A few blogs and ten months ago, Darth Baby entered the lives
of Emergency Contact and me. That’s my excuse for the break in posting blogs, but
as far as reasons go I think that one’s a cracker.
When a Small One waddles into your life, venting your spleen
to an anonymous audience in the shape of a blog sort of takes a back seat - one
with an Australian accredited five-point harness.
EC is now back at work and I’m Mr Mum for three months. I
have the following advice and observations to offer other parents.
Things Learnt in Week
1 (Only 11 to go):
It takes a village.
Unfortunately.
I have made every effort for the last few decades to remove
myself from the odours and opinions of other people. I drive to work alone. I
park in my parking space. I work only with people I know and respect, and then
I drive home to the safety of the compound. Now I am assaulted with the asinine
opinions and strange olfactory offerings of every pin-head and… and… commoner who cares to poke their face
into that of my child’s. You know the saying - It takes a village to raise a
child. It’s true and I would like to add that the village sux. Once you leave
the confines of the house, everything about the kid is so freakin’ communal!
The swimming leasons. The libraries. The shops. The toilets. Fine for him, he
loves a crowd. Not so good for Dad who has met the crowd in its various
manifestations and knows exactly how dumb the crowd can be.
You can stop your
child from chewing things you don’t want them to chew by terrifying them.
EC and I have a pretty old-fashioned and therefore pretty
modern view of disinfecting (what goes around comes around. Particularly with
bacteria). Once the kid can crawl, most bets are off. We don’t let him chew the
thongs that have been on my feet while I’ve been at the urinal at the local
club, but we can’t and don’t stop him eating the “floor toast”.
Darth Baby (DB – 15 months old) likes to chew the plastic
covering on the safety chain while he’s having a swing in the park. There are
life forms I can’t identify living in that particular plastic sleeve covering
the seatbelt chain. I couldn’t convince him to stop, whether through a failure
in rhetoric or credibility, but I have found that if you push the swing high
enough, he gets so scared he will just hang on and not chew anything. I don’t
think he can even see anything with his eyes that tightly shut. Win.
Children have a
strange grasp of history.
DB and I built “Baby’s First Kursk Submarine” with Duplo. As
much as I am sure the Soviets had some pretty interesting ways of ensuring
their crews were fed, I’m not sure they actually had live chickens on board.
Maybe DB knows better than me. He certainly seemed pretty insistent about the
Duplo chicken. It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing I’ve heard about how the
Russkies kept competitive during the Cold War. For posterity though, I’m pretty
certain they didn’t allow cows on the bridge.
Re-enactment-wise, Darth Baby was bang on. When the Duplo
hull split, there was screaming and saliva and lots of lying down and kicking.
Tips for the novice “In
the Night Garden” Hunter.
I would like it recorded that if the camera stays low, you are
catching the Ninkynonk. If the camera starts to pan up, you are trying to catch
the Pinkyponk. Isn’t that a pip?
For those who don’t understand, don’t worry. For those that
do… am I right? Huh?
