(no subject)

[ailbhe]

On Friday morning, I think, the Health Visitor came to do what used to be a two-year-old development check. They don't do those any more because they weren't useful; children with developmental issues are in general pretty obvious, and bright children often refuse to play along anyway, so it's much more helpful to ask the parent if they're worried, usually. Anyway, instead of development checks, they now do a Family Health Assessment, where they ask about the whole family. They do one of these antenatally, and one when the child is two years old, so this was Linnea's two-year one and the tadpole's antenatal one.

She asked about all our health - mental and physical - and listened while a little dam burst. Apparently I'm not even nearly a little bit as over the whole birth trauma thing as I like to pretend I am. It was established within, ooh, three minutes that Linnea's developing "normally" (there are two things measured - normal and delayed) and that we are good parents. She asked how I felt about being a parent.

I said I like it, I'm exhausted, but I enjoy it and I'm good at it. I know I'm good at it because Linnea is a good parent to her toys. She's a lovely parent to her toys, actually - she loves them and cuddles them and tells them off gently and walks them and dances with them and puts them to sleep and feeds them lunch and wipes their boppings (bottoms) and all sorts.

It's like a little progress report. When she's nasty to her toys I will know to examine what I've been doing. The Health Visitor thinks this is an entirely reasonable way to go about things, and also that Home Educating is a very sensible thing to do, though she suggests I look into a state nursery to give myself a bit of a rest. I will call the Children's Information Centre sometime soon and see about getting Linnea's name down for somewhere - or two somewheres - in case when she turns three I decide I do need a morning off every week. HV says it's not necessary to send her every day or anything like that.

---

So on Saturday Rob went to London, and I cycled into the Farmer's Market, where I joined the Reading Cycle Campaign, and then to the park with Louis, and then into town where Linnea "acted up" in the rain. Eventually I got her a raincoat and we settled down a bit, and Rob came back from London and met us, and he took her to the Early Learning Centre to play while I sat in a cafe and drank coffee and ate a cookie. Why, can anyone tell me, are cookies in the kind of cafe that has peculiar names for drinks sizes about the size of a normal saucer?

After that we had a minor disaster in Waterstones - Linnea's nappy had become waterlogged and when she did another wee it made a little puddle. I have, however, very speedy elite mothering cleanup skills, so we got it all sorted out in the end.

I ordered a wardrobe for Linnea from John Lewis; found one with half shelves, and the other half two rails, one at child-height so she can dress herself. Then Rob showed up and we went and ordered a dishwasher.

I've been resisting a dishwasher on grounds of ecology and not encouraging laziness for a while. However, a dishwasher can do 12 place settings in 14 litres of water, and I use more than twice that most days. So.

It's a good time to buy these things, as my budget has long included the money to go to Janice's wedding, and the closer the wedding comes, the more I want to just TRY to go, and damn the consequences. I can't go to Janice's wedding even if I want to and I mean it dammit. I am not physically fit to do a seven-hour flight with a toddler; I can't even do a two-hour train journey with any confidence. But it will be easier to believe if I've spent the money on other things.

Rob is going, on Friday. It's going to be very busy while he's away and as soon as he returns we have houseguests (with toddler!!! hurrah!) and then there's the Cancer Research Race For Life and then very shortly after that there's going to be a baby.

Agh! No-one told me it was so soon! Only 12 weeks left, unless I postpone the section!

Comments

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Our dishwasher was a wedding present from my grandmother who washed dishes for five children over twenty years so I figured she knew what she was talking about when she said it was the best thing anyone could start married life with. ;-) (She had eccentric ideas about presents when I was young but the dishwasher and the car really were excellent gifts in our circumstances.)

Definitely not a laziness encourager in my experience, and I am notoriously lazy about washing up.

[ailbhe]

I was mainly afraid of them because Rob grew up with a Housework Fairy, and I'd hate to raise children with that debility.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Ah, that's easily avoided: smallclanger is currently in charge of loading and removing saucepans (and only saucepans, we have a tiled kitchen floor so he's not yet allowed to carry crockery across it) and will work his way up to loading and unloading most items fairly soon I suspect. But then, he also actively enjoys washing up at present so we save his (mostly non-dishwasher-friendly) stuff for a sink session every day or two.

[ailbhe]

Yeah, it's becoming obvious that I'm not going to have that issue - I let Linnea help even though it takes twice as long, and that's absolutely automatic to me.

[barakta]

The last thing my mother could be described as is a 'housework fairy'. I didn't know houses could be tidy/clean without monster effort and constant 'wiping wiping wiping' neuroses like my Godmothers till I got my own house... We had a dishwasher from when I was 5 which my mum purchased using allowence money which they got for me for a few years (about 3 years after they NEEDED it for disabled child expenses).

My mum still isn't tidy, but at least she doesn't have to wash up - she hates it. We (children) did other housework, and were usually responsible for emptying and filling the dishwasher whenever it needed doing. One of my mum's friends has 6 children + hangers on - I remember watching all their children finish their meal; collect up their plates, cutlery, drinking cups and trot over to the dishwasher and put them in the correct places. It really worked and meant the table could be cleared almost instantaneously and not just by all the parents.

I like the sound of the wardrobe too, I find this idea that small children can't dress themselves to be very strange. I only needed help dressing for a long time because my hands didn't work and were usually encased in plaster. I remember being appalled that one of my cousins couldn't even lay his own clothes out, nevermind dress himself aged 9! Apparently my aunt justified it by saying "he's too slow on his own, and he makes bad clothes choices" *shudder*.

[ailbhe]

My mother is also not a housework fairy, but she was good at letting us know that keeping our home clean and tidy was as much our responsibility as hers.

Not that it WAS clean and tidy, but none of us ever died of typhoid.

"he's too slow on his own, and he makes bad clothes choices"

I can't imagine why.

[barakta]

/me grins at shared responsibility.

Children learn by example as well as being allowed to make their own mistakes. Fear of failure and constant intervention for anything other than safety doesn't help anyone - parent or child.

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

Heh. I figure Agent Weasel's clothing choices are her problem. (I do give the occasional bit of guidance re colour combinations but that's it, really.)

[pauamma]

If you don't mind my asking, is your userpic an X-ray of one of your hands?

[barakta]

Nah, I nicked it off the Interweb. I was born without thumbs, so this icon is a sign of my thumb envy.

One of these days I'll get round to acquiring one of my freakier xray images and use that.