The End

Dear Arthur (wee man),

For the past year I have chronicled on a daily basis what you and I have done and what we have experienced together. Unfortunately, all things must come to and end, though of course this is not the end of us as a little tag team duo, it's just the end of another stage in life, there will be more to come from us.

Not many dads get to do what I've done and I know it is because of the past year that we now have such a great bond. I also realise that we haven't always been friends and your special kind of madness has on occasion driven me up the wall to the point where I want to sell you.

However I can't deny that watching you grow from a baby who couldn't crawl to a boy who can scale anything in front of him has been a pleasure and a joy and I would do it all again if I could. It has perhaps been the best year of my life and I now know that my greatest achievement in life is you and let's be honest, keeping you alive.

I can honestly say that I was scared of you for six months and if I hadn't have had this time with you I probably would still be terrified but we now know each other incredibly well and I'm very proud of the little boy you're growing into, even if you can be hard work sometimes.

You probably won't remember any of what we have done this year which is why I have written this blog and why it will always be available for you if you want a bit of a laugh or if you need some comfort in the future.

I hope later on in life you can look back through this blog with fondness and I hope I haven't messed you up too much.

Just remember:

In the end
The love you take
Is equal to the love you make.


Much Love,

Dad

The Penultimate Post

Well folks, we're nearly there. Tomorrow will see the end of One Man and a Wee Bairn after writing a post everyday for a year. And let me tell you it has been one hard commitment especially because with the wee man being so mental and also having the weekly commitment of writing for Baby Centre. On the one hand it will be sad to leave it behind but on the other it will be bliss not to have to come up with something to say everyday.

So how do you think I have commemorated such an important weekend? Well I've laid a floor. If you're a regular reader of the blog you will know I'm not massively DIY minded and people generally take the piss out of me for my attempts at things. However the floor is AMAZING and I have dispelled all my detractors with my diligence and dedication to the job.

There might have been a lot of swearing and throwing of things but after six hours of work I managed to finish it. Even The Chancellor was impressed by my endeavors and Funny Mummy has given me the great idea of starting a new blog called DIY Daddy. However there will be no more blogging for a while, maybe when the new baby is here but for now I have too many other things to do and sort.

Tomorrow there will be something a little different here so for now let me say a big thank you to all of you who have read One Man the past year. Your support is what has made me continue and if wasn't for your shares, likes, comments and votes during blogging competitions I wouldn't still be writing this and I wouldn't have made a name for myself in the blogging world.

On Abbey Road the final track is called The End and this post is the final one dedicated to you the readers. Though if you know the Beatles you know there is one little thing at the end of the record...

jpr

The Life Aquatic

It seems appropriate that one of the last posts on this blog is about the same thing the first one was on, swimming. http://onemanandaweebairn.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/my-son-will-win-gold-medal-swimming.html. It's been a year or so since we begun and huzzah the wee man hasn't sh*t in the pool once in that time! If I take one thing away from our time swimming it will be this and only this seeing as I've heard there is a considerable fine if the pool needs to be closed and cleaned.

Anyway the wee man has always enjoyed his aquatic time and now has now graduated along with Funny Mummy and Daddy's son to the amazing heights of armbands. "WOW!" I hear you say. Anyway this means that I don't have to put in as much effort in holding him up and can drift off and relax in a warm pool while the wee man only just keeps his head above water. Everyone's a winner.

One problem though with the wee man is that he spends most of his time trying to get out of the pool. This wasn't too good a couple of moths ago when he did get out at a community pool, run off and slip on the side giving himself a nose bleed. In the pool we go to on a Friday there is quite a drop off the side down to the floor so if he got out he would get more than just a nosebleed. No one's a winner.

It seems bizarre to think that first post I wrote on swimming was a year ago and with only two more posts to go until the end of One Man I'm starting to get a little sad about ending this here blog. Tomorrow will be the final 'proper' post and Sunday there will be something a little different. Until tomorrow...    

jpr



 

 

The Face

So we had our 20 week scan today and yesterday I joked that babies generally looked pretty creepy at their scans. But I was eerily right as it looked from one angle for there to be some terrifying super villain hiding in The Chancellor's womb.

Seriously, just look at the picture. Can you not see the creepy eye and the weird pattern on the head. What have we created? It's going to be born, age really quickly and smother the world in evil killing everyone. And you know whose going to get the blame for this happening? Me.

People will say, "If only you hadn't had moaned so much and been so bloody miserable then your evil child wouldn't be wanting to kill us all and feast on our organs." I'm sorry in advanced for not being able to stop my second child but the chances are I will be dead along with the rest of you so there's not much I could have done.The more I look at this picture the more freaked out I get about what's growing.

Have you ever seen one of those films where the woman is carrying a devil child and you can see the claws from under the skin? THAT. You're probably thinking "what films has he been watching?" but they do exist and I'm sure having watched American Horror Story recently there is a similar thing in that too.

Anyway despite the weird face the 'baby' is doing OK and now it's just a matter of waiting until the day when all the madness starts again and the evil overlord arrives.

jpr

20 Weeks Gone

Five posts to go until the end of an era. However I don't really have time to ponder this too much as life happens to have a way of keeping us all very busy. Tomorrow we have our 20 week scan, which is insane as haven't we just found out we're pregnant? Anyway I guess time is relative. This is what happens when you already have a toddler to look after. 

With the wee man we looked almost everyday at websites like Baby Centre but this time we have done it maybe once or twice. We were also, for some bizarre reason, desperate for him to arrive but this time I want the child to stay in doors for as long as possible. I'm not sure i'm going to be getting my wish here.

The wee man's 20 week scan seems like only five minutes ago but in fact it was over two years ago. In true wee man spirit he needed cajoling for us to get a good shot of him. The Chancellor was required to do star jumps in the waiting room but still this wasn't enough for the wee man to turn around and get out of the corner he was hiding in. Tomorrow I hope for better from my second child and they will need to know that any nice thing they do for me will result in me liking them more. That is unless the wee man pulls something impressive out of the bag like talking in sentences.

The wee man also looked more like the alien for the film Alien in his 20 week scan, all I can remember is his spine and thinking 'wow that's creepy'. It's weird what your mind sees in things isn't it? We are still in two minds whether to find out the sex tomorrow of child number two. I would like to but The Chancellor wants to keep it a secret. I wonder who is going to win that argument...We didn't find out last time with the wee man and that's one reason why I would quite like to know tomorrow. Either way I might, if you're lucky, post a picture here tomorrow.

Wish us luck and I hope we're not having another alien child...

jpr

  

Messy Liberation

Today we welcome back the very excellent Olivia Flint for the final ever guest blog on One Man and a Wee Bairn. Do you mind having a messy child?

As anyone who's spent any time with me will tell you, I find it hard to cope with mess. I like things to be clean and tidy. This applies to hanging out with children as well. I'll be constantly wiping hands and faces, continuously clearing up and keeping things as tidy as I can. I'm happy to get toys out and be messy, but I like ordered mess so I'll tend to encourage tidying up after each game before we get the next toys out; limited mess is better than uncontrolled mess.

I really appreciated my best friend (and sister-in-law) picking me up on this a couple of weeks ago. Her 3 year old son was eating a yoghurt and every time he put the spoon up to his mouth, a bit dripped onto his t-shirt. I've seen this happen with cereal and ice cream as well, and I mentioned that she might want to let him know that he was making a mess, or put a bib on him. Her response was very refreshing, "It's OK, it's got to go in the wash anyway, I want to encourage him to be a child."

Since then, I've noticed how messy children are and how they don't care. They just eat however they want to eat, they fall over, they jump in puddles, they get mucky and they drip raspberry juice, as in this picture:

Obviously, children aren't responsible for cleaning so they don't have a reason to mind, but even as someone who has to wash my clothes, I think I can learn a lot from them. I think it's liberating to sometimes eat a yoghurt without wiping the bottom of the spoon over the edge of the pot before putting it up to your mouth, or to go cycling in the pouring rain through puddles and mud and not worry about what's happening to your clothes.

You don't want to be the adult walking around with ice cream stains all over your t-shirt but I think cleaning a child's hand as soon as it gets dirty makes them more aware of it not being clean and then they want to be super clean all the time. I would imagine this leads to them being quite uptight as an adult and having a heightened awareness of not being clean. This in turn could cause things like not being able to shower when camping to become quite stressful.

I think it could help me have a more relaxed attitude to mess if I took a leaf out of a child's book and just let myself go when it comes to mess sometimes; not being tied to having to constantly clean and tidy up sounds quite liberating to me.

Farewell Baby Centre

First off today a farewell to Baby Centre. I've decided that there are too many things going on at the moment and I have no extra to write blog any blogs. See I can't even write a sentence properly. A new house, a new job and a new child makes life pretty hectic. With One Man finishing in a week it's going to be nice to have free space in my head.

For the past 11 months I've written a post every week for Baby Centre and for the most part I've enjoyed the experience. I have though noticed a drop in standards of my own blogs recently and I feel that I really need a break from all this blogging lark. So thank you to my editors and fellow bloggers I will continue to read your posts and comment if I feel the need to rant. Also thank you for taking the time to read and comment and for voting for me during the initial competition. If you want to read any of the posts I've written just go here http://www.baby.co.uk/author/jrobinson/.

In other news the wee man's first night in his new bed was a success. He woke up once at half eleven and I went in to find him half asleep on his knees on the floor. How he had made it into that position is a little confusing but he went back down without any bother and slept until eight this morning. One night though doesn't make a lifetime and I will worry every night until he's at least 18. He does seem to enjoy his bed and spent a good while today just sitting reading his Thomas books with his back up against the headboard. Can I say it's going well?

So this time next week you might be reading the final post here at One Man. It's feels a little sad to imagine an end but to an end this blog must come, until the next one that it...

jpr
 

Oh No

Something happened this afternoon that has caused us all sorts of stress. The wee man finally turfed himself out of his cot which had been on its lowest setting. He hadn't really tried this in the past but it didn't take him long to realise how to flip himself out. Now he has a proper cot bed and we're dreading tonight and subsequent nights. I thought we had more time...

He is very good at going to bed normally but now there is the added distraction of all the toys in his room which are easily accessible. I can imagine him putting him to bed and suddenly he's playing with his truck or even appearing at the living room door. Did you watch that show Bedtime Live? Well I bet we'll be on that the next series, oh God what are we going to do? Not only are we having another child, we're moving house and we now have a toddler boy in his own bed who isn't going to sleep! I'm running away, that's it, nothing else for it.

We've just introduced the wee man to his new bed and he spent ten minutes jumping up and down and then he got down very quickly and ran off. This is what tonight will be and tomorrow night and the next and the next and the next and the next....

How we have reached this stage is beyond me and he is now one of two of his friends to be in a bed so it's new ground for everyone. Will we make it through the night?

jpr  

The Golden Days Revisited

This weekend has been much like last weekend and for that matter all the weekends I can remember. I've painted, I tried to get some time to myself which has invariably become family time and I've sat late in the afternoon wondering where the time has gone. But this is life, no?

I used to look like this (insert arrow pointing left here). I found this picture today while taking down some shelves so I could paint. It's been a long time since I've seen this. I don't know why it's important but it made me think back to a decade or so ago when life was full of promise and I had great hair. Don't I look youthful and full of life? Pretty, non?

This picture was taken during the 'hippy years' but I can't remember too much of that time, obviously because they were the 'hippy years' (you see what I mean). It's incredible though that one moment you've got long hair and you're listening to psychedelic jazz and the next you're picking up pasta off the floor while your son thinks it's fun to clamber onto your back and stick his thumbs in your ears. This is what he likes to do now as well as poking stuff in his eyes. It happens often when he's on my shoulders and I suddenly feel his thumbs slowly making their way into my ears. Tell that fresh faced lad up there this would be happening and he would probably run off to Japan (like I planned) and never come back. What happened?

I dare say the wee man will turn into this liberal hippy douche bag, I freely admit I was a bit douchey at the time but I go back to the point that I had great hair and a brilliant array of music t-shirts. One day, and I won't even notice how much time has flown, he will come in looking like this and I'll probably laugh, that it until I see this picture again...

jpr

The Chancellor, The Invalid

Today I have an immobile Chancellor with me along with a boy whose new favourite thing to do is poke his own eyes and giggle. The Chancellor pulled a muscle in her back and it's so bad she couldn't eat her breakfast this morning and therefore couldn't go to work so I've been taking care of her. As she's pregnant she can't take any drugs so she just whinges at me...all the time. Also she doesn't often take the day off through illness as she's a slave to a spotless record so her back must bad. As for the wee man and his ocular past times, don't ask, he's just weird.

I did feel sorry for him this morning, as at our Friday playgroup he got so excited by the bouncy castle that he launched himself off landing on his neck pretty hard then not long after he slipped on the floor while running and smacked his head hard on the ground. All this in the first five minutes so he wasn't interested in having fun after all this, to be fair I wouldn't be.

We didn't stay long but also I had to get back to make sure The Chancellor hadn't fallen over and run aground on the floor. Let's just say she's finding it hard to get off her back at the moment and yes there is an element of comedy about her struggling like a turtle upside down on the floor...even if she doesn't see the comedy herself...That's me dead tonight. Anyway hopefully the heat pads I bought her will keep the chatter down tonight.

Getting the wee man to stop poking his eyes might be a much harder task, as he seems to really enjoy doing it.Why? Who knows as he is totally mental. Though he has done weirder things but I won't tell you what they are as they're gross...

jpr
 

Is The Wee Man A Miniature Version Of Me?

I have just been passed a rudimentary doodle from The Chancellor claiming that the wee man and I are 'both exactly the same' (apologies for the fact that the picture is on its side). This is not true in the slightest bit true and here are a list of reasons why.

1. He's mental, I am not.
2. He likes to leap off footstools, I do not.
3. He eats woodlice, I do not.
4. He likes to throw rocks into drains and into overflow piping, I do not.
5. He tantrums A LOT, I only tantrum every now and again
6. He sleeps with a rabbit, I suck my thumb (but don't tell anyone).
7. He likes throwing things, I don't like picking them up.
8. I like a quiet life, he does not.
9. I like day dreaming, he stays awake now during the day.
10. I like sitting quietly in a coffee shop, he like sitting throwing things in a coffee shop.
11. I like a good walk, he would prefer to be carried on my shoulders leading to a small if slightly significant recurring pain in my neck.
12. I like sleep, it took him over a year to get him over onto my team.

There you go, what more proof do you want?

jpr

The Wee Man, The Baker

Wednesday wouldn't be Wednesday without a Baby Centre blog. This week the topic is discipline. Have you ever used a naughty step or a naughty corner or have you used smacking as a means of telling your child they did something wrong? http://www.baby.co.uk/mum_stories/is-smacking-a-good-way-to-discipline-a-toddler/ is where it's at this week so why not pop over there and have a look.

As for today you'll be pleased to know that my man flu has gone from critical to stable but I tell you it was touch and go for a while there. Luckily the past four days the wee man has been sleeping from 6:30pm to 9am which means I can have a little snooze and wake up naturally. Bliss. Sorry to those of you whose children are up considerably earlier but seeing as in less than five months I won't be sleeping at all I'm entitled to be smug about his sleeping habits at the moment. I need to get as much sleep as possible at the moment. Why the wee man has been sleeping longer is anyone's guess and how long it will last is another million dollar question but I intend to enjoy it while it lasts. I bet now I've told you this tonight he will be up and then again at some dreadful early hour tomorrow morning.

The downside to him getting up so late is that he's stopped napping and that precious two hour window of peace I used to get is now gone, I now have more time to fill with him. 'So why not do some baking?' I thought to myself foolishly and we set about making some biscuits and shortbread, alas I overcooked the latter because the book I was using was written in the days before fan ovens existed so I was left with a burnt mess. The biscuits were a winner especially for the wee man as the contained chocolate chips. It was all going well until the wee man decided to tip half a bag of flour all over himself. It might be some time before we try that one again.

jpr

 

Man Flu Part 2

I've been crippled today with man flu. Though the lack of sympathy is startling, Funny Mummy calling me a 'Big girl' this morning because of my no show at our regular Baltic playgroup. The Chancellor on the other hand has been much nicer, finishing work early and bringing me mint tea. Oh she's a keeper is The Chancellor. The wee man doesn't really care I'm greatly impaired as he just continues to ride his firetruck over my head repeatedly, what a loving son.

But it doesn't matter how ill you are there is still a boy to look after and walk twice a day. So I sucked in my belly, wrapped myself up in my winter woollies (despite it being 20 odd degrees) and took him off to run along a beach for half an hour. In the end it was all too much for my weary muscles to take and back home we came. Luckily for everyone concerned The Chancellor was not far behind me. She then had to put with me moaning for a long while about how rubbish I feel. But don't worry fair readers I will be back to my best hopefully tomorrow after a rest and some Night Nurse, which by the way is the most amazing stuff in the world.

So it's chicken noodle soup and dried toast for me tonight followed by an early night to shiver under the duvet. I am of course not the kind of chap who over exaggerates things at all and pain in genuine. There must be a study conducted to find out why man flu is much worse than all other strains of flu. It's crippling.

I can barely stay sitting up and need to go and get under my lovely pink rug. I'll see you tomorrow, that's if I make it through the night...

jpr  

The Wee Man, The Roman

With the sun having returned to our lives again and it being bank holiday Monday The Chancellor decided that we should go out and have some super duper family fun time. So instead of going to the beach as we normally do we went inland along Hadrian's Wall to a place called Chesters. If you don't know the north of England so well, it's the ruins of a Roman fort. What remains is sort of a stone adventure playground set in an idyllic location.

Apart from possibly smashing his head off a large slab of stone and bleeding to death in the middle of nowhere it's a fairly safe place for him and once you get that fear out of your head it's pretty good fun. He did more running around and climbing in the hour and bit we were there than he has done all weekend. I too under the warm sun haven't done so much exercise in a while and the sweat pouring down my face was testament to that. Next time we do anything along the lines of super duper family fun it's going to be less strenuous.

In other news today The Chancellor has written an A4 sized timetable of things we need to do before we try and sell our flat next month. In brackets after every job is one of our names and 90% of the jobs have my name after it, I think I got the short end of the stick there. My weekends have been organised for me and there is nothing on list that is fun. Good times.

jpr

Thomas

Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye, with fifteen blogs to go until the possible/probable end of the line for One Man, life doesn't get more weird than the wee man kicking over a pantyliner display in a supermarket. Why? Who knows but it's safe to say he didn't do it because he was so excited by the super absorption power of the pads. After yesterday's barbecue debacle we were looking for a better day and guess what we didn't get it. I won't bore you with the details as I've told you enough times this past year of the troubles he gets into.

Instead of the negatives there are some fun thing about being a parent. I'm a sucker for buying him things. My local shop often has an excellent range of children's magazines and they are lovely and brightly coloured and affixed with ace toys and right next to the checkouts. I'm sold.

I was close to buying the Octonauts magazine today as it came with an amazing Octonaut's belt for me but I chose the sensible option instead. The winner was the Thomas The Tank Engine magazine but this isn't a bad thing as it did come with with a couple of trains which I've been playing with now for most of the evening. Ace.

His little face lights up when I come home with one of these magazines and seeing as it takes me about a week to read a Saturday newspaper why not just fill my reading time with a Thomas magazine. He probably recognises Thomas more than me now as the only thing he wants to watch and read about is Thomas. He's not the only one I know, a couple of his friends have caught the Thomas bug too and I can see why. I do like a good train too!

jpr

The Wee Man, The Tasmanian Devil

After painting for nearly six hours I’m not sure how sane I’m going to be. But it does mean another room is sorted before we put the flat on the market. The Chancellor has been taking care of the wee man as I painted but she hasn’t had the best of days with him.

She took him to a barbecue at a friend’s place but because he hadn’t napped he went a bit mad and ultimately had a bit of a meltdown. She fell into the dangerous trap, on her return home, of thinking that the wee man was the only rubbish child there and she was the worst parent in the world, as all the other children were behaving. I told her that I’m sure all the other children will have had their moments and no child is perfect. And anyone who says their child is perfect isn’t worth the time of day and should be punched in the nose. If she's a rubbish parent then God knows what I am because surely I'm responsible for most of what he does.

But it’s an awful thing if your child is the only one who’s causing bother and I know more than most the feeling when everyone is trying to pretend they can’t hear anything when the wee man is having a meltdown. I’ve also been in the situation where the wee man has been amazing and it’s another child who’s being difficult and I’m always thankful that the children are sharing the tantrums. It gets a bit tedious when it’s always the wee man.

All you want to, at these social functions, is to relax and enjoy it but I can't remember the last time either of us were relaxed at one of these things. Because of the child he is we're always on the look out to see what he's up to and we can never trust him in a room by himself. Maybe when he's twenty or something he might have calmed down but we've got a long way to go until that.

Anyway The Chancellor going out tonight so she can just forget about it all but unfortunately she can’t drink away her sorrows. Shame. 

jpr

Hack, Hack,Hack

Hack, hack, hack. Hack, hack, hack. Hack, hack, hack. The wee man's been on the Marlboro reds again and from personal experience I know they can make you sound rough. Not as rough though as some Cuban filterless cigarettes that I once smoked, they were something else and aged me about twenty years.

Anyway, he has developed one of those coughs that makes you want to reach down is throat and pull out all the mucus sitting on his lungs just so he stops making the horrible noise. I tried four times to nap him today and each time he slept for five minuted before hacking and hacking and waking himself up and then shouting at me that he was awake. Poor lad.

I even kept him away from his playgroup this morning as the parents would throttle me if their little ones got the wee man has, I wouldn't be welcome ever again. So we've been making our own entertainment today and luckily with The Chancellor taking a half day I haven't had to suffer too long with him. We did go to a chain of hardware stores where we spent a lot of money on paint and vinyl tiles for the bathroom floor. And because The Chancellor has the tenuous excuse of being pregnant I have to paint two large rooms and floor a bathroom over the bank holiday weekend.

The wee man didn't take too kindly to being ill and made to trawl around while we argued over the colour of our new bathroom tiles. Either he was really pissed off with life or he had seen something that was over priced and wanted to tell us because he a small meltdown near the lighting section. The joys of parenting.

Once we were home he had another meltdown because I wouldn't let him play with the tiles and the Stanley knife. Trying to teach a toddler the concept of danger is never going to work, he would though probably cut tiles better than me anyway and even if he did muck up The Chancellor would never shout at him whereas she would hit me with a mallet. The joys of marriage.


jpr

A Fuss Over Nothing?

A week or so ago I wrote a blog about the gender segregation of toys. This blog it turned out got some people talking. Today's blog here on One Man is a guest blog from one of my readers Caroline Flint who has written an excellent rebuttal of my views. Please read it as it's very well written and very interesting. Over to you Caroline...

I have been thinking a lot recently about the issue of toy segregation by gender. It is becoming increasingly blatant as you walk into shops that there is a major divide and the only thing missing is a big pink arrow pointing to one side of the shop, and a blue one to the other. The toy manufacturing powers-that-be have decided in their wisdom what our children should be playing with and have colour-coded the packaging accordingly. That’s why I was particularly interested to see one of my favourite bloggers tackling the same issue. He said in his blog that the best way to take a stand against the sexist marketing of toys is to rise above it. To, as parents, just choose whatever toys we feel our children would enjoy regardless of the section of the shop they are to be found in. I whole heartedly agree with this second point. We should choose what we feel is right for our kids but I completely disagree that this debate is a fuss over nothing and we should do nothing more but rise above it all. I think now more than ever we owe it to our children to do the exact opposite. To tackle this issue head on and stand up to be counted.

           

In his blog, my blogger friend suggests that “If you want your daughter to grow up thinking there’s more to life than combing her hair with a sparkling hairbrush for the benefit of Prince Charming, then you’ll need to buy more imaginative toys.” I totally agree and will, without a doubt, be teaching my daughter that there are plenty of other toys for her to play with other than ‘My first make-up bag’. She is only 6 months but already she is getting involved and interested in a wide range of toys. My older son also has a huge variety in his toy box including musical instruments, trucks, dinosaurs and his fair share of dolls and prams. But this is only the very first step. I believe myself to be a conscientious parent who is aware of these issues and keen to make sure both my children play with whatever they like. But having made sure the toys within my home are unisex I can’t help thinking that the danger of toy segregation is not really about whether parents are brave enough to let their boys play with dolls or their girls play with trucks. The danger is that children who ‘cross the divide’ may be made to feel uneasy or unhappy for not fitting into the ridiculous stereotypes laid down by toy manufacturers. Will my daughter be made to feel like she’s not a ‘true girl’ if she opts for normal lego and not that hideous pink stuff that has just been brought out? Or if she prefers fire engines to tea sets? Will my boy be teased because he enjoys looking after a baby doll (like Mummy looking after his baby sister) because he has chosen to play that today instead of with a truck? And where does that lead next? Will my little girl start to believe that she has to aspire to be a pretty princess when she’s older instead of a doctor because the doctor’s coats are in the boy’s section in the dressing up aisle (as is the case in a major supermarket). I can rise above what the toy manufacturers are telling me, but the suggestion so far is that our society as a whole cannot. Children are still being put into these ‘pink and blue’ boxes and it can be hugely damaging for them. I certainly have many friends who, as children, felt outcast simply because they did not want to play with the toys that had been assigned to their gender. That’s a lot for a child to deal with!

And let’s just dip for a moment into the issue of sexism and the way women are viewed in the world. Women are still being objectified and mistreated the world over. The battle for gender equality is an incredibly urgent and vital one and we all know there is a long way to go until men and women are truly equal.  So how on earth can I, as a Mum, sit back and accept toys that make girls believe that their main aim in life is to look pretty above anything else? As a little girl this might just be a sparkly hairbrush and a plastic lipstick but where does that lead as she gets older? What do these damaging toys teach her about her self-worth, appearance and aspirations?  Will these toys help our girls to grow up to be the strong, individual, intelligent, brave women we need them to be? And will they help our boys to view them in that way? Or will the boys go into adulthood believing that the adventures and professional careers are reserved only for them, whilst the girls are off doing their make-up somewhere?

My best friend recently saw two lunchboxes for sale in a supermarket. The one marketed at the boys was all about adventures and heroes and saving the world. The girls’ one simply said “Do I look pretty?” Of course I won’t be buying that for my daughter. That’s my prerogative as her Mum. But actually, I don’t even want that on the shop shelves. I don’t want her to see that and think that saving the world is a job for her brother while she stares at herself in the mirror. And that’s my prerogative as a woman.

So there you have it. I will continue to do what I can to make sure that I watch my children carefully and allow them to play with things that interest them and spark their imagination, creativity, skills and talents. Whatever they enjoy will be welcome. But my argument is that I believe the issue goes beyond our front doors. It is our duty to try and turn around the potentially negative messages that toy segregation might give them - that they are somehow inadequate if they don’t conform or that they are accepting some potentially dangerously stereotypes if they do. I don’t want that kind of thing hanging over their childhood. Our shops need to help parents reinforce that they can be whoever they want to be and play with whatever they want to play with. That their childhood is free and open to them and can then lead into happy, healthy, fulfilled adult lives where all are equal.  It’s about time we stopped accepting this and started to make a fuss.

If You Go Down To The Woods Today...

Top of the day to you all. As it's Wednesday there's a Baby Centre blog for you. http://www.baby.co.uk/mum_stories/the-frustrations-of-toddler-talking/. This one isn't quite as contentious as last week's but still an interesting topic none-the-less. Read it or else...

So on to day today and if you go down to the woods today you're going to be pretty shocked by how many people are there. Today I went, with Funny Mummy and Funny Daddy, to a teddy bear's picnic in a woodland park down the road and by Jove it was busy. And to quote Funny Daddy who was quoting Sartre "Hell is other people". Indeed this is somewhat true especially in such a confined area and in school holidays.

But there was enough to do so that you didn't feel too hemmed in. The wee man and his little friend got to ride a merry-go-round but alas because the man in charge of the cup ride was such a meanie we weren't allowed on the cup ride. Well the wee man was allowed by himself but more than likely he would be the child who would stand up and try to jump out while the ride was in motion. And that wouldn't be a conversation I would want to have with The Chancellor.

The thing though that really stood out today was the amount of toddlers, of both sexes, who had pierced ears. Did I miss a toddler fad? Am I a bad parent for not keeping up with junior trends? I'm not sure but to honest the last thing I'm going to do is take the wee man off and have a bit of metal fired into his ear. I wouldn't want to be around when The Chancellor got home to find that this had happened. Anyway the whole thing's a bit daft really and the kids looks pretty ridiculous especially the very small boys. Poor mites. I would had a word but the mums were all pretty scary and I wouldn't have come out alive.

At the end of the day the wee man had so much fun it took him ten seconds before he was asleep in the car and I could eat the rest of his lunch and drink his drink from his sippy cup in an ASDA car park. Living the dream.

jpr

EMERGENCY! EVACUATE!!!!!

You know it's been a slow day when the most exciting thing in your day is being evacuated from a contemporary art gallery with a voice shouting "THERE'S AN EMERGENCY! GET OUT NOW OR YOU'LL DIE IN A FIERY FURNACE OF DOOM AND CONTEMPORARY ART!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

OK I'm paraphrasing a little but it went something like that. At our regular Tuesday group at The Baltic the siren went off and a voice not quite as threatening as the one above told us to leave. I'm guessing someone left the toast unattended. It's quite something trying to get a room full of parents and toddlers to leave without being able to use pushchairs or panic. I felt very sorry for the mum of two who was told she wasn't allowed to use the lift and therefore not be able use her pushchair. She had to battle her way down a few flights of stairs with her two kids one of whom was very young indeed.

Once outside it was even harder to entertain these children on the side of the road. There were quite a few tears as we stood at the back of the place. The wee man himself just seemed quite happy to sit on my shoulders and shout at cars and buses as they went past.

Luckily for all we were allowed back in before they stopped serving their full English breakfasts. A strongly worded note would have been written it this hadn't had happened I tell you. Despite being close to missing out of good food it was all quite exciting but that probably says more about me and my life right now. Mundane I guess for everyone else...

jpr