You know, Akra Jr is going to be GUTTED when this extension is finished, despite his desperation to regain all the toys that were popped up in the loft pre-commencement of building works. Why? Because he hero worships each and every contractor who walks through that door.

I feel quite sorry for them, really. It can’t be easy doing your job, thinking through the individual problems that come up in even a small domestic building project, with a three year old at your side asking every 30 seconds “what are you doing NOW?”

Every single one of them cheerfully tolerate him (although I’m careful to distract him away as much as I can in case the tolerance wears thin and our house ends up on some sort of skilled tradespersons’ blacklist!) but a few of them (the electrician and the bossman in particular come to mind) are absolutely brilliant with him. As a result, Akra Jr will enthusiastically shout the name of the Project Manager and run to find him if he even suspects he might have heard his voice in the distance. It just makes his day.

But there’s going to come a time when the extension is all finished and Akra Jr will have no digger to look at, no craftsman to pester – despite the mess and inconvenience, I think it’s going to feel awfully quiet around here when they’re gone.

We’re just going to *have* to save up for that loft conversion, aren’t we?!

I have just bought myself one of these and one of these. Yes, Akra is missing the exercise he used to get riding his bike to work (he now works at home 3 days out of 5 and the office has now moved too far away to cycle) and we’re trying hard to get out more at the weekends cheaply for the whole family. I did try and find one on Ebay, but it seems they are too popular and there are no bargains to be had.

Now Akra Jr is of an age that we can go out to local attractions, it’s really shocked me at just how much it costs to go out. With his attention span, we’re rarely out for more than 2/2.5 hours, so spending around £20 for entry plus extra for refreshments is just silly, but lugging a pushchair around just isn’t workable for most of the interesting walks around here. Hopefully this should give us a little bit more freedom and take me to new interesting places to photograph (yes, I have an ulterior motive!)

And if we don’t end up using it much, it looks like I can sell it off on Ebay and only lose a couple of quid…

… when you grow up?

Akra Jr wants to know. He’s going to be a train driver apparently (doesn’t every 3 year old boy want to be one?!) Li’l Bhaji is well on the way to becoming a conductor in an orchestra if his baton waving is anything to go by (okay, I confess … it was the inner tube from a roll of clingfilm). What I don’t know is what *I* want to be when I grow up!

I’m such a jack of all trades – and true to the saying, master of none. Of course, I’d quite like to give the writing a go but I’m not holding any great hopes on that. It would take so much discipline I have to be realistic that it’s a long shot.

I’m a happy stay-at-home mum, but maybe as a reaction to Easter holiday stretching in front of me, I started wondering what I wanted to do – what I could enjoy doing and what I’d have a chance of getting qualified to do. Having an astrophysics degree (third class) and a number of years customer service experience doesn’t actually qualify me for an awful lot, unsurprisingly!

If I was to go back to some sort of admin role I would want a non-customer facing job, I think. At the weekend we did a fair amount of driving about (Li’l Bhaji has just learned to sleep in the car – yay! Freedom!) and going past the BBC Hereford & Worcester building I found myself thinking “I’d love to work there” – however, with only 3 admin staff on the payroll there I don’t think that’s a likely opportunity. I quite like the idea of going for a librarianship qualification (I would probably aim for work in a specialist library rather than a public library, if only to get some semblance of a 9-5 Monday to Friday life).

I’ve spent the last few days looking into it all fairly seriously and have come to the conclusion that I have the utmost admiration for families where both parents work – just to juggle the finances and childcare arrangements would be a herculean task. I’ve always considered myself to be very fortunate to stay at home, now I’m starting to wonder if I just took the easy way out.

Maybe I should just aim not to grow up. Then I could just be me.

I think reading the comments on my IVF post that I need to clarify what I was trying to say, as I think it didn’t come across too clearly. As I said, it wasn’t designed to be a comment on whether IVF was a good or bad thing, but a comment on the ethics commentator’s perspective and priorities. I still can think of a lot worse things in the world that trivialise the “sanctity” of us jumped-up self-important monkeys than a couple wanting a very much loved baby. It was a comment on his comment rather than the proposed legal changes.

However, this post will be about the proposed legal changes so feel free to copy and paste your comments from the last post *grin*.

I think one thing to remember about IVF through all news reports and discussions, is that it is not a trivial procedure. I once investigated it quite thoroughly (not for infertility problems – I forget the reason now) and quite frankly I don’t think I could go through it myself. It’s uncomfortable, expensive, messes with your hormones (and hence your entire personality – I am very very sensitive to hormone changes in my body) and has a high chance of failure. I greatly admire anyone who goes through IVF.

Of course, I realise that saying I wouldn’t do it is very easy from my perspective of having two beautiful children already, but this was something I decided a long while ago before Akra Jr was even thought of. I don’t believe that I personally would have lived an unfulfilled life without children – I would have been a completely different person, but I would still have had a fantastic life. However, I wouldn’t like to deny other couples the chance to make an informed choice.

I have no opinion on whether IVF should be available on the NHS or not. I realise that is an emotive topic and I have seen a great many excellent arguments for and against. Given that resources in the NHS are finite then a minimal number of “goes” on the NHS would seem sensible, but am happy to leave that up to others more knowledgeable than me.

On to the topic at hand. Given that you are going to allow IVF to be available in this country and given that in IVF treatment you (hopefully) end up with X number of viable eggs where only one or two of them can be implanted that cycle and the rest are going to be dumped. Does it really make a difference if the choice of which eggs gets given the chance of life is made randomly or if couples are told certain characteristics of each child-to-be and they’re allowed to choose?

You still think it makes a difference? What if I reminded you that the number of babies born by IVF proportionally are a tiny fraction of the population? And that the vast majority of IVF couples wouldn’t care and just want a healthy child of whatever variety? In fact a great many probably would request not to know the characteristics because it would be a too upsetting reminder that some of those eggs were going to be disposed of? I don’t think I’d want to know, personally. So this proposed change would really affect a tiny tiny minority of cases – where another large proportion of them would be due to medical reasons (not wanting a child carrying cystic fibrosis for example).

Given the numbers involved I really can’t get worked up about it or see how it’s going to affect me in any shape or form. I’m happy to leave it up to the parents to decide their own ethics on that one. In fact, it’s rather insulting to suggest that a couple have gone through all that and were still incapable of making their own minds up on the subject.

Choosing between two already fertilized eggs is a huge difference between artificially manipulating an existing egg to gain certain characteristics – now that really would be playing God – we would have no idea of the long term effects for that child. I am also against cloning for the same reasons that is dangerous for the long term health of that child and their subsequent children. I also find the idea of abortion of AN OTHERWISE MUCH ANTICIPATED CHILD just because of gender or for anything other than a terminal zero-quality of life condition quite abhorent. (For the record, I’m personally anti-abortion for myself but pro-choice for a limited window for everyone else – I’ll light the blue touchpaper on that one another time… maybe). But a positive choosing between potential lives which you’re going to do anyway under an eeny meeny miny mo basis? Nope, no problem with that at all.

Of course, I acknowledge that there might be an issue with increased uptake of IVF solely for the purpose of gender selection. Given my previous comments that IVF isn’t an easy procedure to go through, I still believe those numbers would be small but would be happy for restrictions based on genuinely infertile couples or selection due to proper medical reasons (to save the life of another child, to prevent a disease that runs in the family, etc…). There will also inevitably be disclaimers that the clinic will not be responsible if there is a mistake made and the wrong gender/criteria is implanted. However, on the whole, I do not see the proposed selection to be a big deal in the scheme of things.

Sorry.

Trackbacks are driving me COMPLETELY insane.

The amount of trackback spam I’ve had to delete recently has just been ridiculous. I’ve now turned off trackbacks (sorry to anyone who found that useful) but only seem to have turned them off in new posts not in historical ones. Anyone know how you turn them off completely in MT short of going into each and every old entry to manually turn them off?

Just been listening to a debate on the Today programme on Radio 4 regarding the new proposals for IVF treatment. Now I’m not going to get involved in a huge discussion on the rights and wrongs of IVF but one comment stood out that I just couldn’t keep my mouth shut about. One of the ethics commentators said that the suggestion that couples could choose the sex of their IVF baby was “trivialising human life”.

REALLY? Two people who have sacrificed financially and physically to go through invasive procedures to conceive a child but (whether for trivial or non-trivial reasons) would actually like to choose egg A over egg B to be implanted please – is that really trivialising and cheapening human life?

Or maybe, just maybe the levels of poverty both in our country and abroad might just be trivialising and cheapening human life?

Or maybe, just maybe child abuse might just be trivialising and cheapening human life?

Or maybe, just maybe the trade in illegal immigrant workers being brought into the country in appalling conditions might be trivialising and cheapening human life?

Does the ethics “expert” in question have any concept of the phrase?

Maybe, just maybe that’s why I’m finding I have less and less time for ethics experts…

Got some election bumf through the door this morning, which combined with a hotly debated education thread on Mumsnet at the moment inspired the firing off of this email to my local Conservative candidate:

Dear Margaret Harper,

Thank you for your recent mailshot regarding crime, however as a mother of two children living in the catchment area of a rather frighteningly poor secondary school I am more interested in the Conservatives’ education policies.

Can Conservatives promise:

- to invest more money in school food, so at the very least our children get the same funding for their meals that prisoners do! So that fresh produce is used every day and junk options are limited to a maximum of once a week?

- to introduce real measures to control highly disruptive children so that both they and their classmates have a real chance at education.

- to stop pretending that inclusion for everyone can work for every child, that every teacher has the ability to be an SN teacher and to stop the closure of specialist schools.

- give special needs education a funding boost so that it actually becomes education rather than glorified babysitting.

- to not expect children who are really struggling with basic reading and writing skills to cope with sophisticated science and language syllabuses and tailor their education accordingly.

- to get rid of the silly notion that “one size fits all” – bring back grammar schools and REAL technical vocation courses without the stigma. We need highly skilled plumbers, electricians, builders etc too!

Get children eating one decent meal a day and disruptive behaviour will drop at least a little. Give children real hope in life rather than just teaching them how to fail and crime will drop at least a little. Sound education policies will be an investment across all other societal issues.

That would be the vote winner for me.

Yours sincerely,
Pewari Naan

(Well I actually signed with my real name, but hey…)

I’d fire off a similar one to my local Labour MP, but as every missive I’ve sent him has been replied with something along the lines of “I’ve forwarded your letter to another member of parliament who will be able to answer your query better” and then got a form letter reply from the minister concerned which hardly covered my initial query, I’ve almost given up bothering and have started to wonder what my local MP *is* qualified to answer…

So Li’l Bhaji attempts to climb into his toy drawers and gets himself stuck… did I help him out? Of course! But I ran for the camera first…

Not that he learned from his experience. He then attempted to wedge himself into the telephone table.

I suspect many amusing photos to come, but mostly of his bottom.

As a follow on from my post yesterday and after a very interesting discussion on Thom’s blog I thought I would post a link to Shelf Abuse – Why NOT to shop in supermarkets – a very interesting article describing the hold of convenience foods on our culture.

Of course, I feel very hypocritical at the moment with all of this. We’ve been eating junk both in and out of the home since the kitchen started being ripped out on Friday. In our house at least, the biggest cure for junk food cravings is to actually eat it – am looking forward to eating something fresh that has some sort of flavour in the very near future.

On the plus side, I’ve learned that I haven’t gone far wrong with Akra Jr’s culinary upbringing. Last night, he left all his chips and begged me for a piece of cucumber off my plate… good lad!

I know kids’ diets are big news at the moment, but I wonder if you could spare a moment of your time to sign a couple of petitions (if you agree with me that they’re a good idea, of course)?

The first is the Feed Me Better campaign started by Jamie Oliver – my new hero. It’s a campaign to get better quality food into schools. As you will know if you’ve read my blog, overall I don’t have a problem with junk food in moderation within a balanced diet (hell, I even sing its praises!) but feeding our children day after day with crap that even I wouldn’t eat is a really bad idea.

The second is the The Way Nature Intended petition – aiming to get the same legislation Scotland has to protect breastfeeding mothers & children in public places. They emphasise that this is not a Breast Is Best campaign or a Breast vs. Bottle debate – just giving breastfeeders the same rights in public to feed their babies as bottlefeeders already enjoy. Why should someone be told to feed their baby in the toilet – would *you* eat your meal sitting on a public lavatory? The main site for The Way Nature Intended is also worth a read, if only to boggle at some of the responses MPs have given to members’ letters…

Anyway, please sign these petitions. They don’t take up much of your time and could make a huge difference.