Growing wings

On Monday, it was the last meeting this term of our German playgroup and six of the children are off to pastures new and will be starting school in August. Cubling was one of them, and the eldest at that. For a few weeks now, she had lost a bit of interest in going to the Kinderclub, she was getting bored, so it was really the right timing.

The mums of the 4-5 year olds had met one evening to make the must have for any German school starter, a Schultüte. This is a cone shaped container, nicely decorated, which bears sweets and items for school, and which children take along on their first day at school. I have no idea where this comes from, but it is such a quintessential starting school thing that it has a lot of meaning to me, and I would assume, most German mums. More meaning than the British equivalent, the graduation ceremony (which we had at the forest kindergarten and also at the pre-school). Cubling has known for a while now, at least a year, that as a German\Scottish child she would get a Schultüte, and the prospect has had a definite effect on her wanting to be German (whereas before she was just English or Scottish).

She didn't know though that she would get it early, namely at the last day of Kinderclub because I can't really send her to school with the Schultüte, that would totally single her out, possibly in a negative way or in a way that would make her too aware of being different rather than special.

We had been busy making it, decorating it, and finally filling it. I had gone through hoops trying to buy the contents without her noticing it. And finally, the big moment was there. The look in her eyes as she realised what was about to happen was priceless. Utter excitement, delight and pride all in one. She wouldn't let go of the Schultüte. And when I explained that she'd have to wait until daddy was home to open it, she sat on the stairs watching the clock for 3 hours, keeping herself busy with this and that, so that she wouldn't miss the time that daddy comes home, which she knows is 7pm.

With daddy eventually home, she proceeded to unpack her bag, and suddenly I saw a pre-schooler turn into a school girl. There was something so grown up in how she had waited without a moan, how she unpacked the bag and went through every item in good time, how she shared the chocolate equally with us, and how she made plans of how to use each item that made me rather emotional. Pens, have been used, as have all kinds of rulers, and she is now doing "work" and copying words, and even writing them from memory.

For a moment I could see her wings. It won't be long now until she takes off into the world and will move further and further away from us. I can only hope that we've given her enough grounding to support her on her flight, and that she'll be able to find her way back here to refuel whenever she needs to.

So this is it, a few weeks of summer and then she'll be at school 5 days a week. What a horrible and wonderful thought. She needs a new challenge, and yet I already mourn that she'll spend more time with her friends and teacher than with me. She of course takes it all in her stride. "what will you miss most when you go to school?" "Playing with my old friends" "What are you looking forward to at school?" "Playing with my new friends".

Oh man, how she has grown up.

of transitions, graduations, inductions and headaches

We have officially entered transition to school territory.
This is what it looks like:
2 one-hour sessions at school, perfectly placed in the middle of the day.
A graduation at the forest kindergarten (in the early afternoon)
A graduation at the pre-school (perfectly placed in the middle of the day).
A dress rehearsal for the latter (morning)
3 parent meetings, two of which are also during my working day.

That's a total of 7 half days during my working week (they always fall on my working days of course) in one month. Which will be followed by a full 3 weeks of part time schooling in August. Transition to school is definitely not made for the working parent. If I miss out, the school will have me down as a non caring or even bad parent. But really, it's all a bit much even with the best of will.

I'm losing my hair fast and quick. How do working parents manage? There is a real chance that I will have to send Cubling to her big graduation at pre-school by herself because daddy is abroad and there's a REALLY IMPORTANT training day on, that I'm sure many think I shouldn't or even mustn't miss.

Of course, I'd rather be at her graduation, then find out all about data protection (which is very important for my job, no doubt). Be there for an important day in her life, or be at a training session which in theory can be repeated but in practice may well not be. Either way I feel bad.

Now can someone make a decision for me AND make me feel ok with that decision? My head is hurting big time and I can't think anymore.

Printing away

I'm not one of those deal addicts. But when I saw on Facebook that there was a special deal going on a beginners workshop of screen printing, I had to explore it. And bought it.
The trouble with these deals are that you then have to use your voucher, and the weeks go past, busy as busy can be, and the end of the validity is nigh. Not one to waste a voucher, I made the time, even though I couldn't really afford to, so I was not in the best of places to start the workshop.

It may come as a surprise but I didn't actually know what screen printing was, or what you could create with it. Not that it's anything complicated, but if I were to do it again, I'd bring lots of boring t-shirts or other fabric to embellish. As it was, I had to use the thin cotton and one plain tote bag that was provided, while others printed really cool t-shirts for themselves and their families.

The venue was the Bespoke Atelier at the Glue Factory, which was actually a glue factory originally. It's one of those massive factory buildings, or rather, the rooms are massive, the building itself isn't particularly big. The venue is managed by 7 artists of different fields and through their work, this old building is being maintained and worked on bit by bit. It's still freezing cold in it and I can't see how anyone can survive a day in the winter in there, but apparently people don't get frostbites.

The process of screen printing was much easier than I expected, literally it's about cutting out a design which serves as a template or stencil, and then it's fabric, stencil, screen (which is effectively a mesh), colour and a squeegee transfers the colour through the mesh and stencil onto the fabric. It's all quite easy and the results were fab. I was pretty pleased with my own creations (considering that I'm not great at drawing and I had to draw the stencils freehand and then cut them out with a carpet knife freehand too), but when I saw what some of my art school graduate neighbours had come up with, I was green with envy extremely impressed.

My plan is to stick my creations to simple wooden frames and make them into canvas to use them to decorate the yet empty wall of the girls' bedroom. I'm very tempted to get a small screen printing kit to decorate t-shirts and the like but considering that I already have arts and crafts supplies for a) knitting b) cardmaking c) felting d) sewing and e) crochet and pretty little time to do any of them, or in fact not enough space to store all of the stuff, I may file this for now.

 

That Dress

I'm a sucker when it comes to handmade. I mean really, does my 5 year old need another piece of garment, apart from a school uniform maybe? No, clearly not. But can I resist beautiful fabric made into beautiful swirly dresses? Rhethorical question. Knowing my dress loving 5 year old, I also knew that she would have to have an input into the choice of fabric.

You know, I tried my best.
There were the cutest fabrics to choose from.
And what did she go for?
Who would have guessed.
PINK.

I mean, it's a niceish pink. I do love the fabric. But it's pink flipping pink again. Sigh. She will grow out of this right?

Check out Anna's, aka Tiny Viking's facebook page to admire her wonderful creations and dream of your own perfect dress/babygrow/hat - she's go photos of all available fabrics up so it's literally pick and choose. You can also find her ware at Merry Go Round Glasgow in Nithsdale Road. I won't take any responsibility for your bank balance.

As for Cubling: She luuuurves her dress and would wear it to bed if I let her. However she decided that her hat isn't so cool after all and has gifted it to Snowflake. The benefit of having two children...

Disclaimer: this post is not sponsored. I paid full price and probably will again.

The Launch

The park is a 20 minute walk from us.
In theory.
But life with children is life in slow motion.
With 4 children, of which two are discovering treasures and shouting words that contain a lot of "poo" and "bum" to one another, one who happily is pushed in a trike and one 20 month old who has to walk all by herself while pushing her dolly pram, the trip to the park took well over 6 hours. And we even took the bus back.

Yes, we only walked to the park. That's what we adults did.
The children, they did an awful lot more.
They picked flowers and explored the pattern of petals.
They collected stones, sticks, tiles, flowers, treasures and what not in their pockets and the trike storage space.
They found bizarre treasures and wondered where they came from and what they can become in their pretend play.
They watched the river run below them.
They watched the ducks swimming on the river.
They pushed toy buggies.
They rode a trike.
They had sword fights with sticks.
They tested the pond for depth.
They collected pond mud.
They climbed on the climbing frames of the swing park.
They went down the chute, hopped on the trampoline and were upset that the swings were forever busy.
They slept (some).
They had picnic in the sunshine.
They played hide and seek.
They fell off picnic benches and bumped their head.
They climbed mountains.
They pretend played with all they found.
They checked which of the sticks collected might float and which might go under.
They found feathers and discovered the different textures at the tip and at the butt end.
And, above all, they launched a purple paper boat.

 

 

Choo choo choo and off we go

We are now proud owners of a Family Railcard.
I'd totally forgotten about railcards, it's been so long that I qualified for one. But suddenly Cubling is 5 and she's a paying guest on trains, plus I've resolved to save the planet and avoid flying whenever I can.
This year's family holiday, after much exploration of possible locations, will send us to Devon and we decided to take the train. A friend mentioned that this trip alone would probably pay for a railcard, and yes, she was right!

And once you've got one, you want to use it, so we took advantage of this incredible summer weather and sneakily went off to Oban. We got what must have been the last family room available and stayed in a very lovely hotel room with great beds to jump on and for the first time, Snowflake slept reasonably in a strange bed, hurray.

We had lots of ice cream, threw a lot of stones into the sea and Cubling went on a seal trip with her dad which she was very excited about.

And everyone who would listen would be told that they were going/had been on a train trip to up there (Oban sounds like the German "oben" which translates to "up there").

Yes, long train journeys can be tricky with small children but a) they can move b) I don't get car sick c) Snowflake doesn't get car sick and d) the kids do actually enjoy the novelty of it as we don't take the train often.

This coming weekend, the National Rail Museum in York is hosting the Railfest 2012 from 2-10th June. It sounds like a lot of fun and if your either close or have a train line to York, make sure to pay it a visit and make a trip out of it!

Disclosure: I have been in touch with the National Railway Museum and received a couple of minor goodies from them without any obligation to blog. I'd really love to go to the Railfest with the kids but alas, time is short and we're a long way from York. More than anything, I love travelling by train and I love museums and that's that ;)

So Breastfeeding is Harmful Now

I've been following with mild interest the whole debate about the Time cover (for those who don't know, it features a very tall 3 year old standing on a stool and breastfeeding, both mum and toddler look straight into the camera and apparently this pose has tickled the nation because, let's face it, we don't do breastfeeding beyond 6 months, do we now, and above all we don't take pictures of it because it's just gross, isn't it?)

I was actually not particularly bothered or interested; just amused by the furore which in itself speaks volumes of course.

But what tickled my funny bone was a throwaway comment about the "attachment parenting crowd" in the Daily Mail. Not that I take the Daily Mail particularly seriously, but if a medical Dr a) claims that breastfeeding a child beyond 12 months is potentially harmful and b) uses a label to dismiss and patronise people, I can't let it go uncommented.

So, Attachment Parenting. I've always had an issue with the term, simply because it creates two types of parenting approaches - and the attachment parenting one seems to be the unusual one, the hippy, earth mama type of parenting, that is even from the onset weird and ever so slightly incompatible with our modern world.

The problem with this is that secure attachment is vital for every.single.child. Secure attachment develops in the first year. If it doesn't, the child will have serious difficulties in later life, this includes low self esteem, mental health issues, anger issues, will have a higher risk of addictions, a higher risk of neglectful parenting and a higher risk of being involved in antisocial behaviour and crime. Children lacking secure attachment in the first year cost our society, but they're also suffering from it big time. And setting the balance right later is costly and very difficult, sometimes even impossible, to achieve.

The bottom line is that we should all have a massive interest in ensuring we have securely attached children. It's in the interest of the child, and society as a whole.

Attachment parenting is therefore not an unusual leftwing approach to parenting but should really be mainstream to ensure secure attachment happens in the first year of life. And that's based on research and evidence, not on opinion.

Now, you don't need to breastfeed to have a securely attached child. It arguably makes it a tad easier but you can have a perfectly attached child and formula feed. But responsive care, not leaving to cry, and yes, not crying it out or controlled crying is part of it. It doesn't mean that controlled crying WILL harm a child, just that it may and does harm many children. So I wouldn't touch it as a matter of principle. Still, health visitors regularly recommend crying it out or controlled crying to encourage a baby to sleep through the night and every time I hear it I feel like shouting, and handing out some hard fact research how it can damage the newborn brain and how were really and truly don't want to do it because we can't turn back the clock once the damage is done.

Like not letting a child cry herself to sleep, breastfeeding beyond a year is seen as odd, when really it's the biological norm. I honestly don't understand why mums are so consistently pushed towards early weaning. My own GP told me to stop breastfeeding when Snowflake was just 10 months. She stood up and lectured me as if I was a stupid child needing a lesson. I let her and just left without a word. The look on the face of another mum when I explained that a sleep over wasn't in the cards for us at 20 months old still feeds rather a lot at night that spoke volumes of how that was a state of affairs that was totally beyond her ken. The constant questions at work why I don't want to go on training or meetings that involve overnight stays in some part of the UK, the feeling of being a broken record by saying that I don't think I should wean before age 2 for the convenience of my work if my job can be done without overnight stays.

The statement that breastfeeding beyond 12 months can be harmful really got me though. It's of course factually wrong. What is right is that not breastfeeding a 1 year old increases risks of various illnesses, just as not breastfeeding increases the risk of anything from cot death to obesity in later life. So the opposite is true. But we never talk about this do we?  I supplemented with formula from when Cubling was 12 weeks. I could not find any information on why that would be harmful, and I was sure that as long as I continued to breastfeed it was just as good. It's only now that I know it wasn't and I'm rather angry that this information was not available to me in spite of having read far and wide about breastfeeding. I'm also angry that the feeding issues I had with her never got addressed although I visited a clinic weekly.

I am all for choice. Women aren't stupid, and it's up to anyone to make their own choices. But misinformation doesn't lead to informed choices. And stigmatising breastfeeders and/or those who won't let their babies cry to sleep as "attachment parenting crowd" will once again out us as the "others", make us a laughing stock of parents, when actually we do what is the biological norm and what has the best developmental and health outcomes. How many mums will have stopped breastfeeding early because of the social and cultural pressure to do so? How often have I had to justify myself for feeding beyond a year, or hear dismissive comments or see "the eye roll"? How often have I been criticised for not teaching my child healthy sleeping habits (when in fact waking during the night is proven to be healthier than sleeping through)?

It's a mad world. Oh, and don't call me an attachment parent. I'm just a mum (who is still learning a lot about how to be a better parent than she is because I may not leave my child to cry but I'm not a perfect parent).

PS: I've left out any reference to co-sleeping. There is a pattern in that co-sleeping is vilified as a cot death risk when on closer inspection, it actually reduces the risk of cot death if practised safely. Another topic where parents are told they are harming their child when in fact they are not. I'd also recommend reading The Analytical Armadillo's take on the Daily Mail article which quotes some research evidence which I was too lazy to quote.

The sun, the summer, and lots of daisies

Today was the first day of summer. At long last we had a day that would dry the washing. I'm so domesticated if that's my definition of summer, but that's what it was, a sunny, dry and warm day. And there were daisies: for picking, for making double headed daisies, for making daisy chains, and for walking barefoot in. (More pictures over at the Nature Kids blog - being a wordpress blog they just look nicer there).

Barefoot at the Merry Go Round

It's been a while since I last posted an update on my life as a Barefoot Books Ambassador. This may well have something to do with work taking over and not exactly leaving much space for other things. But yes, I'm still promoting the wonderful world of Barefoot Books, without any ambitions to make a decent income from it, but rather as a hobby. Truth is, I love these books. Every single one of them is special, beautiful, with wonderful stories, art work and food for thought.

A month or so ago, Merry-Go-Round opened, a shop that sells pre-loved baby items while creating volunteering opportunities and being a venue for all things baby. I love love love this shop - it's all about reuse, recycling but in style. The shop is beautiful and cosy, there's free tea and coffee and often homebaking too. Lots of community groups will be meeting there - the Glasgow Sling Meet already does and an initiative to let people try out cloth nappies through a nappy loan kits is also based there. It's in the Southside and I can just see it becoming a great hub for new parents, with lots of things happening there.

Then I had this idea. And as usual, without thinking much about it, I just approached Sam who runs the shop and asked would it be an idea to run a singalong/storytelling session with Barefoot Books, where people have an opportunity to browse the books and buy if they want to.

And she said yes.

So on Friday, I'll be at the Merry Go Round in Nithsdale Road reading and singing from some of my favourite Barefoot Books. It may become a regular event. It's all free and there's no obligation to buy anything. If you're in the area and you have a baby/toddler, simply come along and join the fun!

PS I'm a bit nervous about it all, so please be gentle on me if I get a note or two wrong!

When in Millport...

It has been far too long. It may seem like yesterday, but Cubling was only 2 when we last visited our nearest island, and for years she would ask us to go back to that place where we have to take the ferry and where we cycled around the island and saw that scary rock face. 

It turns out we inadvertently waited until she had forgotten about the scary rock face, and it was all new to her, with some memories coming back. For Snowflake, it was the first ferry trip and as is her nature she took it all in all calm and observant. We had a fabulous first day and a cold, windy, rainy second day. I'm sure there's money to be made in a soft play on the island because there is pretty little you can do with kids if the weather is as atrocious as it was on day 2 and you've packed the spring/summer collection.

But day 1 - it was so worth it.