.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Obvs we thought we would allow him </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">some</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> transition-time, so we plumped for the next morning. And how weird it felt, that he would not just be starting school - proper school - for the first time ever, he would be doing it in a place he'd never been to before, speaking a language he didn't yet speak. The advice I'd been given while researching our move, all those light-years ago? </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">‘Throw them in and don't tell them they can't do it.’ </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What this means for a parent? They'll probably be fine; it is your fretting and flapping that will upset them.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And this is so true. Son bowled on into school the next morning, skipping along the lanes with his new backpack bouncing and when we got to the gates, he ran on in without even looking back. You know who felt the most anxious, the most in need of reassurance? Yep, me. And for some time this pang of neediness would come back every now and again when I least expected it. I would finish a perfectly pleasant coffee with some new-found friends and I would, upon my walk back home, suddenly feel out of my depth and alone. I would feel homesick and lost and I would picture Son sat at his little desk in the classroom, doing his best to be brave, smile, and just get on, in Spanish, with all the busy tasks schoolkids get on with. His bravery made me miss him and want to just turn around, storm into his school and rip him out of his class so that I could just have him all to myself and hold him tight so he would comfort me. Then upon reflection the Less Dickish Me (yes, there is one, thank God) realised how utterly unhelpful for anyone that move would be. It was bloody tempting, though.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And how, six months in, are we now doing? Well, despite another move of house, another switch of jobs and so many other things, we are finding our feet. But to be totally content wouldn't make for much good blog-writing so fortunately there's still plenty of material there. Basically, until we are rich and flawlessly bilingual there will be more material than I can shake a stick at. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So hang on in there, people, and until next time…</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Hasta luego.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Erica </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><br /><br /><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03892150686959060142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8548857257876100874.post-13582335326356742722018-04-16T02:54:00.001-07:002018-04-16T02:54:46.588-07:00Here's Looking at You in Spain, Baby, #1 The Big Move, or 'On Moving to Spain With Little Children'<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-size: xx-small;">A horrible, stressful exit</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So, well, sorry I've been away for a bit. Pretty much a year, admittedly. As the title of this post might suggest, though, we've had a bit going on; so much so that I am starting a whole new section of this blog devoted to this big new life we seem to have got ourselves into. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What has this life involved? Many things, too many to fit in one post. Which is good, since I'm going to, you know, need stuff to fill other posts. But just to illustrate: it involved an exit that had been considered for some time yet which stil became a frenzied, flapping stress-fest in the last few days (how is this the story of my life?), a cross-continental journey and an eventual landing of one Boeing 727 on some hot Spanish tarmac. From there, the adventure to Granada, Andalucia, was about to begin, and how exciting it felt flicking through all the Google Images in my head: the mighty, earth-red Alhambra Palace looming down over the city, the crumbling white houses all packed into the Albaicin hillside opposite. Two years of waiting to see all this for real was about to end in two hours of car journey.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But enough of the travel writing for now. It's now time to explain how and why we came to be here at all. Time to backtrack to the time of austerity which had preceded it. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So last time we spoke I was telling you all about dealing with solitude as a mum. While I would argue that there is something universal about that experience, it was definitely exacerbated and prolonged by life in sunny, costly Sydney: I had wanted to return to work, to re-skill after having Daughter, not just to have adult chat but to chat even with people who (gasp) didn't have children. But we were stumped at the first hurdle. Daycare for a second child cost more than I would be earning the days she was in there. Still, OK, we decided, for my sanity we could perhaps justify running at a loss (you get the idea how ready I was to be back at work- who, pre-babies, would do most work for free). And yet, just in case I was getting cocky, up rocked the second hurdle: the famous daycare Catch-22. I couldn't take work unless daycare was secured, and I couldn't secure daycare (including paying a whopping deposit, etc) until I had work to justify the cost. And then the picture just unfolded itself, day by day, before our eyes. We had:</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">No relatives close by for quick-filler help with the kids (hello England, many thousands of miles away)</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Extortionate rent to pay on a leaky, ‘characterful’ old terraced house (hello Sydney's real estate bubble)</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Been harbouring a desire to return to Europe before too long</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Been dreaming, and fantasising, at length, about a life in beautiful Spain (I'll explain more about this choice later). </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And at the end of yet other skint winter's day in Sydney, another experience of getting adrenaline rush at the Aldi till in case the card got declined, Husband and I sat down and as he so beautifully put it, </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘We could just f**k off now, you know. Like, really soon.’</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So that was that. And before we knew it we were Googling and emailing our little socks off, not just dreamily perusing real-estate websites but contacting people who would actually fix us up with somewhere, not a perfect-somewhere but a start. And that, for now, was enough. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The rest became a blur of contract-signing, leaving-dos, packing and a horrible, stressful exit from our house where we'd so tragically underestimated how many shipping boxes we'd need that we ended up chucking decent stuff out on the street, GIVING our overpriced Dyson hoover to our next-door neighbours, having the airport transfer woman twitching uneasily as we were running so late, my brother madly helping us to pack the kids, our stuff and our lives into the grumbling minibus. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But none of it mattered. We were finally doing it. Shit had just got real.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">More next blog on what actually happens when one moves to Spain...with children in tow, obvs…</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Seen the book? Take a look! </span><a href="http://lookingatyoubaby.com/"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">http://lookingatyoubaby.com/</span></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Twitter: @ericajbarlow</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Instagram: @ericajane_20 #lookingatyoubabydotcom</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="line-height: 2.016; vertical-align: baseline;">Facebook: Here's Looking At You, Baby </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby/" style="line-height: 2.016; text-align: center;">https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><br /></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03892150686959060142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8548857257876100874.post-37657085565127845342017-05-29T20:46:00.002-07:002017-05-29T20:51:12.247-07:00#32 On Solitude With Children, and How Trying to End Solitude is Hard<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">I worry I might dirty them if I get too close </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So my relationship with my husband predates Tinder. We’re both very glad about this. When we see references to Tinder culture on TV, or hear about it from our unmarried friends, we think how much harder it must be - how much thicker skin you’d need as a person - to embark on a romance in this way. As if starting to date someone wasn’t hard enough on the old nerves and insecurities, here is a world where you can be swiped into oblivion on a screen, where your written messages, your profile and photographs of your face can all be passed around and laughed at without you even knowing. It’s a tough gig, this modern dating business.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The thing is, I don’t think I’ve fully avoided it, actually. And no - **ANTI-SCANDAL** - I’m not remotely single again, it’s actually something more simple. I’m trying to make local friends. Mum friends. And I tells ya, on your less-perfect days it can make you feel like a Tinder loser, a left-swipe-ee, as it were.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I’ll explain. Moving to a new area and still currently out of work as there is no work (yawn), I decide I’d better make some buddies to fill the conversational void left by, you know, my fifteen-month old daughter. So one thing it is customary for a mum to do in this situation is to go to a local playgroup. It’s quite an easy set-up: toys and facilities all set out, loads of parents hanging about that you can talk to, though handily - and this is one great thing about kids - the conversation can be very non-committal since you can always use your kid as an excuse to duck out and run off if needs be. Easy, hey. Except if you’re actually trying to make lasting contacts, you begin to worry that if someone does duck off from a conversation with you, it’s because you’re boring them, or coming on a bit strong, or desp. You might perceive a connection and want to hang out again, but feel pushy or pesky if you ask. Is this too soon? Should I wait until I get chatting to them next time? Are they just humouring me until I go away?</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What’s more, there’s a statuesque woman at my new playgroup and she always looks so ridiculously well turned-out I swear she must be in those ‘passers-by in the street looking amazing’ pages of magazines. Honestly, she wears red lipstick and heels and a Grace Kelly backcombed ponytail. To playgroup. Probably on her way to somewhere fabulous afterwards. And the more I look at her the more I’m suddenly aware of my own grubbying around, pre-shower with no-makeup-wax-face. I feel bad that I might somehow dirty her if I go near her. I grubby off somewhere else.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">See what I mean about the dating thing?</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And the likeness to Tinder is here: it gets worse once mobile phones start getting involved. Even if someone you talk to suggests switching numbers, if you suggest a date and they keep turning you down, are they beginning to regret giving their number to you? Have you become a left-swipee? Is this treat-em-mean-keep-em-keen? </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">These are all very paranoid thoughts, I realise, and when you’ve never found it </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">hard to make friends before, you realise why you take all this so personally; you’re low in confidence at the times when you feel a bit lonely, and it makes you feel needy. Because being a mum can be a bit lonely, and it doesn’t matter who you are. You will experience it if you have kids.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Realising this, although not fixing the problem, paradoxically made me feel closer to all mums, in a way. It made me realise that all those confident stereotypes: the celebrity mum, the prettiest or most popular girl at school, those flawless women, if they’d had children then at some point they would have been alone. Even if surrounded by friends and/or adoring yes-people all day and a partner who loved them, at night when the baby woke they’d have left a warm bed and gone to rock a sad baby in darkness, until silence fell again. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And it’s a weird thing, this connection with your baby at these times. When you feel low or rejected, you draw them closer to you as if they’re your protection against the world: they need you, unconditionally, when it might seem that nobody else does. And when you see beautiful, famous mums or walk past airbrushed-looking ones on the street, pushing their designer prams, you know deep down that sometimes they get low too, and sometimes their baby is all they feel they have. It can stop them seeming so shiny and intimidating, or you less scummy, perhaps.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Realising this made me look at Perfect Woman at playgroup differently today. She seemed an ice queen in the same way that Betty Draper is an ice queen: a veneer of perfection with a lonely soul hiding behind it. Or perhaps she’s actually completely fine, always indeed on her way to somewhere fabulous and I’m just an annoying scruff. Who knows.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The real irony is this: just like with dating, often when you’re fretting about being pesky, it’s because the other person is holding back for fear of exactly the same thing. And we should all know this far along the track: that’s not behaviour borne of confidence but the complete opposite. The holy grail, of course, is not to give a crap about what other people think of you then it doesn’t matter either way. There’s nothing to fear but fear itself. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Those are words easy to believe when we’re not sleep deprived, cash deprived or adult-conversation-deprived, of course. Bugger. Best get back on the mum-Tinder, then. Wish me luck. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Seen the book? Take a look! </span><a href="http://lookingatyoubaby.com/" style="color: #888888; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">http://lookingatyoubaby.com/</span></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Twitter: @ericajbarlow</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Instagram: @ericajane_20 #lookingatyoubabydotcom</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="line-height: 2.016; vertical-align: baseline;">Facebook: Here's Looking At You, Baby </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby/" style="color: #888888; line-height: 2.016; text-align: center; text-decoration-line: none;">https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby</a><span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03892150686959060142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8548857257876100874.post-4081141694359438122017-02-23T20:47:00.001-08:002017-02-23T20:47:09.246-08:00#31: On Returning To Work After Having Children<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Bleh! Bleh! Bleh! </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Your phone alarm sounds. It doesn’t matter what pleasant tune you have changed it to in order to be less unpleasant, it always sounds the same: shrill, bossy, accusing. And it always produces in you the same bodily response: a feeling of heaviness - the result of sleep deficit, hangover or both - laced with adrenaline. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Bleh!</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Welcome to the start of your day.</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Or so it was, before you had children. My, how you moaned when all you’d had to do was drink a bit less and go to bed a bit earlier, but that would have been boring so you never did. Come to think of it, that bit hasn’t changed much with having kids (not if you’re me, anyway). But now, in fact, you can take all of this and raise it by adding children to the mix because after your maternal absence, you’re finally going back to work. Why? Well, in my case it’s not down to any contractual agreement but through pure choice. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">!</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Yes, all true. Second time around especially, for all the kids’ hilarity you do miss adult banter. You miss feeling vaguely skilled at something that doesn’t involve babies. More than that, you miss the freedom to do with parts of your day what you please. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But more about freedom later. Please note I said ‘parts’ of your day because let us not forget that each day starts with a morning. Morningtime in the working-parent household is a very special time indeed, because on top of all of the above some extra fun elements have been thrown in, namely a minimum of one cherub in particularly difficult/ dawdling mood, an extra-large slice of sleep-deficit pie for you and Husband and all of it pitted against a cruel clock to which chunks of time melt away at some kind of parallel-universe lightspeed. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Anyway, there you and Husband are, juggling and tag-teaming your little socks off, highchairing and feeding the children. Then, like cuckoo-clock figurines, one of you pops out of the shower at the same time that the other one zips in. Shower privacy? There is none, of course, since the door is constantly flung open to shouts of ‘have you seen his shoes/ my keys, etc’ mixed with chirrups, screams and toilet flushes, all set to the constant, gravelly whirr of the coffee machine. You glance at your watch: </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">‘Argh!!’ </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It’s already nine minutes later than you’d intended to leave, you’re trying to wipe the children with a stinky flannel and suddenly an inner voice (or maybe Husband’s voice) just yells </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">‘Leave it! Go!’ </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And everything reduces to some kind of terrible slow-motion where with each blink and each heartbeat the chaos flashes before you. As if there is a fire, you must simply run. You grab the children, your bag, their overfull bags and head for the door, flinging it open. As you take one glance back, you see the half-wiped highchair/s, the coffee cups, the foul dishcloth hanging off the counter. The scene looks like an oat-splashed Marie Celeste, you think, as you pull shut the door and stride to the car. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Next minute, you blink and take stock. You realise you have just pulled up outside your children’s daycare centre. You have no recollection of the journey you have just made with your foggy, auto-pilot brain and yet here you are. With adrenaline still pumping you grab the children and only just remember their bags, thrusting them into the arms of the lady waiting at the door. Your children may start to cry. And however much you know they’ll stop in about 90 seconds, the cries still smart as you dart back to the car, plonk yourself in, and then, suddenly,</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And then.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Something in you changes. Some crazy wave of calm washes over you, like a breath. You know the day will be different now. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">At work, when immersed in whatever it is you do to Earn Money, you don’t perceive what’s happening to you. But come coffee break or, even better, lunch break, you see it: liberty. You can go where you please, not having to think about nap time or where is baby-friendly or where has changing facilities. More than that, you have physical liberty: you are not pushing a pram so each time you leave a queue or a shop you almost feel like you’ve forgotten something. You feel so weightless it’s as if with each step your body, full of helium, could float away. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Where to go! What to do with this time! How little you used to appreciate it!</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But it’s a strange kind of liberty because you never truly revert to the pre-baby you, ever again. In the supermarket, you mindlessly scan the shelves only to look down at your arm and see that you are gently rocking your empty trolley, back and forth, as if it were a pram in baby-soothing motion. And yet losing wheels altogether, simply carrying your bag/s feels weirder still since you’re so used to having a pram to put stuff in all the time. You begin to understand why old ladies drag those little tartan trolleys around. You may even slightly envy them.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And the end of the day? It comes around quickly and intensely. No swanning off to the shops or work drinks for you. Nope, it’s Pickup Time, from whence you have a flurry of madness until 7pm; think Morning Time but with baths thrown in, more tomfoolery and more peachy infant nakedness everywhere. And once it’s all over, once you finally hear silence replacing their sleepy sounds, you reflect. You consider how mad that all just was, how mad the next morning will be and thus how you need to turn in early, sober and sensible.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Unless you’re me, or Husband, that is. And since we never learn anything, we live in total denial of all of the above. We watch back-to-backs of Whatever Season We Love until fizzing with overtiredness, then repeat all above steps ad infinitum. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But you know the best thing about being in denial? You can be in denial about it and it’s fine. Just ask the US President. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Oh God.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Later,</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Erica </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Seen the book? Take a look! </span><a href="http://lookingatyoubaby.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">http://lookingatyoubaby.com/</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Twitter: @ericajbarlow</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Instagram: @ericajane_20 #lookingatyoubabydotcom</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 2.016; vertical-align: baseline;">Facebook: Here's Looking At You, Baby </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby/" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 2.016; text-align: center; text-decoration: none;">https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby</a><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03892150686959060142noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8548857257876100874.post-41983021560409001912017-02-08T19:54:00.002-08:002017-02-08T19:54:46.573-08:00#30 On Saying The Things You'd Said You'd Never Say, To Children<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">I became a teacher seven years before becoming a mum. Like many of my teacher-turned-mum friends, I have seen how the former helped prepare me for the latter as there are so many many parallels between the two roles: never really switching off, thinking on your feet, having to cram thirty tasks into a one-hour ‘non-contact’ slot (a free period / nap time), trying to stay psychotically positive in the face of it all. In fact, I shudder to think how the scatty, pre-teaching me would have coped with mumming; the current me can still take two hours to leave the house tots-in-tow. I doubt we’d ever have seen daylight.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b id="docs-internal-guid-98d970c2-20f9-edf6-249b-8b8102569dd4" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And so it was that teaching also prepared me for disciplining kids, but not in the way you might think. Before you go assuming that my kids jump, Von-Trapp style, to my penny-whistled commands, let me set you very straight: I am still certain that I exercised more control in central London schools, in a sea of chewing-gum, graffiti and giant, hormonal teenagers - than I do with my own three-year-old son. No, what I learned was this: there are certain things you will find yourself saying (and doing) to maintain boundaries and they are often things you once vowed you’d never say. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-indent: 36pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘It’s your time you’re wasting.’</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘Would you like to come and teach the class?’</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I had rolled my eyes with the best of them hearing these at school. At teacher-training college, such phrases informed exactly how I did </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">not </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">want to practice. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I will be the new, cool teacher</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, I thought. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The maverick, the fun and funny one. I will not trot out crap old phrases and I will not enforce rules.</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> At the end of the day, why pull kids up on uniform or lateness when there is Shakespeare to be explored, crucially, through mime and dance? </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The result: I was eaten alive, of course. My ‘lessons’ resembling the opening credits to </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Fraggle Rock</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, I had become nothing new or exciting but that old parody of the rookie. And so it was then that I sought some old-school advice from those above me, those that appeared to manage unruly classes with an effortless grace. They taught me the importance of tone of voice, postural positioning, facial expression; in short, body language. But as my confidence increased, a certain </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">language</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">-language began also to creep into my practice and there they were, the words I had avoided for so long: </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i> It's your time you're wasting...</i></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Etc, etc.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Etc.</span><br />
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I even found myself standing, waiting for silence, hand-on-hip and emitting, just like all my own teachers back in the day, a loud ‘ERM-’ noise. Is ‘erm’ even a word? It didn’t matter. It was old-school, it was effective and that was enough.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I had become the very teacher I had sought not to be. Or sought originally not to be. But you know what? My original view had been ridiculous, informed by myself as a child, not as an adult. The penny had dropped and I enjoyed having classes who listened now; dammit, it was not just effective to trot out the cliches and the erms, it felt downright satisfying because I realised that I had earned the right. A boring conformist? Nah- I’d finally shaken off the shackles of giving a shit what kids think. I had come of age and I began to feel how much my previous teachers must have felt the same. Maybe not the most exciting club to have graduated to, but it certainly felt good.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What does this have to do with parenthood? Well, let’s just say it’s fitting that this experience was something I brought with me into more recent years. In my childhood home, once again there were certain phrases said to me that I had winced at every time. Now you should see me as I reel them off with gay abandon. Here’s a run-down of my favourites:</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Massive cliche phrase </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why it is in fact brilliant</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I want doesn’t get</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Almost a strapline, this one is snappy, memorable. It’s slightly undermined by ‘don’t ask, don’t get’ later on but that’s for another day.</span></div>
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<tr style="height: 0pt;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1pt; border-left: solid #000000 1pt; border-right: solid #000000 1pt; border-top: solid #000000 1pt; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> 2. Mind your P’s and Q’s</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1pt; border-left: solid #000000 1pt; border-right: solid #000000 1pt; border-top: solid #000000 1pt; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Said by paranoid parents in the car on the way to dropping you off at a friend’s house. A catchy way to stop your kid from acting like a boorish bellend, which reflects badly on you. I am sure I will use this one like there is no tomorrow when the time comes.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> 3. Where does he/she live?</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1pt; border-left: solid #000000 1pt; border-right: solid #000000 1pt; border-top: solid #000000 1pt; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Less of a catchphrase but still very popular; actually meaning ‘he/she looks a but common to me.’ The utterance of this one generally rules out the necessity for #2 above.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> 4. We’ll buy/do that another day, not today.</span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1pt; border-left: solid #000000 1pt; border-right: solid #000000 1pt; border-top: solid #000000 1pt; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sounds positive but is in fact ‘sod off/ not on your life/ I hope you forget all about this very soon.’ </span></div>
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<tr style="height: 0pt;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1pt; border-left: solid #000000 1pt; border-right: solid #000000 1pt; border-top: solid #000000 1pt; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> 5. Please do X/Y/Z boring task. There’s a good boy/ girl.’ </span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1pt; border-left: solid #000000 1pt; border-right: solid #000000 1pt; border-top: solid #000000 1pt; padding: 5pt 5pt 5pt 5pt; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Again implying positivity and compliance before the act even occurs. Clever.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So I’m all for progression and all that, but let’s be clear: reinventing the wheel is just one task too many for a busy mother. And speaking of mothers, I most certainly hear my own mum every time I say these phrases but you know what? That’s not such a bad thing if that woman could whip four wayward little asses into shape. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Seen the book? Take a look! </span><a href="http://lookingatyoubaby.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">http://lookingatyoubaby.com/</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Twitter: @ericajbarlow</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Instagram: @ericajane_20 #lookingatyoubabydotcom</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 2.016; vertical-align: baseline;">Facebook: Here's Looking At You, Baby </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby/" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 2.016; text-align: center; text-decoration: none;">https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby</a><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03892150686959060142noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8548857257876100874.post-19367995488480211102017-01-19T20:46:00.000-08:002017-01-19T20:46:06.306-08:00#29 On Trying to Have a Home That's Not a Total Sh*thole, With Children<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-hs1jpHGF33Y/WIGTq2Ah3zI/AAAAAAAAFpc/vc19zjS5YgI/s640/blogger-image--1952749586.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-hs1jpHGF33Y/WIGTq2Ah3zI/AAAAAAAAFpc/vc19zjS5YgI/s640/blogger-image--1952749586.jpg" /></a></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-770673c4-ba15-0bd8-d24b-2623e5cbefbf" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s funny, tidying, isn’t it. Like the painting of the Golden Gate Bridge, it is a Sisyphean task, started all over again the moment we have finished it and so never really finished at all. Yet unlike the Golden Gate Bridge, you see, where the painters get to stop every so often to eat a sandwich or arse about on their iPhones, for us parents there are children that hear us finally ripping off the rubber gloves or putting down the hoover and, to stop us feeling redundant, fling some food somewhere or push over a basket of something. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You become more efficient at dealing with all this, of course. You develop streamlined systems within your own house. Years of waitressing taught me never to walk around empty-handed; never simply to stroll idly (heaven forbid) from one room to the next but always to use that journey to take bits of mess from one room back to that from whence they came. Ever arrived in a room forgetting what you came in there for? Why, you can at least use it as an opportunity to tidy. No trip is wasted ever again. Genius, continuous efficiency.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So the result of all this? As I stride from room to room, always transporting and delivering goods to their rightful places, always cleaning up before the kids’ arrival and after, stooping here, wiping there and scrubbing smears endlessly, I would like to feel like a hero, a god of systems-down-pat. And yet I don’t. Actually, I realise I’ve spent a whole morning sweating in rubbber gloves, of rolling a very heavy stone up a steep hill and I sometimes muse that if the point of a task is usually linked with its completion, why I should even start this at all (I often take the same attitude to my appearance these days). </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And it’s not with hopelessness or gloom that I think this - thank God - more like a bemusement. In fact it’s the same feeling that overcame me just yesterday; here, mindlessly chiselling away, in my rubber gloves and dressing gown, at some Weetabix cemented onto the high chair, I felt a sense of detached comedy at the glamour of it all, at the fact I’m sure I went to university once.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So it’s now that I understand why parents love hotels. Back in the day I used to turn my nose up at them, preferring a grittier experience. Even these days family holidays in an Air BnB can be great fun: love my kids, never a dull moment, etc etc. But all this is missing the point: I would bloody love a dull moment. Very occasionally. A true, true holiday for me would entail many such pointless moments of wandering aimlessly from one room to the next with nothing in my hands, just because I could. Wiping and clearing away food or anything would be the job of staff, goddammit. It’s not just as you get older that holidays mean different things- it’s as you have kids. What staying in a hotel means is not just a holiday from tasks, it’s a holiday from your (usual) self.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is a quicker, cheaper fix, Husband would argue. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 36pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘Why don’t you just not care about tidiness so much. Who do you think is judging you?’ </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘No-one, I just like it clean.’ I answer.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘But if it’s going to be so stressful, shall we just not have people over? You’re being a maniac.’</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘I’m not!’ I shout, repeatedly bashing the moaning hoover into the skirting boards as I see we have T minus ten minutes until Guest Arrival. Please God, don’t let them be early.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s not true, of course, when I say no-one is judging me. I am judging me. I have always been a bit of a neat freak but it’s not worn as a badge of honour, it’s a curse which I think comes from my mum’s side of the family. And truthfully, before anyone reading this decides never to invite me over again, I do not measure my friends’ houses in the same way. I really don’t. Like some sort of house dysmorphic disorder, I only see the flaws in my own efforts, be they specks of dust or child-height smears.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">There is a conundrum here as well. As I frantically Mrs Doubtfire my way around the house I also have flashbacks to school days where there was always a Dick Mum of one of your friends who wanted their house kept like a show home at all times. You know, the ones where you had to slip off your shoes on arrival then perch on the edge of the sofa the whole visit. In fairness my own mum did not treat our house like this. I think she managed to do what I am currently working on: being realistic with having kids around. Oh, and actually enjoying your friends’ company rather than worrying about rings on the coffee table. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Because if you’re not careful you create another ironic circle: the tidier you are, the fewer friends you have to impress with your tidiness. And the quicker your kids will leave home to go and relax / make mess elsewhere. Before you know it, you’re like a character from Desperate Housewives and the clue to their level of happiness is in the title. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’d best follow the lead of my looks and get lowering those standards, then. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Seen the book? Take a look! </span><a href="http://lookingatyoubaby.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">http://lookingatyoubaby.com/</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Twitter: @ericajbarlow</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Instagram: @ericajane_20 #lookingatyoubabydotcom</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 2.016; vertical-align: baseline;">Facebook: Here's Looking At You, Baby </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby/" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 2.016; text-align: center; text-decoration: none;">https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby</a><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03892150686959060142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8548857257876100874.post-73349565569837232282017-01-05T18:53:00.003-08:002017-01-05T21:22:06.957-08:00#28 On Being Drunk and/or Hungover With Children. Especially at Christmas.<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-9_Dew6_F4ic/WG8GQGs2HtI/AAAAAAAAFYE/JA9STry2rt4/s640/blogger-image--1759082189.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-9_Dew6_F4ic/WG8GQGs2HtI/AAAAAAAAFYE/JA9STry2rt4/s640/blogger-image--1759082189.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Tots, tinsel and Aldi. Pretty much sums my Xmas up. Oh, and the boozing.</span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-0fb0dcb3-71a4-2e1b-ab13-4ebfa8b21646" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Drinking, drinking, drinking. God, it’s great. Every time I do it, for the first few drinks I think ‘why don’t I do this more often? Why do I deny myself this so regularly?’ I’m cleverer and funnier. You’re cleverer and funnier. Everyone has a lovely time.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What’s more, your kids love you more. On Christmas Day - a shining example of day drinking at its best, beginning at, ooh, I reckon 10am with a bucks fizz - you may have awoken tired and even hungover, but this morning it’s all very different from normal. Yes, you have that queasy little feeling of exhaustion+booze sloshing around an empty stomach as you unwrap presents with the kids. Somehow, though, with all the general festive atmos and hearing little ones squeal with glee with each </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">RRRRRIIIP</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> of wrapping paper, it all turns into one big fog of joy. Normal, knackered you is nowhere to be seen.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But it gets better still. As the day goes on and guests arrive, more drinks of various types and strengths are consumed and you feel even fuzzier and happier. Your toddler responds to you better because you’re so cheerful and pretty much let him do what he likes as long as he doesn’t a) die b) kill his baby sister or c) interrupt your mass consumption of cheese or roast potatoes. Or your conversation. In fact, you may even get to ‘drunken-show-off’ stage and try and get him to do a merry jig for everyone, or that funny thing he does, even if he doesn’t feel like doing it. You laugh at some of his other idiocy instead of scowling at it. You are Fun Parent in the extreme. Hell, you are Christmas. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">When night falls, your tots (or at least your toddler) will no doubt have been allowed to stay up later than usual, sprawling slack-jawed on the sofa and eating crisps, teenager-like. When finally you do a single bit of responsible parenting by putting them to bed, you simply chuckle once again at any misbehaviour as you are truly battered. You are now not just fun, or Christmas, you are invincible.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Eventually, your own bedtime rolls around. Or rather, you and your husband can no longer remain in denial that you both keep rolling in and out of consciousness on the sofa. All good things must come to an end, and so you sway up the stairs. But as you do, you remember that you are still invincible and so you do that thing that you daren’t ever do: you pop into Sleeping Baby Daughter’s room to remind yourself of how lovely she is. And with a heart full of booze and emotion you coo and point at her sleeping caterpillar body with her bum in the air. You have totally forgotten why you never do this. You have missed the fact that she is twitching like a rattlesnake.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">All good things must come to an end.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And so, having slumped into bed, you wake up seemingly moments later. It may well be just moments if Daughter has fully awoken soon after you disturbed her. It may well be hours since it is now morning and time to get up. In any case, the amount of sleep you have had feels the same either way: paltry. Utterly. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">All good things have come to an end.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Coming to to the sound of her cries, you lift your concrete head. Sunlight stabs your eyes. You hear Son, also awake somewhere, shuffling about cheerfully on his way to you. There is no way out now. You must get up as between you and Husband it is Your Turn. You look at your phone, desperately trying to calculate in your fat, woolly brain when Daughter can be put back for her nap and thus so can you. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Just a couple of hours to see out. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You can do this. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">With eyes that burn and skin that aches stretched over your body, you thump down the stairs to get them some breakfast then seek to be horizontal as soon as possible. Your pathetic form on the couch does not go unnoticed by the children, perceptive little scamps that they are, as they seek to squabble, cry and climb on your stomach. Each time you check your phone only three minutes have passed. It is no good: chaos and all hell have come again.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Or so I’ve been told by some parents who drink. Me? It just makes me invincible. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Happy New Year.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Erica </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Seen the book? Take a look! </span><a href="http://lookingatyoubaby.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">http://lookingatyoubaby.com/</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Twitter: @ericajbarlow</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Instagram: @ericajane_20 #lookingatyoubabydotcom</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 2.016; vertical-align: baseline;">Facebook: Here's Looking At You, Baby </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby/" style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 2.016; text-align: center; text-decoration: none;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby</span></a><span style="color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 14.6667px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03892150686959060142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8548857257876100874.post-62884785156750644032016-12-08T19:43:00.000-08:002017-01-05T21:19:21.793-08:00#27 On Taking Shortcuts With Children<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Rwe6CfBPpaQ/WEoniO57-GI/AAAAAAAAEzg/uQYdwZ0liSQ/s640/blogger-image--1109671363.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Rwe6CfBPpaQ/WEoniO57-GI/AAAAAAAAEzg/uQYdwZ0liSQ/s640/blogger-image--1109671363.jpg" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: x-small; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This may have been a bad idea</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">'There are no shortcuts to anywhere worth going.' (Anon/gazillions of parents and teachers)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">'Laziness breeds efficiency.' (My husband) </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">‘I think this shortcut may have been a bad idea.’ (Me)</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Shortcuts, corner-cutting, killing two birds with one stone; call it what you want, in childhood we are taught that it’s lazy and short-sighted; in adulthood we learn it can be very necessary unless we want something totally </span></span><span style="color: #454545; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">to </span><span style="color: #454545; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">consume us. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I’d argue that parenting - another massive life job - neatly dovetails both schools of thought. For examples of parental efficiency, consider the time and effort saved when we feed our nippers the occasional (!) ready-made food pouch; when we coincide a car or pram trip with nap time. Parenting demands corner-cutting because it entails far more work than we have time (you can also see <a href="http://hereslookingatyoubaby.blogspot.com.au/2016/04/12-seven-life-hacks-if-you-have-babies.html" target="_blank">here</a> for a host of other parenting 'hacks').</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But back to that first quote; can time and effort always be saved, or are some shortcuts bound to end in tears? And in any case, how do we know when we’re being cleverly efficient or just lazy or disorganised? Spotting the difference takes subtlety and discretion. I don't claim to have either, but here's what I do know about what hasn't gone so well for me. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Leaving Baby on Change Table</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">She’s lying on her back peacefully, cool breeze wafting round her bum. I need a new nappy and realise they are in the cupboard. Three metres away. It’s not that far and she’s just going to lie happily for a split second, right? Not even notice I’ve moved. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Well-</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One, she’ll flip herself over the moment my hand moves away. Two, I lied that she’s been lying peacefully. In fact she’s wriggling like a gleeful little eel beneath my hand, as usual, and I don’t actually know what part of me believes this will decrease once I stop holding her down. Just to see what she’d do I stay right next to her while I let go. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Surely she can’t be that foolish</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> I think, and then I see her flip to her stomach and scrabble to the edge of the change table where she all but dives off the precipice head first. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Yes she can, and what the hell was I thinking. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Verdict: a no-brainer on how not to brain your baby</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">‘Just one more thing’</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You’ve been round all the shops, your infant is overdue a nap and protesting and you convince yourself you need to cram in just one more thing while you’re there. In less than a minute they are purple and rigid in their fury and the delicate Nap Possibility window has shut firmly. And you still have to negotiate packing the car/pram and making the journey home.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Verdict: Cut the trip short right now. ‘Might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb’ is never applicable with children. Claw back from them what good-naturedness you still can before it’s too late.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This one usually ties in nicely with:</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Double pram up escalator</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">You’re in a shopping centre, both tots in the pram and, as usual, time and good will are short for all three of you. Hell, just for extra fun you might also be battling with your toddler to stay awake; why not. Anyway, you need to get to the floor above or below. The lift would be the obvious choice, but it’s miles back in the direction you just came from. It’ll also take about three years to arrive at your floor in any case. Guiltily, you glance at the escalator that is right there. Yep, the one with the ‘no prams’ sign. But how hard can it be? Single prams are easy once you’ve got the technique down, right?*</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Not so with the double pram. Recently I seemed to forget just how heavy Son had become and as I reversed myself+vehicle onto the escalator, an almighty tug almost whiplashed me as the floor dropped away. The pram was tipping downwards and I had to lean back and pull with everything I had, my heart booming in my ears as I felt the pram slipping, slipping, my Birkenstocks bang-slapping hopelessly on the metal stairs. You can probably guess what images were flying through my head, and they worsened until I felt a sudden bump at my heels and saw we’d reached the top. We wheeled away, my kids none the wiser. Me? For the next twenty minutes I walked with jelly legs and a horrible floaty sensation. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Verdict: I am now the wiser. Take the bloody lift.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Running a red light or ‘amber-duration-denial’</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Still amber, still amber, more gas, more gas...</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Should be obvious but it’s surprising what running late can do to one’s sense of logic (you may be sensing a theme here). Feeling lateness-guilt / being scowled at, versus a hefty fine or maybe even a bit of death. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Verdict: No, no, no, no, no. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Overestimating Son’s maturity</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I am aware that there is a social norm of placing small children under adult supervision in one’s absence. Generally we observe this in our household. However, I admit that I sometimes slightly abuse Son's love of his sister and treat him as a carer. That said, 'During my quick shower please watch your sister while the pair of you sit in my plain sight’ is one thing; what happened the other day was quite another. Let's just say that it involved squeezing the double pram out of our new front door while Son held it for me, hearing it slam and then having my memory fail me in two ways. One: I had left something important back inside which I decided to rush back in and get, leaving the kids outside. Two: I’d clearly overlooked the fact we’d moved house. That is, as Son stood there blinking at me it was not in the leafy driveway of our old, quiet suburb, but on the pavement of the urban main road onto which our new front door opened. And as trucks clattered past I was reminded of this fact, and of the recent theft of my bike (from our back garden) in this new ‘more vibrant’ setting. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Yes, squeezing us all back inside would be a nightmare. So, I realised, would the potential outcomes of a three and sub-one-year old being left outside on an inner city street. I made my peace with the object indoors being left where it was. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Verdict: You’re not in Kansas any more. And even in Kansas I’m not sure three-year-olds are left in charge of babies. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">...And Underestimating it</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So I’m all for doing the hard yards with discipline, engendering an environment of mutual respect and all that, but sometimes when you need quick results bribery or blackmail are attractive options. Until you realise what a smart-arse your child is, that is. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Me: Why are you downstairs? I just put you back in bed. Get up the stairs.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Son: No.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Me: (Dearly missing my glass of wine) Come on. Maybe boys who go upstairs get chocolate eggs the next day. Your favourite.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Son: No.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Me: Eh?</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Son: (singsong tone) No thank-you.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Me: (muttering to self) Shit, he’s even being polite. (to Son) Oh come on. It’s late. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Son: Uh-uh. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Me: Right, then I’ll have to take one of your Paw Patrols.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Son: (A benign shrug) OK. (Gestures generously to his doorway) There they are.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The bedtime routine issue is probably worth a blog post all by itself, but suffice to say that many of my short-cut approaches have not been effective. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Better find me some new ones, then. That’s about as much as I’ve learned from all this. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #454545; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Erica </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Seen the book? Take a look! </span><a href="http://lookingatyoubaby.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">http://lookingatyoubaby.com/</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Twitter: @ericajbarlow</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Instagram: @ericajane_20 #lookingatyoubabydotcom</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="line-height: 2.016; vertical-align: baseline;">Facebook: Here's Looking At You, Baby </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby/" style="line-height: 2.016; text-align: center; text-decoration: none;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby</span></a></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03892150686959060142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8548857257876100874.post-57598166994008619552016-11-23T02:51:00.000-08:002016-11-23T02:57:25.015-08:00#26 On Moving House With Children<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-u8Zmm8bpirY/WDV0HAvavdI/AAAAAAAAEiE/krSqwYRpV4Y/s640/blogger-image-1069333518.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-u8Zmm8bpirY/WDV0HAvavdI/AAAAAAAAEiE/krSqwYRpV4Y/s640/blogger-image-1069333518.jpg" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">Be careful what you wish for </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Sorry I've been under for a while. We've been moving house. With our two kids. And I've known for some time that people usually put moving house up there with divorce and bereavement in terms of 'stressful times in our life that we don't like', but it's only recently that I've really begun to understand why. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">To give you an idea, take this comparison. After birthing a whole mini she-human, my second mini human, in February, I went off the blog radar for, say, ten days. Maybe two weeks, tops. Now I shan't flatter myself that anyone has really noticed this time around but FYI after moving house it’s been almost six weeks since I’ve touched a keyboard. Yes, that’s two weeks versus six weeks, and for reasons I shall now attempt to outline.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">At this point I should note that the comparison to a birth over divorce / bereavement </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">may</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> seem more accurate. Consider birth in parallel to creating a new home: both can be much looked-forward-to events, excitedly prepared for by trawling through pretty websites and buying lots of pretty things. Then, once the event itself has come to pass there is the joy of a New Thing In Your Life to jolly you through the trickier times. By contrast, divorce and bereavement involve, for most people, a sad loss of some sorts and are rarely looked forward to in any way (characters from Dynasty or Game of Thrones excluded). What’s more, much less are they enjoyed when they actually happen or are they looked back upon with any sense of nostalgia (though ditto those same characters). And this is where upping sticks stops being like having a baby and joins the latter two events because once it truly arrives the event itself, aftermath and all, soon reveals its true colours. They are murky indeed.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So what's really so awful about it, then? Well, it actually has nothing to do with how marvellous we think our new gaff is: bricks, mortar or geography. We love the bigger house and the area (and if you need to know how ready we were to leave our old apartment, look <a href="http://hereslookingatyoubaby.blogspot.com.au/2016/07/19-on-apartment-living-with-children.html" target="_blank">here</a>). We love the garden (an extra room!) the three floors and the fact that our son has his own chamber (the penthouse suite! Or, er, loft conversion). It’s none of this stuff. It is, to a huge extent, the packing. And the unpacking. And anything to do with things in boxes. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That's right: for the last six weeks we have lived, breathed and almost slept (in) boxes. Who'd have thought such a handy cube could kill so much joy. Well, it can because unlike packing for a holiday - where you only pack stuff you like for doing fun stuff you like - packing up a house starts with some of those fun things, if I'm not overplaying how easy it is to even know where to start, then you're left, in each room, to pack up the really crap things. And they take forever, by the way. Let me illustrate with a timeline: with a week or so to go, you start out with best intentions, putting good, useful things into logical boxes. So you continue, and you've still got a week, then still a week, then almost a week, then suddenly you're moving tomorrow. At this point the house is now an utter shithole but you’re all out of time and you desperately go 'fuck it' to your logical packing and start trying to find spaces for blu-tac, random old keys and cups with foreign coins in. Then once you retire to bed that night at 2am you are relieved that most of it is packed up. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It is a short-lived relief. Yes, the karma of your tired carelessness comes back to bite you hard as once you arrive at the other end, it is these same bits of crap that dog all attempts to unpack. You move them to one room just to have them out of your sight. Then you come back to that room, some days later, to realise it now looks appalling and is a dumping ground. And this is made worse by even the unpacked stuff that you </span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: italic; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">do</span><span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> like because this place, and its storage, is different and a lot of stuff does not just fit away logically any more. In fact it can take weeks to work out exactly where the least annoying new homes for most things are. It has taken us six weeks so far and is still a work in progress. And so, in endlessly moving things from one room to another just to convince yourself that any one room is ‘done’, your house becomes like a giant Rubik’s cube where you kid yourself that one matching line completes the puzzle. And I’m not very good, or patient, at Rubik’s Cubes.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But where do the kids fit into all this? There’s a good reason why I’ve left them out until now: for someone who likes, well, to point out their quirks, I have to admit that they have been the least of our worries here. I mean, yes, we’ve had far more stuff to shift now that we have kids; yes we’ve had to shoehorn packing up into their daily schedules. Worse, there has been driving across the city in rush hour twice a day, three times a week to get Son to daycare back in our old neighbourhood, an hour round trip. But for all that the kids have helped us through what was actually the worst part of all: the moving-aftermath back at our old property. With crisp cheer the estate agent reminded us just how soon the property needed to be perfect again or else we’d lose our deposit. Not satisfied with the stress of this deadline, we thought we’d add some extra fun by being cheap and trying to do lots of the cleaning ourselves rather than have professionals do the whole lot. The result: thinking it a ‘good idea’ to spend ‘just a couple of hours’ cleaning out the kitchen with the kids there. I.e. scrubbing grubby cupboards on all fours, all day, while they rolled around on a filthy floor, Son using up all my iphone data watching YT Kids (see <a href="http://hereslookingatyoubaby.blogspot.com.au/2016/10/25-on-kids-and-screen-time.html" target="_blank">here</a> for how brain-addling that is) and Daughter picking up all manner of scummy things to put in her mouth. It was hellish.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But when I say they helped, it’s because they rarely complained while I basically abandoned them to being ignored by me on a vastly grimy, boring, depressing day. And not only that, in my own misery at how giant my task was, my own guilt at neglecting them for hours, they were my rock; Daughter, playing with a damp mop head, creased me up with laughter and not least of all when she appeared to have a pube stuck to her elbow. At another point I tried to hide the fact I was crying from exhaustion and disappeared off to another room. Then I heard a little knock at the door and Son came in to hug me, saying nothing but holding on more tightly the more I sobbed. To be fair, a few days later he started chortling at me, saying ‘you looked really funny the other day, Mummy, when you were crying. Ha ha, siiii-lly’, but nothing could undo how sweet the little jackass had been in that moment. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Moving on, the old house is but a memory now, the new one mostly finished. Summer is almost here. Everything is looking rosier. But challenging though it can be having kids, it remains an experience to be cast firmly apart from moving house and the rest of The Stress Trinity. Because nothing can light up the gloom like those pleblets can, really they are less a rock than two little precious stones. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Seen the book? Take a look! </span><a href="http://lookingatyoubaby.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">http://lookingatyoubaby.com/</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Twitter: @ericajbarlow</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Instagram: @ericajane_20 #lookingatyoubabydotcom</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="line-height: 2.016; vertical-align: baseline;">Facebook: Here's Looking At You, Baby </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby/" style="line-height: 2.016; text-align: center; text-decoration: none;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby</span></a></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03892150686959060142noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8548857257876100874.post-50423700015495990322016-10-15T17:07:00.004-07:002016-10-15T17:09:18.895-07:00#25 On Kids and Screen Time<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-JJuxkaGaCpQ/WABjYvsHF9I/AAAAAAAAECM/NQx36vByuZg/s640/blogger-image--1854379525.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-JJuxkaGaCpQ/WABjYvsHF9I/AAAAAAAAECM/NQx36vByuZg/s640/blogger-image--1854379525.jpg" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: x-small; vertical-align: baseline;">Enlightening</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">..To clarify: we don't have a TV. Now before </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">you go making judgments about us, thinking that we believe ourselves too lofty or literary to own such a thing, think again: we binge Netflix (on our projector) as much as anyone and our son likewise likes to binge the iPad.</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-46467cd7-c15a-8d96-4e35-233835e72b36" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">...Which is really the problem (with our son, I mean), and I know we are not alone in this. Screen Time has been a mixed blessing for parents ever since TVs came about but for all the advancements of TV, Apple’s touchscreen technology surely makes their products far more interactive and user-friendly - for toddlers in particular - than any remote control. What’s more, the design of clip-based viewing apps like Youtube or YT Kids add to this by being especially accessible for chubby little hands and short attention spans. It seems great: free of the need for our input, Son is quite confident navigating these apps, with Youtube we use Guided Access so he can't come across anything unsavoury, and he is entertained completely for pretty much as long as we need him to be.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But to get why this is a problem, you really need to watch these apps. Or, you really need to watch YT Kids. Designed for the critters to use easily, it is garish and simple on every level, from the plinky xylophone theme tune to the extra large icons for play, pause, etc. But this also extends to its lobotomised content. Here, rather than simply with the Peppa, Paw Patrol, etc available on normal Youtube, there often isn't the licensing on YT Kids to access the shows themselves, in which case what you do get is either favourite clips in any language other than English or clips of an extremely dodgy visual / auditory quality. Better yet, there is my personal favourite: clips featuring footage of the toy figurines from said shows being either played with or reviewed by some random. So to be clear: your child will be much entertained by watching some Thomas the Tank toys being filmed pushed around a train track by a very visible human hand, all character voices supplied by the hand's owner, which is often a grown adult. What other work these odd individuals do all day is beyond me, but the amount of advertising on these clips is testament to the popularity of this model. It is also testament to the sad age of meta-entertainment we live in, where the 'Youtube career' (no, really) of goons like Pewdie Pie rests on the popularity of viewers not playing games, but watching the playing of games. Ironically, such apps now make for the most and least interactive form of entertainment for viewers. These include, of course, my son.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It is probably unsurprising, then, that when Son watches these clips he does so with a slack-jawed fascination which is part-transfixed, part-impatient and irritable. Like an 80s dad channel-hopping with the remote control, he'll dismissively swipe his way from clip to clip getting quickly bored with each. It would appear he is not enjoying himself and yet vast upset takes place should we wish to extract the device from him. It is the behaviour of an addict we see - covetous and yet ultimately unsatisfied - and at the end of a very long day it is tempting, like the loved ones of any addict, to opt for the easy life and let him indulge himself rather than kick off. I won't say we've never done it. Nor would various (actually, pretty much all) friends of ours who cite the same conduct in their own kids. And I'm sure neither would you.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Why do we allow it at all, then? Well, for the same reason parents have ever allowed screen time: it gives them a break. And in our case of having two children, we need a lot more breaks from entertaining Son than we used to. Consider the logistics: in the evenings when Husband is not home yet, the kids part company, since Daughter has the earlier bedtime, once her dinner is over. Or should I say, once she is over her dinner, since she likes to signal this to me by gurning, twisting and shrieking in her highchair to the point where only a tepid bath will soothe her. So during the rapid succession of bath-boob-bed for her, something needs to be done to entertain poor Son who sits finishing his dinner on his tod. Enter the iPad. And since I am trying to settle Daughter in another room, the last thing I need are Son’s shrieks haunting me down the corridor because the Guided Access on Youtube is limiting his clip control. So the dumbass YT Kids it is.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Now it is not always like this. There are times when he actually gets to watch his favourite shows - and even ones we like, eg/Sesame Street - and the overall result is less disturbing. Consistent with this is </span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">that extracting the device is usually easier, since if we give him a </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">countdown and ask him to turn it off himself, he complies. His adoration of these shows is still plain, nonetheless, yet it is actually this that lends </span><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">another important function to </span></span><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; white-space: pre-wrap;">the iPad: as behavioural management tool. You should see the difference in his reaction: the threat of time out (current source of amusement) vs threat of fave-show-ban (source of untold anguish)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">‘Do x or Peppa goes. I mean it. Ten, nine, eight…’</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">gets to almost one</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">‘I’m serious. Going, going…’</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">X miraculously occurs</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The added complication is that some kind of record is needed of exactly what has been banned or reinstated and when. You can imagine how often we mess this up. Oddly enough Son sometimes helpfully reminds us anyway: ‘No, Mummy, Paw Patrol is gone because I was naughty.’ What better law enforcement than a cooperative one? It’s utopian, for sure.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So while I totally get the guilt about screen time, I also get that parental breaks are necessary. And hey, maybe it’s a fair introduction to the world of us functioning iPhone addicts. More than that, it’s exposure to popular culture, which every parental generation believes mind-numbing for their kids where every kid generation turns out to be fine. I mean, look at us, right?..?</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">In fact, maybe I’m missing a trick and it’s time to start working on my Youtube career.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Seen the book? Take a look! </span><a href="http://lookingatyoubaby.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">http://lookingatyoubaby.com/</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Twitter: @ericajbarlow</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Instagram: @ericajane_20 #lookingatyoubabydotcom</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="line-height: 2.016; vertical-align: baseline;">Facebook: Here's Looking At You, Baby </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby/" style="line-height: 2.016; text-align: center; text-decoration: none;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby</span></a></span></div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03892150686959060142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8548857257876100874.post-71937943300858903302016-09-29T20:14:00.002-07:002016-09-29T20:22:55.669-07:00#24 On Having Multiple Children (or at least two)<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ever the entertainer </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ve got this kid thing down. Sleep? Routines? Pacifying? Sorted. As it stands, I now have pretty much a 100% hit rate with all of my strategies and I don’t see that changing...</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Or so I stupidly thought when I had just one child. Pregnant with my second, I mused over how it would be with two, you know, in the way you muse over anything which you can never truly appreciate until it happens. So far, my concept of ‘being a mum’ had involved honing my techniques for the previous eighteen months with Son, until I’d reached a point where I felt pretty secure in the whole business. A second would be easy, surely: imagine all the experience I could bring to the role this time. Imagine all the hypotheses I’d formed, into which baby #2 would neatly slot. </span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Obviously, I would discover, this was utter crap. I got heavily served. Yes, my ability to rock, shush and nappy-change an infant had been fine-tuned, though I’d argue that all parents figure out how to do all that pretty quickly anyway. Equipment-wise, I’d tried to be one step ahead; the brand of dummies my son had used had been becoming - cheapo as they were - increasingly difficult to get hold of. Then, pregnant again, I remember going into a supermarket I’d never been into before, and seeing them stocked in their dozens, a myriad of sizes and colours, shining from the shelf like rare gems. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘So this is where you’ve been hiding, you bastards’, I thought. ‘Come to me...I’ll take five, six, no….nine of you.’ So smug was I to have found them that I just hadn’t fathomed that my new baby, once born, would not simply need a little persuading to take a dummy</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">,</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> her eyes would widen and she would disgustedly eject said object, accompanied by Hammer Horror gagging sounds. So now, moan as I do about our current lack of space, I have a whole shelf in the kitchen dedicated to a mass of boxfresh dummies, ever unsucked, that I should probably try to sell or give away. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The tricky thing about parenting is that you try and be prepared, but preparation involves prediction and kids are often pretty unpredictable. Go and look on ebay or various kids’ classifieds and just look at the amount of toys for sale ‘never used’ or ‘used once and then he/she lost interest.’ As grownups and professionals we pride ourselves on our ability to plan ahead, not to be caught out, and yet little ones will often undermine this. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One major reason for this is just how different your newest's personality can be from its predecessor/s. Son? Bottle, dummy, cigar, given to him by a total stranger for all he cared. Daughter? Mammocentric all the way: it has to be boob so it has to be me. Son: sleeps anywhere, any time, like he’s on valium; in the pram to send him off all I had to do was take him over some rhythmic bumps (cobbles, a boardwalk, etc) and he’d be out; Daughter, the Princess and the Pea, takes far longer and bumps appear to ruin her day. Imagine actually taking a pram out and avoiding any kind of these; I urge you to try it.</span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">That said, these differences tend to have presented only temporary issues once you begin to adapt to them. One thing that remains a constant is the effect of plural babies on your time and energy. Yes, you do become better at military-esque logistics. Your ‘Mary Poppins’ handbag becomes even more bottomless. You begin to wonder how just one baby used to take up so much of your time and effort. But dealing with a double onslaught of illness, having two under-threes sharing a bedroom where one shouts a lot and the other still wakes at night, is some next-level trickery. Often Husband and I have to take one each - She needs feeding back to sleep and He needs taking off as he’s insisting on sleeping in our bed at 4am- to the point where we become passing ships in the night. Unsurprisingly, the combination of broken sleep and physical distance does no wonders for a relationship; bickering definitely increases and in those poisonous silences that follow hissed exchanges, there are definitely more times where you narrow your eyes and send waves of hatred to the back of your loved one’s turned head. Still, that’s what those marriage vows were invented for, eh. Dammit.</span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘This, too, shall pass’, all parents quote, as they reflect on the tricky, but transient, stages of having little ones. I know the same is true for us. There is one advantage that overrides these pitfalls, however. Having a sibling has made Son a better child - no, really - since he’d have gone through tantrumming and the terrible twos anyway, but we’ve seen another side to him. For all his loudness and mania, it is he who shushes us in the evening with a grave authority:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> (finger theatrically pressed to lips) ‘You’ll wake my sister. Stop talking. Shhh.’ </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">He is desperately protective of her, reduced to an impossible and almost comic gentleness around her. And the comic element extends to being their truest bond, because she is the most loving and indulgent audience of all of his performance and jokes. It is excellent to watch. And, dare I say it, probably worth relearning a whole set of skills for. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Erica </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Seen the book? Take a look! </span><a href="http://lookingatyoubaby.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">http://lookingatyoubaby.com/</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Twitter: @ericajbarlow</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Instagram: @ericajane_20 #lookingatyoubabydotcom</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="line-height: 2.016; vertical-align: baseline;">Facebook: Here's Looking At You, Baby </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby/" style="line-height: 2.016; text-align: center; text-decoration: none;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby</span></a></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03892150686959060142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8548857257876100874.post-75574404254986403852016-09-21T16:53:00.003-07:002016-09-21T16:53:53.017-07:00#23 On Children's Birthday Parties <div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-0804e38b-4f00-1ec1-5c51-df4b8f35e0fc" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So wouldn’t you know it, November the fifth is rolling around soon which can only mean one thing. Correct: it’ll be the day before my son’s third birthday party. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Significant why? Well because we’ll be frantically preparing for it unlike most of his peers’ birthdays - many of which are happening most weekends at the moment - which will have been prepared, in advance, for more like 24 weeks than 24 hours. Yes, this is Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs (think London’s Chelsea or NY’s Greenwich Village) and so like it or not, just like at Christmas that weight of expectation falls on your reluctant shoulders to produce the perfect party in keeping with all the others you’ve been to/ heard whispered legends of. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Let me give you a brief outline of how our efforts will compare to those of the local norm. Incidentally Daughter is still not one year old and so has not yet warranted a party; this post might double up as a ‘what to expect’ document that I can show her before she starts getting any ideas:</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Local Birthday Parties </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"> Our Children’s Parties </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Child-centred</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Adult-centred. Many of our friends over here indeed have kids, but many don’t and once you’re a parent you need as many excuses to see people as you can get</span></span></div>
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<tr style="height: 0px;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A start time of 10am; finishing at 12.</span></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What?? OK, I get it- it fits with kids’ sleep times, you do two hours then you get to kick everyone out and go and enjoy the rest of your weekend. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">However:</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">i) Our childless friends are very unlikely to be anywhere for 10am on a weekend, unless they are still out</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">ii) We are tramps and cannot break the ‘party= boozing’ truism, yet even we have (mostly) gone beyond the days of morning boozing, so an afternoon party it is</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">iii) Children - especially those fizzing on E-numbers - are much less annoying when you are tipsy</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 0px;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Elaborate spread, often outsourced from pricey caterers</span></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Much as I like attending these parties as I love a posh nibble, old trampy habits die hard and once again our money tends to be prioritised for booze. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Other than that, something easily barbecueable is provided.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Veggie? Kosher? Help yourself to either the burger buns or some Aldi crisps. I don’t think even the ‘meat’ flavours have ever even flirted with genuine meat, so that’s all good.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 0px;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">...Which may include high-end sweet things</span></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Aldi’s finest jelly sweets and packets of teddy biscuits, I’m afraid. I’m sorry if your children end up twitching a little.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 0px;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Adhering to a theme with matching activities, bunting, tablecloths and more besides </span></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Adhering to theme of ‘weekend’. If there is a children’s theme it’s something like ‘Wacky Races’, i.e. ‘get your kid to bring their bike and someone less-unsober may vaguely supervise them.’ No really: this is what last year entailed.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">-Bunting, etc, originally sourced from Hot Dollar, cobbled together from previous parties. If it remotely matches I feel most proud.</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
</td></tr>
<tr style="height: 0px;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">...And also matching invites, which may have been hand-crafted, hand-written and posted weeks before</span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">A sketchy Facebook invite with what I consider to be a zany picture of my son as the masthead. </span></span></div>
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<tr style="height: 0px;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Showcase a beautiful themed cake, often professionally outsourced</span></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">This is the one concerted bit of effort I do make, as I enjoy doing this. But don’t confuse this with being that good at it. For me, fondant icing is just grownups’ play-doh. And even if the cake looks passable from 2 metres away, step closer to feast your eyes upon:</span></span></div>
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<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The cheapo battenberg I have used for the inside</span></span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The piped icing used to conceal a multitude of amateur errors</span></span></div>
</li>
</ul>
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<tr style="height: 0px;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Hired entertainer</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /><br /><br /></span></td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Tired entertainer, often in the form of my dear brother, half-cut, dragging around chuckling toddlers that have their hands clasped about his ankles. </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Otherwise see ‘bring your own bike’ point above</span></span></div>
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<tr style="height: 0px;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Face painting </span></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Does food colouring from eating the cake count?</span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Or..battle scars from a felt-tip fight</span></span></div>
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<tr style="height: 0px;"><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And finally...goody bags containing themed goodies.</span></span></div>
</td><td style="border-bottom: solid #000000 1px; border-left: solid #000000 1px; border-right: solid #000000 1px; border-top: solid #000000 1px; padding: 7px 7px 7px 7px; vertical-align: top;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Are you serious?? There is some definite input-output inbalance going on with preparing these things. Consider your memories, your ensuing hangover and a day where your kids have hopefully entertained themselves a bit, your goody bag. </span></span></div>
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</tbody></table>
</div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">If, after reading this, you are still keen to join us on 6th November, then you are a true friend indeed and welcome to enjoy with us some craft beer (sourced by Husband) or cheap prosecco (sourced, yes, by me). </span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Oh yeah, and hopefully your kid, if you have one, will enjoy it.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">See you there. </span></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">Erica </span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></span><br />
<div dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Tinos; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
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<div dir="ltr" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: Tinos; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 1.8; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Seen the book? Take a look! </span><a href="http://lookingatyoubaby.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">http://lookingatyoubaby.com/</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Twitter: @ericajbarlow</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Instagram: @ericajane_20 #lookingatyoubabydotcom</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="line-height: 2.016; vertical-align: baseline;">Facebook: Here's Looking At You, Baby </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby/" style="line-height: 2.016; text-align: center; text-decoration: none;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby</span></a></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03892150686959060142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8548857257876100874.post-2280942261516251532016-09-09T04:15:00.003-07:002016-09-09T04:15:23.891-07:00#22 On Returning to Sleep With a Baby<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/--_kmZm-854A/V9KZkkzJ1BI/AAAAAAAACK0/4ZXTPXP6Bcs/s640/blogger-image-1356491785.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/--_kmZm-854A/V9KZkkzJ1BI/AAAAAAAACK0/4ZXTPXP6Bcs/s640/blogger-image-1356491785.jpg" /></a></span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Now if you’ve come here for wisdom or useful pearls of advice on getting your baby to sleep better, please let me set you straight. There are various books, websites and forums dedicated to that and they are written by experts. This post is none of those. It is a far less useful musing on what it’s like trying to return yourself to sleep in the daytime when your little one has cruelly robbed you of zs the night before.</span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-f4e978e7-0e8e-7bff-3978-5a869d740827" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So if you’re still here, at least it’s not on false pretences. Right then. Today, following yet another appalling night’s sleep due to a baby full of cold, I am about to do that thing I never ever do: sleep when the baby sleeps. You know, it’s that thing that all the advice tells you to do and which usually makes you smirk when suggested because all you can think of is your endless, sisyphean task list for that day. In my case this usually is reason enough to abandon returning to sleep. But worse than that: I’m a crap sleeper anyway. In the military, my brother taught himself to sleep standing up, anywhere, anytime. Consider me the opposite. To be fair, if I put on a film or TV show I’ve been really looking forward to for a long time, give me twelve minutes and I’ll be sparko on the sofa and miss the whole thing; any time I actually wish to drift off it can be aeons before I do, even if conditions are perfect. Then I’m awoken again if a butterfly sneezes outside; if a spider stubs his toe. I’m useless. So even if I were frivolously to abandon my task list there’s scant chance it would be worth it. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But today, I argue, it will be worth it. That’s how bad my cumulative tiredness has become. As a result, my decision to go back to bed has now taken on an air of decadence, it has a seductive aura of ‘me time’ . </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">‘It’s going to be so awesome’, I think. ‘All this...sleep.’ And I keep fantasising about post-sleep-me later on today, how fresh, tingly and zen-like I’m going to feel. Outwardly I’ll look glowing and my skin peachy and I’ll be smiling, smiling, probably to the point of being quite punchable but I won’t care. God it’s exciting.</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s approaching nine-thirty AM. I’m just waiting for Daughter in her cot to nod off/sod off (sorry, Daughter, but most of this is your doing). And there it is: silence. She has stopped making noises. No time to lose. Since the kids’ bedroom has blackout blinds it is the most cocoon-like, so I head there. As quietly as possible I set out the bedclothes on the sofa bed, snuggle down and prepare my equipment for procedure. Eyemask-lower: check. Earplugs - yes, the gross silicone ones that make your head feel squeakily airtight: in they squidge, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">thuk, thuk</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">….. check. Optimal prostrate body position: check. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Come on sleep, you bastard. I’m ready.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And then what was excitement starts to turn to slight nervousness since the next bit is beyond my control. As I lie there in the blackness, wrists and palms to the ceiling, taunting sleep to come and wash over me - </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">come on, come on</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> - it almost feels like I’m waiting for one of the horsemen of the apocalypse to come and take me. I’m certainly knackered, I’ve done all the right things to prepare, but still this cruel, mystical state may come, or it may not. Like with death/life, when casually doled out by the flick of the emperor’s thumb in the colosseum, none of it is in my power any more. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So. I lie here, at first studying those weird shapes swirling on the insides of my eyelids, like watching a lava lamp or a crap nineties screensaver. Then I kind of fall beyond that to deep black nothingness where it feels like I’m in a flotation tank: I’m letting go but still present. Dammit, still present. Thoughts about various things start to fizz to the front of my mind but I try to let them fall away. Begone, you bastards. As if it might change things, I shuffle and change positions. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Still bloody present.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">After this comes two potential endings. I’ll let you figure out which is more likely. It shouldn’t be hard. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Ending #1 </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I realise I’m a bit hot and sticky, or Daughter is crying, or both. I feel a bit woozy and unsure of what has just happened. As I think, though, I also realise I have just had a dream. My body feels light and happy, my head clear. Yes, I think. Yesss. Come here, Daughter, come here, rest-of-day. Let’s do this.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Ending #2</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I realise I’m a bit hot and sticky, or Daughter is crying, or both. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Or, even better: the horrible intercom-buzzer is warbling: </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">BLEHHHH! BLEHHHH! </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Is it mine or downstairs? I take my earplugs out and the sound is magnified through the whole flat. I get up feeling mildly less achy than before but the aches slowly start to seep back in. It felt like a lifetime I was lying down but when I look at my phone, it was about forty minutes. No dreams. Turns out I had just got bored and I was, the entire time, present.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Once the delivery man has scuttled away, terrified, I head towards the coffee beans and all that they can do for me. Trying to suppress the urge to moan inevitably to myself about time wasted, I grab my pen and pad.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Best start writing blog post #22, then.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Erica</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Seen the book? Take a look! </span><a href="http://lookingatyoubaby.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">http://lookingatyoubaby.com/</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Twitter: @ericajbarlow</span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 32.256px;">Instagram: @ericajane_20 #lookingatyoubabydotcom</span><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03892150686959060142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8548857257876100874.post-55298002348307793292016-09-01T23:28:00.000-07:002016-09-15T01:01:09.599-07:00#21 On Long Haul Travel With Children<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"></span></span><br>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-FU3Rr58eals/V8kbQfRIrKI/AAAAAAAABrM/taakv1aWPVM/s640/blogger-image-961771406.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-FU3Rr58eals/V8kbQfRIrKI/AAAAAAAABrM/taakv1aWPVM/s640/blogger-image-961771406.jpg"></a></span></span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">They say children are a societal leveller. I would say this is nowhere more true than with air travel. That is, unless you can afford your own private jet, or at least have your nippers banished to coach class with the nanny while you sup champagne (Madonna), then I'm afraid we're all in this together, parents. And I must admit to a tiny bit of schadenfruede, as someone who has never exceeded premium economy, imagining those used to business class not only returning to coach but also with a sprog or two to really enhance that experience. Double whammy. </span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-9ac75a33-e96f-8ef9-f30e-509c0038a8eb" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span></b>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And then my smug grin packs up and sods off because I'm awoken from my reverie (probably by Son pouring yoghurt into my lap) by the reality that I too am in coach class and about to embark on the very same journey. Cue Husband and me mentally readying various banalities to be trotted out at crisis points to come: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">it is what it is, it'll be over before you know it, this totally sucks; </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">you know the ones. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And whatever we say to ourselves, there is nothing quite like feeling you've been airborne with children for a biblically, bum-numbingly long time, rolling in and out of consciousness, only to look at that bloody diagram of where the plane is on the map and see you've covered about a sixth of the journey so far. That is a feeling indeed. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So, why were we doing this two weeks ago? Well, we were headed to a wedding in east-coast USA: Massachussets. Flying East from Sydney, changing in California, rather than west over Europe, we used United rather than our normal choice of Emirates. The switch was a mixed blessing, to say the least. United has none of the crispness of Emirates on any level, but where its relative slapdashery meant shabby check-in service and a lost suitcase on the ground, onboard we were never hassled to shift all the bags or sleeping toddler beneath our feet at any point, and whatever the turbulence Daughter slept unhassled in the bassinet. It was like being looked after by Uncle Buck rather than stiff Aunt Edie and I have to say, it did improve the actual flight for us. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Because nice menus and plush fittings aside, when you travel with kids - much like when you do anything with kids that you once did without them - your standards change (slip?) to simply wanting them happy; in this case this means either asleep or iPad-comatose. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But nonetheless do not mistake this for a highly pleasurable experience, or even one to be compared with the flight of the childless. I've said before that pre-kids I would inwardly tut upon hearing infant cries on a flight, when all it would take was some earphones or headphones and I'd be free of said cries once again. How little I appreciated the decadence of being bored, of apathetically punching my way through entertainment choices on a little screen. Now, I am nostalgic for boredom and apathy. They have not been my inflight friends for a very long time. Instead, I am lucky if both children sleep at the same time. On this journey, our first with Daughter, she sensed when we'd all truly had enough and picked up nicely, wailing plaintively while I marched up and down the aisles trying to shush her in the darkness, passing row upon row of slumped bodies with slackjawed and eyemasked faces, all in a state of rest. Bastards. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">That said, thanks to the aforementioned ‘United touch’ we were left alone when the kids were actually sleeping, and at such times Husband and I got to enjoy those uniquely aeroplane experiences such as eating freezing cold, stale bread rolls and sipping chilly red wine from a little plastic goblet with the relentless din of the plane engine in your ears. Screw you, first class; we’re in the lap of luxury here, we thought. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But it didn’t all end with the flight, of course. For, when once youngsters we assaulted jetlag head-on with nights of partying, now we were condemned to see in the wee hours in a far more sobering (and sober) way. Arriving at our overnight B and B, we packed the kids off to bed at 8 and despite feeling fairly woozy, managed dinner downstairs followed by our 10pm bedtime. All was silent in our one shared room and we plopped into bed feeling quite tidy. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Then. I remember Husband and I both coming to, confused. The room was weird and everything bathed in navy blue darkness. The one familiarity was the sound of Daughter’s cries, shortly followed by Son’s slow yells:</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">‘Muuum. Daaaaad. I wan’ get up.’</span></span></div>
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<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And so it began, the 2am eternal wakeup. Sleep would elude us for another twenty hours. And despite any previous experience with newborns, there is still a special nightmarish tinge to wakeups like these; blinking into the gloom you await that feeling that when morning peels around, bleak and blank, you have a whole day to face in a fuzz. And in the meantime, some dark hours where you and your partner may exchange many hissed swear words. All of this must you face.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And you do. And you live. And it gets easier each day. Now the trip is over, we are experiencing all the same stuff this end like some cruel mirror image but with Getting Up For Work thrown in for good measure (at least in Husband’s case). </span></span><br>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I get it, kids: we put you on the jet that gave you the lag. But come on. Seriously, come on. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Still, if it gives you any idea how great the actual trip and wedding were, then I shall say this: it was still worth it. There were long nights, swear words and hazy daytimes and yet the laughs and the sight of naked infant bumcheeks flashing in the sunshine made it all worth it. Perhaps it was just a two-week version of the last three years of our lives.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Erica </span></span><br>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Seen the book? Take a look! </span><a href="http://lookingatyoubaby.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">http://lookingatyoubaby.com/</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Twitter: @ericajbarlow</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Instagram: @ericajane_20 #lookingatyoubabydotcom</span></span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.016; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font face="georgia, times new roman, serif"><br></font></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 2.016; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="line-height: 2.016; vertical-align: baseline;">Facebook: Here's Looking At You, Baby </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby/" style="line-height: 2.016; text-align: center; text-decoration: none;">https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyouba</a></span><font face="georgia, times new roman, serif"><br></font>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03892150686959060142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8548857257876100874.post-28322492223573389212016-08-04T23:10:00.002-07:002016-08-04T23:11:00.968-07:00#20 Can You Help Me?!<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-gWnIx4xQ7nk/V6QtmacTnaI/AAAAAAAAAyQ/fhDP4ckEUU4/s640/blogger-image--1933355513.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-gWnIx4xQ7nk/V6QtmacTnaI/AAAAAAAAAyQ/fhDP4ckEUU4/s640/blogger-image--1933355513.jpg" /></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">There I've got your attention. What you're about to read contains TMI ahoy but you've opened this link now and started reading so you may as well stick around.</span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-77f05898-5942-a27f-f022-e7e4455d53cb" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Shameless click bait title? Whatever. I need you, so please stay. Please.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So what I need help with is potty training. Or, should I say: botty training. You may recall some time back that I discussed Son's initial (lack of) success with all things toilet, to the extent that he had a zero percent hit rate with pees on the toilet /potty. Such an unmitigated failure was the whole exercise that we gave up about a week in, stressed and fed up.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">On one hand, things have now greatly improved: Son decided to pee-train himself shortly after his sister was born, claiming that nappies were for babies. Sure enough, he is now almost 100% sorted and accident-free on that front. It's awesome.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But on the other hand, his nappy-baby association has come back to bite him on the ass, literally, since we still have a zero percent hit rate...with poos. Now what's interesting is that, unlike with the pee failures, he never actually has poo accidents. No, what happens is that he waits until he has a nappy on - at nap and sleep times - and then lets it all go with gay abandon. And how, for by the time we get to the sticky crime scene, no matter how quickly we think we've caught it, it's all about peeling gooey nappies off bums and thighs, trying to keep Satan's pate from oozing out of its padded container, the smiling cartoon character on the outside hopelessly at odds with the evil content within.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">And since this usually happens at night time - currently almost every single bloody night time - all of this rigmarole is performed with the silent precision of keyhole surgery, in an attempt not to wake Son. </span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But there's the other thing: it's happening at roughly the same time every night, discovered when we are just about to hit the sack. So since he's asleep, there's no way to catch him doing it before it happens. And believe me we've tried: constantly asking him, sticker charts, promises of rewards, the lot, all communicated with a lobotomised positivity. Still nada. And yet the fact that he doesn't have underpant-accidents must suggest something is going on inside his tiny mind, some cogs are whirring somewhere....where, I'd love to know.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What is now becoming grimly predictable every night is taking the shape of a cruel game of Shotgun for Husband and me. 'We're a team, we deal with this together, bring it on', we say. But I'm sure both of us have fibbed about it at times, pulling our head from out of Son's doorway, hiding watery eyes and an air of sad disgust, to lie that this particular evening he does not need changing. Because let's be honest, marriage vows or no it's a bum rap and a shit gig, puns fully intended.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What about leaving him until the morning, some have said. Well, we’ve tried that too. In fact, there are some evenings where he’s been such a royal jackass about going to bed that out of sheer spite (there, I’ve said it) we’ve thought ‘no, you little sod, you can wallow in it tonight. You deal with it.’ Such a victory is mistaken, of course, since apart from some nappy rash, it is only we who deal with it. And as if to further punish us for our neglect, come morning time, it is dry, caked and baked onto his little ass. It has a smell that has penetrated all layers of cloth upon him until pyjama and sleeping bag smell like a cat litter tray found in an abandoned house.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">What to do now? Well, apart from bringing this lovely account to your attention, I have explicitly sought help on various mothering Facebook pages. It has been encouraging: people have been helpful and kind. However, the responses have generally been one of three: 1) wait it out and be patient, 2) try this or that solution 3) My favourite: 'Sorry, can't help but...OMG me too!! Please let me know if you find the answer!'</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Well, regarding 2) there’s some work to be done, though my current favourite is telling my son there’s a poo party and that his poo will be an excluded and friendless one if it remains in his nappy; for healthy poo social development it needs to attend the party in the loo with all its poo friends. I’ll let you know how I get on with that one.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-size: 14.6667px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">One thing has struck Husband and I regarding all this. However tricky or tantrummy toddlers can be during the day, or especially at bedtime, if Son does wake when we change him at night he is the sweetest, most compliant and affectionate ever. It’s almost a calculated reward for our efforts, like when newborns smile to alleviate your utter sleep deprivation. The scientists can keep their studies; in this Trumpian/ Govian era of fact refutation, I’m claiming once again that these little imps have an agenda.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Seen the book? Take a look! </span><a href="http://lookingatyoubaby.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">http://lookingatyoubaby.com/</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Twitter: @ericajbarlow</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Instagram: @ericajane_20 #lookingatyoubabydotcom</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="line-height: 2.016; vertical-align: baseline;">Facebook: Here's Looking At You, Baby </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby/" style="line-height: 2.016; text-align: center; text-decoration: none;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby</span></a></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03892150686959060142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8548857257876100874.post-16313688982427097662016-07-28T23:22:00.001-07:002016-07-28T23:24:03.044-07:00#19 On Apartment Living With Children<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia"; white-space: pre-wrap;">City living! It's fun and glamorous! If residing in an apartment, you get to live life from your dinky, smart little unit where it's easy come, easy go and you are just footsteps from trendy establishments simply aching to sell you their coffee, their wine and their pastries.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ah, the lives of the DINKs (double income no kids). How much we loved that life and how very far away it seems now. Otherworldly, even. In London we came and went as we pleased, stepping outside to the hissing buses and bright lights shimmering in puddles. But you didn't even have to be outside to feel it: standing in our apartment you could feel the Tube rumbling underneath and I never got bored of it. London was happening wherever you were.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Choosing glossy Sydney meant opting for beaches and bigger skies, and yet we still had great access to most things a city life affords, this time including sun, sea and sand. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Then children happened. Don't get me wrong; life with them has entailed, once again, that there is never a dull moment and in their own crazy, noisy, smooth-skinned way, they are excellent. It's just that in our post-DINK family life, we have grown in number and in need and our apartment has not grown at all.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Sydney life is expensive, however, and though we know we need a three-bed-with-garden now, acquiring one is easier said than done. That is, since we love the priciest, beachiest part of town (sigh) and could do without being far from friends and Son's daycare (have you seen those waiting lists? I ain't budging), we - literally - pay the price. You want poncey? You pay poncey. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The upshot, then, is that we have had to stay in our first-floor-two-bedder and as each day passes, I can't help but consider its original real-estate ad and what this means for us now. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">'In a Prime Location just moments from the beach'</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So prime locations tend to be nice, on the whole. No exception here, and oft did we once trot down to the beach or cafe at a moment's notice. Now, 'prime location' means $$$ which means 'land is at a premium', which means 'enjoy having no outdoor space, or if you want some, you'd better fork out for it, you cheap bastards'. See 'balcony' below.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">'Beautiful sunny balcony' </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes, here in Oz, North or West-facing is what you want, and luckily that's what we have. I say luckily- once upon a time would I belt it home from work on my bike on a lovely day, my own mantra humming in my ears 'balcony by five, be on the balcony by five' and there I'd be at four-fifty-five, wine in one hand, iPhone in the other and bikini upon my person. Smug as a bug, baps-out on a rug. Forget the fact that only douchebags soundbite their own mantras; the real punishment that lay in wait was a year or so down the line, when the mobility of my one-year-old son flashed up horrific 'what-if' scenes before me, of his plummeting off the 20ft side to his tiny demise. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Private outdoor space it once was, but a garden it shall never be. These days it enjoys its run more as a large laundry-drying facility. Sigh.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">'Flooded with natural light'</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yes I continue to love this as a feature, though less so does Daughter, six months, whose rug-bound antics means that she is often rolling around yelping because shards of light are jabbing her in the eyes. Worse, with our giant windows, those single-glazed muthas ensure that heat is easy come, easy go and winter evenings are pretty chilly. Central heating? Insulation? In Sydney? You’re having a laugh. At my expense.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">'Wooden floors throughout' </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This fashion has seen rental properties be able to whack their rates right up. I am not immune to this trend. In fact, in the living and dining area at least, I can't help but feel that places look about sixty percent uglier if carpeted. And there is some practical basis for this; when feeding babies and toddlers, having a wipe-clean floor has obvious advantages (not to mention the state Husband and I get carpets in all by ourselves- back in London our beige carpet swallowed so much red wine over the years that it ended up looking like a map, with every stain telling a story. Ask me about it sometime). </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But for all other infant activity, my snootiness is shown for what it is because wooden floors suck. They're a hard landing surface for the less sure-footed nipper, yet for the very sure-footed they're even worse: Son crashes around with every noise amplified, often waking his sister. And that's just above the floorboards. It's been politely intimated to us that living beneath them is worse: the ground-floor dwellers suffer every shriek and stamp as if it's happening next to them. Slightly dubious that it could be that bad, I recently popped down to the neighbours to speak to them about it, apologetically, of course. As I was talking to them in the doorway, as if to crisply illustrate the point, I could hear Son's activities (very) loud and clear. It was an awkward moment.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So what to do? Well, we do try to shush and calm him, and we do encourage him to play on the rug. But let's be realistic: he's two-and-a-half. And the balcony...well, I've already described the balcony.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It gets us off our asses and out the house, I guess.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">'Traditional High Ceilings'</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Finally, this one is my favourite. High ceilings are undoubtedly a lovely feature and they add a sense of space and dimension, even to small rooms. Well, when we arrived they did this. Now, though, they serve not only to amplify the echoes of Son's tomfoolery, but they almost mock us in their loftiness, as if to say 'look at all this gorgeous space, this blank square-metreage, basking in its uselessness! Can't fix a load of shelves up in a rental, can you? A- ha ha ha haaaa.' </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I swear with each day, with each new toy acquired and each new speedy movement learned by my children, the walls feel like they are moving in not unlike that scene in Star Wars where Luke, Chewy et al are almost squashed in the giant bin room.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">OK I'll stop there. We don't live in a bin, we insist on being somewhere poncey and we did choose to have kids.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But if anyone has any tips for how to do this better than us, I'm all ears. Cheers.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Erica </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Seen the book? Take a look! </span><a href="http://lookingatyoubaby.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">http://lookingatyoubaby.com/</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Twitter: @ericajbarlow</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Instagram: @ericajane_20 #lookingatyoubabydotcom</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-style: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="line-height: 2.016; vertical-align: baseline;">Facebook: Here's Looking At You, Baby </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby/" style="line-height: 2.016; text-align: center; text-decoration: none;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby</span></a></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03892150686959060142noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8548857257876100874.post-46561676376403641282016-07-16T21:02:00.002-07:002016-07-17T22:51:50.069-07:00#18 On How I Wish I'd Had My Daughter's Screen Role Models<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.656; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="font-family: "georgia"; white-space: pre-wrap;">So I have a baby girl and right now she smiles at anything that pleases her, which is a lot of things. Obviously I think she's beautiful but she neither knows nor cares if she is or not. She is innocent, unabashed and totally candid about how she feels about everything. Dammit, I envy her.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Actually, I think I would have envied her much more as a young girl. This is because I could be an awkward and self-conscious kid and when it came to meeting boys, I was that times ten. What’s more, I was not shy in the usual sense of the word. My behaviour was actually quite extrovert, serving as a front for my various anxieties. I chatted plenty but often cringed at every word.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Youth insecurity may be nothing new, of course, but this itself is a problem. If it is so timeless, then it is sure also to come Daughter's way at some point. When it does, can I help her to manage it, emerge unscathed, even? If so, it makes sense first to identify the causes, starting with my own experience.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">My school years would be an obvious factor here. If I tell you I attended an all-girls' state school, alarm bells would probably start ringing immediately. Single sex schools reinforce young people's inability to relate to one another, people say. In my own experiences as a student and also a co-ed secondary teacher, I have seen some truth to this. For all my innate awkwardness as a high-school student I was often outspoken, daft, at times a bit of a class clown. I'm sure I could often be quite irritating but the fact remains that I felt free to be so.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Outside of the school gates, as soon as we bumped into any boys, everything changed. I suddenly felt ridiculous and compelled to be quiet, smile sweetly and try to look pretty. The boys could be daft and crack jokes and we'd all laugh, even if (secretly) they weren't very funny. Most of the girls kept quite quiet. Me? Any words that did escape out of my mouth did so before I could predict the reaction they'd draw- a snigger, an incredulous look, a smirk. I felt like an idiot and redoubled my resolve to be even more silent than my friends.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But where did this division come from, and would studying GCSEs alongside boys have helped? Actually I'm not sure it would, at least not back in the 90s. I remember talking to an old school friend about those days and discussing whether it would have been different had our school been co-ed. 'Absolutely' she said. 'It would have been rubbish with boys. They'd have ruined it.' Why, though? I never asked her to elaborate but I think I agree with her, at least in terms of school back then. And across both genders, I think it has a lot to do with the roles that we subscribed to - consciously or, more likely, not.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In terms of roles, the idea of the submissive female had certainly been challenged long before the 1990s. Sure enough, in history and literature, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><strike>massive geek</strike></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> keen student that I was, these strong, sharp-witted women stood before me, whether historical figure, character or writer: Elizabeth I, the suffragettes, Rosa Parks, Jane Eyre, Jane Austen. In the library or the classroom I felt empowered to take their lead but as soon as the school bell went their influence started to melt away. Why? Because for adolescents reading about these women was ‘culture’ and it was no match for popular culture. It was one world of women - comprised of dusty words and grainy photos, confined to the bookshelf - pitted hopelessly against another: that of the loud and shiny celluloid bubble that existed everywhere else.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">From this bubble it was TV and film that fixated us most, TV that did so the most regularly. The shows in question were generally </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Neighbours, Home and Away, Byker Grove, Friends, Saved by The Bell</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. Whether English, Australian or American, the females in these shows were either beautiful or interesting but very rarely both. The pinup girls were the ones the boys wanted and so the ones we wanted/ reluctantly tried to be: Beth from </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Neighbours</i></span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Donna Air. In their trendy clothes with their flawless faces they shimmered and seemingly outshone any more edgy female characters who sulked sarcastically in corners (various) or simply never pulled (Spuggy from Byker Grove). The message was clear: in the company of boys - and especially if you want a boyfriend - look good and shut up. As summed up by the, er, immortal AC Slater on Saved by The Bell:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Women: shopping, hair, diets. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> What's the mystery?</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> guffaws of canned laughter</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What is actually more telling here is not what Slater says but the fact it is him that says it. I admit it, he was all dimples and wet-look mullet and I (sigh) fancied him, but as an ‘attractive’ male on the show, successful with the very women he derided in this way, he was also allowed to be funny. He was allowed to assume two roles in the way that the women were not. Or rather, if the pretty women ever were funny on these shows, the Kellies, Monicas, Phoebes and the like were either endearingly neurotic or ditzy; when not the straight guys of comedy they were hardly the comic geniuses either. The wisecracks - to be laughed with and not at - were reserved for the men only.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So returning to my school days, it becomes clear what shook the confidence felt in the classroom. Without the company of boys, we could assume the roles normally assigned to them: speakers, debaters, jokers, clowns. We did not need to fear being unfanciable or bossy (a word rightly being challenged in a lot of current sexism debates). Apart from my own home, it was the one place I could be myself and yes, it would have been ‘rubbish’ had boys been there.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The irony of following TV is huge, of course. Young and naive, we looked to it for answers because it forged a kind of reality for us. However, minority groups have complained for decades that TV actually lags behind reality as if, for instance, a gay scene did not exist before ‘Queer as Folk’ became mainstream viewing. Looking back, I almost knew this myself but maybe was too afraid to ask questions. Not just in literature but among my own friends and family I knew quirky and quick-witted females from seven to seventy-five. And some were beautiful but in one way or another, all were attractive.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yet the regressive figures blaring out from the screen were the ones we still chose to follow.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I stress the use of past tense, though. In terms of both popular and classroom culture I have seen things start to change. Many shows, enjoyed by both adults and teens, have started to get it more right, albeit dropping some clangers from time to time. Dramas like </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Homeland</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bloodline</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Banshee</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> have started featuring teen girl leads who are assertive and rebellious, often unearthing home truths no adults - or boys - dare to. However, these girls are also chronically sullen, most likely to say ‘I hate this family’ at least twice an episode. They shout and pout but are not much fun and so, in challenging one stereotype, of the desperate to please teen girl, they reinforce another: the stroppy, ‘hormonal’ one. They send the message that being powerful and being remotely personable cannot be the same thing and yet for many of the male leads in these shows, it can. It might be a step up from the TV of my youth but I still think girls deserve better.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">An improvement is </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Game of Thrones</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, where powerful women of all ages are literally taking over the world. Well, of Westeros. Here, there are more fierce, fearless and charismatic women than you can shake a sword at and one of them, Lady Mormont, is about eleven years old. That said, with the exception of the much older, wiser Lady Tyrell, most of the best one-liners are still reserved for Tyrion Lannister, an underdog, to be sure, but a man all the same.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thank God, then, for shows like </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Girls</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Broad City</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Orange is the New Black</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. In the former two, the girls may be ridiculous, the ones in </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Girls</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> spoiled and even unlikeable, but they are sure as hell funny and compelling to watch. In </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Orange</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, Piper, the pretty and middle-class protagonist so typical of TV, is becoming less and less the show’s key figure. Instead, it has been taken over by the white noise of female characters from various socio-ethnic groups, characters far more powerful, funny and likeable and whose voices defy you not to sit up and listen. With few exceptions, it is telling that neither Piper nor any male on the show is a match for their charisma. It may be strange to consider a bunch of fictional felons as future role models for my daughter, but in some ways they are.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I stress ‘future' role models. If I’m a responsible parent, that should probably be some years away. In the meantime, is there any hope for the younger female audience? Well yes, I believe there is, and I’ve seen it through the films of Disney and Dreamworks. Now stay with me here; I know that earlier films from the Disney canon have done little to dispel the traditional view of women. This is as follows:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">B: To be marriageable = being sweet, submissive and servile.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">C: Failure to comply with B = failure to achieve A, therefore making you miserable and/or a social outcast.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Luckily, in the ‘golden age’ of 1990s Disney pluckier heroines emerged who at least challenged requirement B if not A (though I guess these are fairytales we’re talking about). Runaway princesses Ariel and Jasmine challenge patriarchy in every sense since their fathers rule house and kingdom alike. Yet for all the trappings of their gilded cages, these girls are at least adored in their community: not something I hugely identified with in my school days. What’s more, with Jasmine in particular there was something so self-possessed, so perfect, that to me she seemed untouchable.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">In </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Beauty and the Beast</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">’s Belle, on the other hand, I found a far more sympathetic character. Her lonely, social-outcast status is established from the opening song. In return, she is bored and sad in the provincial village and rejects it as much as it rejects her. Her cage is not only ungilded but it works both ways: she is both shut in and shut out. What’s more, Gaston, the town’s Mr Popular - the figure TV shows were telling us to want or, even worse, dumb down for - turns out to be a bigoted villain also rejected by Belle. Instead she prefers the darkly and Gothically-complex Beast and I remember how grown-up I felt being let in on this more adult message. In fairness, Dreamworks’ </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shrek</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> also deals with the concept of layers to people’s personality and its heroine, Princess Fiona, is also likeable and misunderstood. That said, I would find it hard to shed a tear for her and Shrek in the same way I do for Belle and the beast at the latter's death.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If Belle affected me so strongly, though, how was she still not enough? Why couldn’t she save me from my awkward self? After all, Disney epitomises popular culture so I should have felt in excellent company among the many other girls who had been inspired and emboldened to be like Belle. This film should have set me up for everything that was to come in my teens and yet it did not.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I think there are two reasons for this. Believe it or not, it’s actually </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Frozen</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> that highlights them most clearly. Firstly, it’s to do with the shedding of tears mentioned above. Now, Disney is no stranger to tugging on the old heartstrings - mine included- with a bit of favourite-character-death (FCD), at the end of the film; think Baloo, both leads from </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The Fox and The Hound</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, and so on. Whether the character actually remains dead or not (a favoured Disney happy-ending technique) is immaterial. By this point our tears have been jerked all the same. In the eighty-eighth minute out of ninety, such death has no plot left to move along and so exists only for maximum emotional impact.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For this all to work, then, it has to happen with a character we are desperate not to lose. Even now if I see the beast ‘die’, sure enough I sniffle as much as ever; In </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Frozen</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, I do the same but it’s with Anna. But what is more important here is that the beast’s death is merely true to form because he is a male lead, whereas </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Frozen</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is the first Disney film to do this with a female one. So in joining the FCD hall of fame, Anna must be the first female Disney character that we would be this sad to let go. And don’t think it’s got anything to do with following the original story; Disney films tend to deviate massively from those anyway and this one is no different. This being the case, if Disney’s aim was to be purely subversive they could just as easily have killed off Elsa in their first female FCD. But they knew exactly what they were doing in their choice to sacrifice Anna: providing maximum entertainment with the best possible plot choices. Many fans of the film say that they identify with Elsa in her loneliness just as, I suspect, is the case with Belle. But if Belle and Elsa are parallels then so are Anna and the beast. That is, it would be hard to imagine feeling quite the same loss at the death of Belle or Elsa. For all their bravery and fierce independence, they are still typically statuesque, straight-guy female leads. The beast and Anna are brave too, but they are also creators, not just bystanders, of many of the film’s comic moments. Because we warm to them in this way, their deaths hurt us in that we lose a friend, not an idol. </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The significance is this: as a strong lead and an equal to any male comic character, Anna shows that for girls it’s not just OK to be daft but cool to be daft. I wish someone had told me that all those years ago.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But there’s more. For all the power of this message, similar to the case with Belle it only half-liberates young girls if the boys aren’t hearing it too. And yet they are, loud and clear: </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Frozen</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> has proven hugely popular among boys of different ages, both</span><a href="http://www.chicagonow.com/marketing-strategist/2015/10/the-future-of-marketing-to-kids-how-disneys-frozen-won-over-a-surprising-segment/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">statistically</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and anecdotally. This has been no accident, of course; Disney's marketing campaign for </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Frozen</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> was aimed as much at boys as it was girls. This itself has been revolutionary in the world of Disney fairytales. But getting boys to go and see a film once is one thing; having them endlessly revisit it and quote its lines, is quite another. It’s also not just about Olaf and Kristof, either: many young males are reported to identify with the female leads and in my son’s case Anna is quoted more than any other character. The message of </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Frozen</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> has resonated universally.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Perhaps it is ironic that </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Frozen</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">'s status as Disney's biggest financial triumph is what has made it a moral and political one too. The more popular a film is, the more widely its message is shared. What we are now seeing is that great storytelling and strong, fun characters are levelling the gender playing field for girls of all ages, just like we have always known they could.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And my daughter? I think she'll be just fine in a co-ed classroom. More than that, I think it will be the best thing for her. But you know what? Just writing this I've come to realise how much I think the same for my son.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bring it on.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Seen the book? Take a look! </span><a href="http://lookingatyoubaby.com/" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">http://lookingatyoubaby.com/</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Twitter: @ericajbarlow</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Instagram: @ericajane_20 #lookingatyoubabydotcom</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 2.016; vertical-align: baseline;">Facebook: Here's Looking At You, Baby </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby/" style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #888888; font-family: georgia, "times new roman", serif; line-height: 2.016; text-align: center; text-decoration: none;">https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby/</a></div>
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03892150686959060142noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8548857257876100874.post-17856221272541162222016-06-26T16:03:00.001-07:002016-06-26T16:08:28.047-07:00#17 A Baby's Eye View: On Words And Why They Are Weird<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UvCsMVRFUu8/V3BeA_GaqiI/AAAAAAAAAvY/iqpF2QBXDgIxqZm3OFwTasSsj16f1v72wCLcB/s1600/File_000%2B%25289%2529.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UvCsMVRFUu8/V3BeA_GaqiI/AAAAAAAAAvY/iqpF2QBXDgIxqZm3OFwTasSsj16f1v72wCLcB/s400/File_000%2B%25289%2529.jpeg" width="300" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">It's all a bit much</span></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Words, words, words. It'll be a while before I can use them myself - I'm only five months old - but I am trying my best to figure out what on earth they mean so I can hit the ground running when it's my turn. It's not been easy, though. Adults have a funny relationship with words from what I can see. Or hear. </span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-ea682339-8ede-34c2-55dd-4d96aaa822eb" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Sorry, to be clear: this is Daughter here. Since Mummy is busy, and when she isn't busy most of the posts she writes are about my brother, I thought I'd steal a few minutes. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">'Minutes', eh- what are those, exactly? My parents often glance at their phones or watches when they say this word. This suggests its meaning is official but it seems to vary a lot. For example, when my older brother wants something he is first asked to say it again politely (Mum talks about this more </span><a href="http://hereslookingatyoubaby.blogspot.com.au/2016/06/14-on-teaching-your-child-manners.html" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">here</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">), then he is told to wait 'just a minute.' After that, that minute usually seems to pass quite quickly before he gets what he wants. When I want something, and try to be vocal about it, I am told the same thing or that other thing 'I'm just coming.' Want to know what this all means when it’s my turn? ‘Wait a lot longer.’ Or actually, ‘get better at hissy fits, like your brother.’ Just saying.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is not the only time words can mean different things. Let me explain. We hardly ever go to restaurants but when we do, we often sit at a table marked ‘reserved’. Now I’ve heard Mummy and Daddy </span><span style="line-height: 20.24px; white-space: pre-wrap;">describe people with </span><span style="line-height: 1.38; white-space: pre-wrap;">this word. Our behaviour is not it. In fact, the reason we leave is usually because my brother and / or I have started squawking because we're a bit bored. Also he has usually started sliding off his chair all the time like it's covered in lard. This seems to make my parents drink more wine, faster, and look a bit scared at each other and say 'we really need to go.' Maybe the sign was telling us how to behave and we have disobeyed it so we are getting kicked out. Who knows. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">It all gets even more baffling. Now, where one word can mean two things I also see that two words can mean the same thing. For instance, I have heard adults talk about a man they know who is a bit poorer and louder than they are. Some of them call him ‘salt-of-the-earth’ and some of them call him ‘scum-of-the-earth’ and it just depends who is talking about him and on what day. It is the same man, though, because they also all call him a normal name like ‘Stuart’ or something sometimes.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But then men’s names are weird, too, because they are also used for my Daddy’s tools. Stanley the knife is his favourite but there is also a Phillip and an Alan in there somewhere. These sound like quite boring names to me because my friends’ Grandads are called these names. Daddy must love these names, though, because he loves his tools. This makes me think that tools must also be good things and yet I’ve heard lots of bad things about them. Mummy and Daddy sometimes use this word to talk about other drivers, each other and also my brother when they are mad. I don’t get it at all.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Still, there are some words put before names that have helped me to understand a lot of things. I’m pretty sure that ‘Mr’ and ‘Mrs’ and ‘Sir’ and ‘Madam’ mean that someone is a man or a lady. In fact I know this because Mummy was on the phone to the credit card company once and got cross when the man called her ‘Sir’ because of her deep voice. ‘That’s not the right title!’ she said with anger. These ‘titles’ can bring about strong feelings, I think. Actually the one that does this the most is one used when I hear a conversation between Mummy and her friends or Mummy and Grandma. Usually even saying it means they make a face or whisper a bit and it’s when they say ‘That’ as the title of someone they don’t like. That Paula. That Sarah Smith. Also famous people: That Jordan.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I think I am just getting how these words work but I have to say that life is simpler without them. I am going to miss being non-verbal in a few months. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Seen the book? Take a look! </span><a href="http://lookingatyoubaby.com/" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">http://lookingatyoubaby.com/</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Twitter: @ericajbarlow</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; vertical-align: baseline;">Instagram: @ericajane_20 #lookingatyoubabydotcom</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; line-height: 2.016; vertical-align: baseline;">Facebook: Here's Looking At You, Baby </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby/" style="color: #888888; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 2.016; text-align: center; text-decoration: none;">https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby/</a></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03892150686959060142noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8548857257876100874.post-23898007289427829802016-06-07T03:37:00.000-07:002016-06-09T22:31:55.384-07:00#15 On Teaching Your Child Manners, Obedience, Decorum and StuffLikeThat<span id="docs-internal-guid-7e4b761b-14e8-4a8e-2d97-e1b3f935ea9c"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 26.496px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The US comedian Louis CK remarked that as a parent your main responsibilities are twofold:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 26.496px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> 1) To keep your kids alive</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 26.496px; white-space: pre-wrap;">2) To stop them from turning into dicks</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 26.496px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> At present, my priority with my baby daughter remains comfortably in the 1) camp. For my son, things expanded to include 2) between roughly the twelve and eighteen month mark. Please see below details of how it has been going.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 26.496px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Obtaining basic obedience, around twelve months or so, seemed like the obvious first step. It’s a simple matter of Pavlovian conditioning / aversion therapy, really: responding to your infant’s behaviours in such a way as to inform them which are desirable or not. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: "arial"; line-height: 26.496px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> But if you have read my previous posts you will likely have gathered that this issue is in fact far from simple. Suffice to say, Son has discovered something key here.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 26.496px; white-space: pre-wrap;">For instance, physically putting his bedwear on him is often a challenge. Now my move from slightly patient to frustrated / heavy-handed here is quite rapid, as usual, but his avoidance technique with the sleeping bag has attained an unusual level of brilliance such that in this I am truly schooled. If one of my hands is occupied with pulling the zip and the other pulling taut the fabric, I have none left with which to secure his lower legs and feet, even if I use my elbow to lean on his knees. I may manage to whip the zip closed down to his ankles but Son bucks, wriggles and chuckles, I struggle with the toes, push them in and yet one always pops free and forces itself, like a turgid little maggot, through a tiny hole at the bottom of the zip. Son cackles wickedly the whole time.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 26.496px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> If I could remain on point I would force back this toe whence it came, I would win, but I cannot because laughter has weakened me, reduced to jelly my tense limbs and my resolve. Son knows this; he has figured out that laughter creates a diversion. It is at this point that I reflect on the various comedians who said that they discovered their humour as a way to win over the bullies at school. A tool for subduing the oppressor it may be - and I grudgingly respect him for this - but it raises little hope in achieving more compliance. Ho hum.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 26.496px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> One thing has become clear at this point, though: with humour Son clearly knows how to read and - dare I say it? - manipulate an audience. This is actually a pretty high-order skill, involving inference and social perception. These are much harder to teach than basic obedience. What's more, he can maneuver with words as well as behaviour, and his soft spot for the fairer sex - and for cheesing his way around - really shines through here. Like some kind of dummy run, he has been known to call me 'm'luv' and 'swee-har'. He has even paid me unsolicited sartorial compliments: 'nice shoes, Mummy!' To top it all off recently, he greeted one of my mum-friends with 'Aloha'. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 26.496px; white-space: pre-wrap;">But couldn't this all be parrot repetition? Yes perhaps, but it is interesting / a little worrying that in his gendered choice of audience it still speaks volumes about the types of phrases he thinks get results with women. Well, at least in a really bad local nightclub, anyway.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 26.496px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> So it would be easy to think at this point that, fromage or not, we are the proud parents of a child who has a sense of empathy, charm and verbal dexterity beyond his tender years. But don't worry: as usual Son likes to keep us on our toes (or in other words, burst any bubbles of parental vanity as quickly as they may form). When we come to the issue of using basic verbal manners, again an employment of some much lower level Pavlovian stuff, we are met with roadblocks at every turn. Currently we are working on how Son requests things; typical exchanges work as follows:</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 26.496px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Son: I want more milk.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 26.496px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: We've talked about this. How do you ask nicely?</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 26.496px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Son: Please.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 26.496px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: No, come on, the whole sentence. Start with 'please could I...'</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 26.496px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Son: ...have more milk.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 26.496px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Me: No, you're meant to say the whole sentence. 'Please could I...' Say after me.</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 26.496px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Son: After me.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 26.496px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> No, really.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 26.496px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> In fact, so weary has Husband become of this exchange that he has developed a new, visual aid for etiquette-teaching. Instead of requests for 'the magic word', an 'I want' is followed by Son being stopped mid-sentence. Then, Husband's eyebrows and general face express disapproval and his index finger is pointed to the ceiling and spun around as if to suggest a 'rewind.' And it often seems to work, at least at the time. Following this, we will hear 'Daddeeee, please could I have x / y / z...' </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 26.496px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now, it does sound amusing because Son hams it up to the max. The exaggeratedly 'polite' pitch of the words dips and rises from falsetto to bass and back again like a slide whistle- think that funny sound on Dee-Lite's 'Groove is in the Heart'. Nonetheless, this technique succeeds so much so that I have started using it too.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 26.496px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> However.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 26.496px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Please think not for a moment that its use does not make us feel like bellends. I’ll just say it: many things we do or say as parents regularly make us cringe. Though as is also widely known, bellenderousness (bellenditude? Bellendery?) is often part of that humbling path that is being a parent. Anyone who doesn’t know that clearly is not a parent.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial";"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 26.496px; white-space: pre-wrap;">So all things considered, through all the lengths we go to and however demeaning, have we succeeded in Louis CK’s stage two? Are we successfully socialising our child? Well, with results so varied, it could be said that the situation is precarious at best. In many ways he is running before he can walk, yet that’s literally how his motor development went. It’s all very illogical but then, well, so are toddlers. </span></span><br />
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Seen the book? Take a look! </span><a href="http://lookingatyoubaby.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">http://lookingatyoubaby.com/</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); vertical-align: baseline;">Twitter: @ericajbarlow</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); vertical-align: baseline;">Instagram: @ericajane_20 #lookingatyoubabydotcom</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">Facebook: Here's Looking At You, Baby </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby/" style="line-height: 2.016; text-align: center; text-decoration: none;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline;">https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby/</span></a></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03892150686959060142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8548857257876100874.post-41809160959117130392016-05-25T01:21:00.003-07:002016-05-25T22:06:56.987-07:00#14 On Children in Cafés<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: xx-small;">Things were very different back then </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">As a waitress I thought children were the pits. It was as if they conducted their entire restaurant visit through a megaphone, which not only blasted out sound but also cold, squashed chips and splodges of purée. If we staff were lucky, we'd be treated to one or two pint-sized escapees nipping around our ankles as we tried to carry hot coffee across the floor, performing a high-level riverdance in which we were speedily to deliver said coffee, unspilled, and avoid said child.</span></span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-e4b12419-e6b8-a0ba-a664-a2032a72b3ba" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">But it was the parents who were really to blame, of course, and deserve our scorn. They'd show up en masse at the door, a horde of huge, creaking prams between them, smiling hopefully while darting their eyes about to see which area to commandeer completely . </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">We'd tut amongst ourselves, 'Where the **** is that pram gonna fit?'</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">'Is it necessary for table four to move all the chairs like that? It's not a sodding crèche.'</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">‘Changing facilities? We’re not McDonald’s, love.’</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I must make something clear at this point: my life was very different then, in my teens and early twenties, to that of Current Me. Now to be fair I did actually enjoy my work and give a crap about it, but the focus amongst us staff was still no doubt on chatting, flirting, lightly mocking the boss / clientele and getting to the end of a shift on ten espressos while nursing a dark hangover. </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So this was all back in the day, the same day when I used to curse people who brought babies on planes. Now, as karma would have it, I am often That Parent. My two-year-old son is not that quiet in cafes. He does not eat that tidily and he gets ants in his pants within two minutes of sitting down. Our pram takes up more space than I would like. And incidentally, yes, our toddler has screamed a plane down despite all our efforts to pacify him. My how times have changed.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Having my own babies has been like looking in a mirror at my former self, and every time I’ve been met with service that tuts or rolls eyes - however subtly - at accommodating my children, I think this. But even more than karma, I see mismanagement and a missed opportunity because, most cafes, </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">mums are your daytime demographic</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">*</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Toys and allocated space for the kids, most awesome as they are :) :), may not be possible in all venues but basically, make us feel welcome and we will come. And spend.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Or so we say.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Because there's another side to this issue. Yes, these days I understand much better what mumming involves and karma has bitten my ass many times. But I do think a lot of mums who have been waitresses understand what that involves too, whereas some maybe don’t or, if they once did, they have forgotten. Take the Mess Makers, for instance. I read recently on a baby website one mum’s comment: 'AIBU (am I being unreasonable) not to have tidied up after my kids in a cafe?' the mess in question being chips and pots of baby food being left all over everywhere.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Yes, YABU. This post brought back so many memories which still stick uneasily with me of parents as bad customers: leaving mounds of goo and baby wipe without any attempt to clean up; leaving everywhere bits of food bought and not bought at that establishment. Yes, yes, of course you sometimes have to bring food for your nipper - I’ve done it many times - but for any of the above, at least do that awkward British thing where you try to tidy it up, in the hope that the staff will come along and insist it’s fine. They generally do do this, and if they don’t, then maybe it’s a further case of mismanagement and all its trappings. </span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">‘But I’m a paying customer, I’m entitled to make mess’, many might cry. Well, yes they might but the torrent of negative YABU responses to the post above, in their bandying about of words such as ‘rude’, and indeed ‘entitled’ would, thankfully, suggest otherwise. </span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">OK, at least these people do pay and maybe there are worse out there. In fact I have seen them and those are The Occupiers. Of space and facilities, that is, as these individuals are not known to, you know, buy anything the venue is actually selling. I have seen, (sigh), entire groups of people where between roughly nine of them, babes crawling around, the works, about two coffees are purchased. And this phenomenon seems to happen come rain or shine, by the way; cheek and stinginess are not just foul-weather friends. And these venues exist to make a living, winter or summer.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">I know I’m not alone in my rant here. Inevitably, it’s a view shared by the venue proprietors and managers I know. But these and parents are not mutual exclusives. Many of these owners also have kids and, like many of us, can see both sides. </span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What's more, you don’t even need experience in this industry to ‘get’ what I’m saying; let’s not forget that the ‘AIBU’ post - and its shocked responses - were all found on the wall of a</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">parenting</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">website. Assuming that this is not somewhere non-parents prefer to come in their downtime, this speaks for itself. </span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">So how to conclude this? Establishments, you want our money; we want your coffee. Let’s make this work with some nice manners on both sides. </span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Venues: be nice to these people</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">Parents: don’t be cheaple. Or cheekle. (OK, enough now).</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">The end.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;">*Mums - and therefore females - happen to be the main demographic in my case, but I’m sure this extends to any parents</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Seen the book? Take a look! </span><a href="http://lookingatyoubaby.com/" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://lookingatyoubaby.com/</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Twitter: @ericajbarlow</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instagram: @ericajane_20 #lookingatyoubabydotcom</span></div>
<span style="color: black; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span style="background-color: #fff9ee; font-family: georgia; line-height: 31.68px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br style="background-color: #fff9ee; color: #222222; font-family: Cardo; line-height: 31.68px; white-space: normal;" /></span></span>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Facebook: Here's Looking At You, Baby </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby/" style="color: #888888; line-height: 2.016; text-align: center; text-decoration: none;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby/</span></a><span style="color: black; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03892150686959060142noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8548857257876100874.post-58514039351334930422016-05-13T01:09:00.003-07:002016-05-13T15:53:29.452-07:00#13 On The Lies We Need To Tell Children<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img height="480" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/wEoMERq_COypoO_-2RP1FzyYBEBTcr589baQiTYb0uuAwaFGgF9J5U4HkhZWD0PShdV8Ylrpc-2DzRKiFKQ8DdYhJmb5pKTD4OY02QlKztQ25IqDTBa9GoHqLDOCZOviyE_Iz9nX" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="446"></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-size: x-small; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Unbelievably, this does not exist</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">'Oh that's a shame, darling. See I'd love to buy you an ice cream, but when the van plays his tunes, it means there are no more left.'</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So goes the urban myth I heard about someone's mum and ice cream vans. In fact, I once quoted this story to a friend right after she'd told me, yanking on a stiff, scratchy jumper, that her mum claimed not to use fabric conditioner as it 'wrecked the fibres'.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Parents and their tall tales, eh, often used to save cash, time or effort somehow. Actually, now I have become a parent I have learned of various other motives for such small-child-deception.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">For instance, we have the idea of protecting children from a harsh truth. A moral motive, you might say. To this day I can remember getting all excited, at three years old, about seeing our cat one morning, curled up in the gutter by our driveway with his mouth fixed open in a yawn. In my preschool wisdom I just assumed him to be having a nice rest, kerbside, so I pointed to him and shouted to my dad.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Dad's response took me aback somewhat. 'Where? Oh... No, no, that's not Tim. Nope, definitely not.' </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And with that he sped me away to nursery.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I'd know that cat anywhere</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, I brooded silently. But everything became clearer that evening when I came out into the garden to see Dad gravely pat-pat-patting a fresh mound of earth with the back of a shovel.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Poor Timmy-boy. But Dad had been right, of course; my day thereafter might have been a bit off-kilter if I’d gone in knowing exactly what I'd seen: Tim laying there post-expiry of his membership to the Nine Lives Club.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So we see, shielding children from the truth can be a noble thing, sparing their delicate and innocent souls a nasty hardship. Let's be honest, though, we're more inclined to lie to them when they're just being little bastards. Take following basic commands. So often am I carrying Daughter or lots of shopping upstairs to our apartment and Son is simply refusing to follow suit. Despite my attempts to woo/ threaten him up there, he happily arses about in the stairwell, inconveniencing me and any passer-by.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So? 'Big spider on the landing' it is. And we live in Australia so we’re talking big-fuck-off-sweaty ones. When they’re real, of course.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I lurch upstairs with my heavy load, craning my neck up to the landing, ‘Ooh, better come quick, he’s moving, he’s running away. Quick!’</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s just as well, of course, that spiders - even big, sweaty ones - are shy creatures. This allows my hoax some plausibility, evident in Son’s disappointment when he finally arrives and sees no arachnid anywhere.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘Gone’, I tut. I also gently sigh. I might even ruffle his hair to hammer home the fake solidarity, before toeing him through the front door.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And it's not just spiders that disappear in our web of untruths; in our house inanimate objects- namely ones that I don't want sticky mitts on- vanish when 'sleeping':</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">'iPad sleeping'</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">'Daddy's phone sleeping'</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Hell, we even have 'Peppa Pig sleeping', which calls for an existential belief, if you will, that cartoon characters hit the sack when not being watched. Son seems OK with this, so that's great. I thank </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Toy Story</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> for weaving this idea into his tiny mind.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Another favourite fib is the 'follow your idol' fallacy. This time I use anyone Son looks up to and claim that they exhibit whatever behaviour I desire from him. Usually this is associated with trying to put something on him; clothes or the like.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">'Don't want to wear these? Oh but X wears these all the time! In fact yours are better ones.'</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">'Y always has his straps done up properly'</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">And don't think this is just confined to his junior peers:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">'I know you don't want to put your nappy on for bed. I know you normally wear big boy pants all day...' (inner monologue: oh shit, I'm running out of ideas)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A visiting Uncle P pops his head round the door. 'Hey, I wear a nappy for bed.'</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Shock passes over Son's face. 'Huh? Do you, Uncle P?'</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">'Every night! Love it.'</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Compliance ensues.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One day Son will learn about the necessity of evidencing one’s claims, but hopefully at the same time as learning perspective and maybe how wilful toddlers can be. Or let’s hope he may just have forgotten my porky pies altogether. In any case, they work now and I make no apology for them.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But perhaps fibbing to my daughter is a different story with a different motive still. The scene goes like this: she’s thirteen weeks old and I have, as usual, left her on the floor/ bed for long enough that she starts inconsiderately fussing or crying for actual human contact.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">So I feel urged to utter, in a silly singsong voice:</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘Mummy’s coming, I just need to finish my shower / the washing / the hoovering.’ (true)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">‘Be right with you.’ (untrue)</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Deep down, I know that I am fobbing off my non-verbal baby with pointless noises. I do not need compliance from her; I need reassurance for myself. I feel a bit bad.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "georgia"; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One thing’s for sure, though: at least she won’t remember these moments. I hope. And when she’s older, I have a plethora of ice-cream-van stories all ready to go.</span></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font face="georgia"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br></span></font></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font face="georgia"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br></span></font></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font face="georgia"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;">Erica</span></font></div><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.7999999999999998; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><font face="georgia"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br></span></font>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Seen the book? Take a look! </span><a href="http://lookingatyoubaby.com/" style="color: #888888; text-decoration: none;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">http://lookingatyoubaby.com/</span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Twitter: @ericajbarlow</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Instagram: @ericajane_20 #lookingatyoubabydotcom</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', serif;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Facebook: Here's Looking At You, Baby </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby/" style="color: #888888; line-height: 2.016; text-align: center; text-decoration: none;"><span style="vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">https://www.facebook.com/lookingatyoubaby/</span></a><span style="color: black; text-align: center; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span></span></div>
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