WARNING: Entry contains high levels of baby cuteness and mummy besottedness. May cause nausea.

I think I have a new nickname for Li’l Bhaji – it’s “Doof”. This is his new favourite noise, I think it’s a failed raspberry sort of noise, but can’t be sure. It’s a fairly good indicator that he’s happy with the world for that second, though, so it’s a nice noise.

The other noise of note Li’l Bhaji has disovered is the stage cough. It’s a real hacking “I’m almost choking Mummy, honest” sort of noise, and each time I’ve returned at a run to investigate he’s giving me his best cheeky grin. Still fall for it every time, though.

He’s getting more active too. He got stuck in his cot the other day because he’d rolled over onto his tummy but wedged himself up against the bars in the process so couldn’t flip himself back, and today he’s been flipping over to his tummy to be in a better position to chew the labels on his soft toys. After watching older crawling babies rather intently of late, he gave it a try himself today. Desperate to reach his brother’s policeman’s helmet (it has a button on the top which makes a policecar siren noise – I think Li’l Bhaji is addicted to it) he lay on his tummy, stretched his arms forwards and his legs out backwards and did this odd little rocking motion on his tummy. Don’t think he quite understood how his legs were supposed to interact with the floor. I did try to help by folding his knees under him, but all that did was unbalance him and he ended up bopping the carpet with his nose… oops.

And the very last in baby news – we’ve finally worked out why he’s been a grumpy little wotsit – two teeth have appeared in as many days! He’s very proud of them and keeps popping his fingers in his mouth to check they’re still there…

This is very very tempting.

Lycos are releasing an anti-spam screensaver on December 1st. It’s designed to carefully increase the bandwidth usage on all the spammers’ websites, making it much more expensive for them to run. Why passively filter your spam when you could go on the offensive with Make Love Not Spam instead?!

Of course, I’d have to lose my photo montage screensaver… but it *might* just be worth it.

A couple of questions:

Why is it that the reduced salt stock cubes have 0.1g MORE sodium than a brand of “normal” stock cubes on the same shelf in the supermarket, and 0.2g MORE sodium than the fresh stocks in the chiller cabinet? Shouldn’t they relabel themselves as an “increased salt” brand?

Don’t you think it’s a sad reflection on the state of the food processing industry when a jar of own brand apple sauce has to print “suitable for vegetarians” on the side?

… tell you about parenting no. 121.

At some point, no matter how disgusting you think it is, you’ll pick snot out of your baby’s nose.

It’s the point in one’s parenting career everyone dreads but is never quite prepared for, no matter how much you rehearse potential conversations in your head. The bold statement about somebody “different”.

In our case, Akra Jr points, stares and says “she looks funny”. I look, and he’s pointing at our elderly Chinese neighbour. She glares at us, I’m convinced she’s offended, although I also know from the occasional “good morning” asides with her that her english isn’t that good. I think a child’s point and stare routine is universal in any language though.

I fluffed it, I’m afraid. For all my good intentions on how to deal with bald statements in public, I just muttered something about “she’s our neighbour” then when we got inside I tried to explain that it wasn’t nice to say that someone looks funny in their hearing, that he probably hurt her feelings and that in future he should just tell me he wants to talk to me about something, then we’ll discuss it when that person is out of earshot. I also (very badly) tried to explain the idea of race, that we all look different, and that to her, he probably looks a little strange too.

I feel so very very sad. One of the doubts about moving here from Croydon was that this area is so much less racially diverse. In Croydon, he would be going to nursery and school with children from a wide variety of backgrounds – people wouldn’t look “funny” because it would just be normal for everyone to be different. I don’t want to have to teach Akra Jr to be racially sensitive as he grows up, I want it to be so automatic that it never even enters his consciousness…

Sometimes I wonder why I bother taking Li’l Bhaji to the Mums and Tots group on a Thursday. I’ll give today for an example.

Due to an extended morning nap, we arrive slightly late and get set up in the baby corner with something for him to chew on (good for his immunity and all that) and I say a few frazzled hellos to the other baby mums who currently aren’t chasing around with their inquisitive toddlers. About ten minutes later, Li’l Bhaji starts fussing for food.

So, I get the pot of carefully home-made carrot & pea puree, blag use of the centre’s ancient microwave, strap him into a baby bouncer (suitably swathed with a muslin square), bib him and take a deep breath.

There’s a knack to baby feeding, and I do wish I could learn how to do it. Ideally, you should have plastic sheeting covering anything within a 100 yard radius before you start. Not having that luxury, I then have to load up the spoon, carefully check the temperature by touching it to my top lip, then aiming it carefully past the flailing eager arms and into (hopefully) an open mouth. There’s then a deft swipe of the spoon around the mouth on the way out to scrape up the spat out/food that missed on his face and then get past the flailing arms again. This is the most dangerous point where the unwary come to a sticky end… well, a sticky end of the spoon in your eye as his hand knocks it anyway.

At the same time, Li’l Bhaji is being distracted with kids running past, turning his head at the last moment to watch them and smearing food all over the side of his cheek (and hence on the side of the chair when the kid runs back the other way). I’m trying to disuade the very cute imp that thinks it’s hilarious to set the baby bouncer in motion at the same time as a spoon is aiming in the direction of Li’l Bhaji’s mouth. Imp removed by apologetic parent, I now offer the non-drip sippy cup (which despite being non-drip has managed to leak all over the inside of my bag) in case he’s thirsty. This flows slightly too fast for him to cope with, so most of it trickles down off his chin while he splutters and gasps for breath.

To finish off with, you then have to judge if he’s spitting out food because he’s bored of it now and wants a different flavour (so out comes dessert) or if he’s actually full, or if he’s just experimenting with the texture and is about to blow a huge raspberry in order to completely splatter you for giggles. Cleaning up is even more fun, as that’s the point he turns into a complete whirling dervish and screams as if you’re killing him, so every eye in the room turns around to see what you’re doing to that poor innocent little baby.

Finally cleaned up (well, apart from you… you’re completely smothered), the group is finished and it’s time to go home.

Oh well, it gets me out of the house.

Well, we got the photos back from the disposable cameras at the Naming Ceremony and we’re gradually working through them, scanning the pictures that came out and laughing our socks off at the ones that didn’t.

Most of the kiddie pictures are of people’s laps and feet as expected, but I came across this wonderful piece of art I thought I would share:

Actually, I have no way of knowing whether this was accidental or deliberate, taken by adult or child. Either way it’s a neat effect and I’m not entirely convinced I would be able to reproduce it if I tried…

It’s something that is not easy to admit you feel, my hand is hovering over the little ‘X’ in the corner of the browser window, wondering if I should just cancel out and not say what I’m thinking at this precise moment in time – a fairly good indication, that really, I should just be honest with myself – go ahead and post it anyway.

It’s just that it feels like at the moment, that every Mummy friend I have at the moment… *whispers and looks around to see if anyone is listening*… has a bigger house than me.

There, I’ve said it. And yes, I am slightly envious of all that space, the extra rooms so that each one has a defined function in the household, somewhere for the kids to play that doesn’t leak into every other room in the building, to not feel slightly apologetic when the reciprocal invite inevitably comes around.

It’s incredibly silly, of course. There’s no real logic in it. I love our life, really am enjoying it to the full at the moment. I’m aware of the fact we could have had a nice large 5 bed house with three reception rooms, huge kitchen/diner, utility room and conservatory. We made different choices along the way – some good (like knowing we both wanted to spend as much time with the kids as possible so our earning potential has been a lot smaller), some bad (getting into debt when we had two decent incomes, so that our later choice involved buying a smaller house but clearing loans), some dictated by circumstances (where in the country we have lived has, of course, been dictated by available jobs). In retrospect, there’s not many choices along the way that I would actually change.

Plus, we will be getting that downstairs extension soon, all things going well. That will ease the space pressures considerably and while it would be nice for a spare bedroom (or two) we certainly don’t need them. And it’s not even as if we aren’t fairly well off, anyway – we’re incredibly lucky. I’m not ungrateful.

Still yearn for the luxury executive dwelling with double garage, though… does that make me irredeemable?!

Well, for the most part anyway. Everything on my to do list was checked off (well, it will be once this blog post has been submitted anyway) and rough routine followed fairly well throughout despite Li’l Bhaji being very clingy and miserable (teeth I think) I still managed to get some playing done with him and even got a smile or two. AND I managed to do some of my camera course this evening – learned all about aperture and ‘f’ stops.

The less successful bit was my “good parent” activity of the day by taking them for a walk in the local woods. Akra Jr spent most of the time worrying about bears and monsters (that’s it, I’m conviscating his Pumpkin Soup and We’re Going On A Bear Hunt books as they’re obviously a bad influence), I managed to lose my camera case and camera remote for the G5 (the case has been handed in and I need to collect it tomorrow – the remote is still AWOL) and then I got stuck in the car park because the bit I normally park in has been changed it to council property only and I couldn’t get out of the barriers… oops. Oh well, it’s the thought that counts, right?

Right. I am going to get back into blogging properly this next week, I promise. As you’ve probably noticed, what with Naming Ceremony preparations (it’s a non-religious christening, btw!) and lurgy and everything else, my productivity has ground to a COMPLETE halt.

Last night, I finished off my first round of writing assignments. I’m not doing NaNo any more, so my focus for the next week is to make a serious effort to get organised again. I have made a to do list for the morning, I have a rough routine for chore time/play time/kid time during the week, I am determined to be a better mother, better wife, better writer, better photographer and generally just better this week.

Yes, I know. But disillusion me later, okay? I’m on a roll and feeling fired up with enthusiasm and determination. Plenty of time tomorrow to realise that I’m being completely unrealistic.