Babies who brunch... on tour

'O sprawling dump of Bethlehem'

2011-12-24T19:58:00.007Z

The star marks The Spot

IF EVER a place name over-promises, it's Bethlehem. Only a fool would expect the town to deliver on the Christmas magic even hardened atheists have sung about over the years, yet still the word teases, playing havoc with expectations. To minimise the disappointment, we saved our trip until well into December; a sweaty walk around Manger Square and its year-round Christmas shops holding zero appeal.

I felt bad using a copy of the Christmas Story to prime Louis: he was hoping for straw and an actual stable at one point despite all my caveats. Luckily his inner consumer was as excited about the wooden crib scene I'd promised as finding the actual spot of the birth.

While our journey, in the borrowed work jeep, was always going to be easier than that fabled one on a donkey, Bethlehem's West Bank location means getting there is never straight forward - something even Dubya found out after Condi forced him to swap his helicopter for a car. "It's awful," he admitted, Rice's memoirs revealed, despite sweeping through the checkpoints that make life such hell for Palestinians. The town is barely 10km from Jerusalem but might as well be on another planet for most of its residents, something we found out later on while driving around, lost, trying to find the gap in the separation barrier we needed to leave. With no road signs to Jerusalem we had to stop and ask, yet queries about the location of our destination were met with shrugs from several locals.

"O little town" it most certainly isn't; sprawling concrete dump being more apt, with the graffiti on the monochrome wall that hems the town in on three sides providing the only colour on the way in and out. With a wave of the passport we popped through the small gap, and into a dystopian Alice in Wonderland where nothing was as it seemed and the street names on Google maps are bizarrely blank.

We were headed, naturally, for the Church of the Nativity and the star that marks That Spot. Or, the spot as randomly decreed by Emperor Constantine's mum, St Helena, who decided where to build the church. Maybe it was because my expectations were as blunt as one of our kitchen knives, or perhaps carrying our own baby gave the occasion an additional poignancy, but I did find the church atmospheric. I guess all the candles lit for blessings must have got my inner pyromaniac into the mood.

Church aside, the real draw was the turning on of the Christmas lights in Manger Square. We waited patiently for what felt like hours along with thousands of locals. Personally, I think they should have turned on the lights BEFORE the interminable speeches because all was as dark as the carol says until the Palestinian PM flicked the switch. A highlight was the hiatus while the mosque opposite the Church of the Nativity called its faithful - two-thirds of Bethlehem's population today - to prayer.

This being Israel, or rather Palestine, something as simple as celebrating Christmas feels like a political act, essentially because it's such a big deal for the Palestinians (who get a day's holiday) and such a non-event for Israelis. Not that the politics bothered the three year old; what with the fireworks that followed the tree lighting and a souvenir snow globe with Mary and Jesus, Bethlehem's magic lives on - in his eyes at least.

The city that Christmas forgot

2011-12-20T19:50:00.004Z

IT'S A magnet for Christian pilgrims and capital of the Holy Land, yet somehow Jerusalem is the city that Christmas forgot. Imagine getting to five days to go - or is it four, I've lost track - and not hearing a single Cliff Richard tune in a shop, eating a mince pie, overdoing it on the festive drinking, maxing your credit card on pointless presents, or preparing to spend hours queuing for that Kelly Bronze you'll overcook only to remember why turkey is a once-a-year dish.

Not that I'm complaining; December here is proving something of a joyous release from the consumerist celebration formally known as Christmas. Not to mention an excuse for being stingy and lazy. Luckily Louis at three is just about young enough not to know any better, although I fear it's the last year I'd get away with giving him one of Daddy J's socks to hang up on Christmas Eve (yes, really - well, it fits a tangerine, what more does he need?).

My initial excitement at spending the Christmas build-up barely miles from where it all - allegedly - kicked off was somewhat tempered when a Jewish friend pointed out that even the handful of Christians here are largely Orthodox so don't celebrate until January 7 or even later. And to the Jews and Muslims, the 25th really is just another day. In any case, the Jews are busy with their Hanakkah festivities, which the cynical might say conveniently overlap our own and include the main tenets, namely gaudy lights and presents, but I couldn't possibly comment.

All that aside, I feel we've done our bit: the tree - small and plastic and adorned with homemade origami decorations - is up and twinkling with some lights I picked up in the sole Christmas shop the Christian quarter of the Old City had to offer. All nine Christmas cards we've received (and that includes the extra ones for Louis and Raf from the grandparents) are up and I've listened to Stevie Wonder's Christmas CD. I've even scored us a table at Jerusalem's top restaurant for lunch on the 25th: try doing that in a city that actually celebrates Christmas. Best of all, turkey will be strictly off the menu. Turns out being here is win-win. With apologies to anyone who might have hoped for a card.

Shopping in the shuk

2011-12-09T18:00:00.006Z

OCADO IT is not. There's the 3km walk there for starters: uphill, with two children in tow, naturally. And back again. Buggy laden with more plastic bags than the Daily Mail could hope to persuade Brits to save in a year. Such is shopping in the shuk, which sounds remarkably like souk, but is actually Hebrew for market, something I've been doing since our second day in this city and something I will miss more than just about anything else about living here.

It has its downsides. That walk, for starters. Especially the day Louis insisted on scootering. Or the one I left the buggy behind, but still bought two massive bags of produce, including a litre of olive oil. And I invariably pick the busiest of times to go, like the day before Yom Kippur and both the Shabbat-rules Sukkot holiday days. Not to mention most Fridays, including today, when seemingly all of Jerusalem piles in either to stock up for the one day that the shops are shut or to watch everyone else stocking up.

Me, I like to do a bit of both: stockpiling and watching, although as today was my third trip this week Louis got off relatively lightly on the shopping front. Best are the bearded, black-hatted Haredim men, armed with ancient buggies-cum-shopping trolleys, who clearly scout out the best bargains going. I saw a few scuttle along this afternoon barely minutes before the shuk shut to nab everything going cheap.

I used to lure Louis up there with the promise of a tram ride: the track goes down Jaffa Road, perpendicular to the shuk, or Machane Yehuda to use its proper name. But now he's ridden the entire line he's a bit more blase, so I'm left with tummy-led temptations. For a while I used the ice cream at Mousseline (on Ha-Eshkol Street next to the Khachapuri bakery if you're in the area): sublime. But now it's colder we're back to "pink pasta" at the Italian we found on that first trip, which I know now is called Pasta Basta. Back on day two, I was desperate for somewhere to feed both the little people and the tiny cafe, on a corner inside the warren of bustling streets, happened to have a seat. I was too daunted by the Hebrew menu initially to order much more than a salad and a juice, a mistake I quickly rectified. They keep it simple, with just three pastas and several sauces, onto which you can pile any number of toppings. It's quick, unusually cheap for Jerusalem, and exceptionally delicious, Louis' top pick being wholewheat fettuccine with beetroot, oil, and garlic.

The pasta place is emblematic of the changes to what must rank among the world's top food markets, with a number of new cafes opening in the past couple of years, not to mention upmarket cheese shops, olive oil stalls, and even shops selling locally designed pottery and jewellery. Come night time, when the vegetable (and meat and fish) sellers have gone home, cafe tables spill out into the shuk's inner streets and take over (so I'm told; I have yet to leave our flat). All very Borough, but with the bonus of coming home with change from £20 for more freshly picked produce than I know what to do with.

I used to think I'd be glad to get back to Ocado but after tasting the dinner I made tonight, which was nothing fancy (green beans, dill, onion, garlic, and feta, baked in olive oil and lemon juice with bulghur), I'm already in mourning for all the vegetables we'll leave behind. Air flown, polystyrene-packed Kenyan green beans just aren't going to cut it.

Dead buoyant

2011-12-07T18:46:00.007Z

"HOPE YOU get treated to a couple of days in a Dead Sea spa," a friend wrote, on hearing of my 13-night sanity testing stint as a solo mum (with apologies to single mothers who have to do it day in, day out). The very idea got short shrift in the car on Sunday as we headed south along the Dead Sea coastline towards Masada, an ancient Jewish fortress high up in the Judean desert. Louis looked briefly panicked, before realising it was such a crazy suggestion that I had to be joking.

The sea - an inland lake where there's no need to hire deck chairs because you can just read sitting up in the water - stretches out below the vast hilltop palace, reflecting the intense blue of the sky most days. In the background is Jordan, all jagged hills rather than bands of angels but no less beautiful for it. The history is haunting: the site, built by Herod the Great, he of Nativity play fame, was the location of the Jews' last stand against their Roman oppressors in 73 AD. It ended with a mass slaughter, by Jews, of Jews, rather than become Roman chattels.

Staring at the sea was too much even for Louis, who had been warned he couldn't paddle because it's too salty (not worth risking getting it in children's eyes apparently), so we took the cable car back down after an explore and a picnic lunch and headed for Mineral Beach, one of only a handful of places you can swim because of the sinkholes. We made it with minutes to spare before the sun dipped behind the now pink desert ridge but there was time enough to slather on some mud and fulfil an ambition held since I was barely older than Louis after seeing a picture of someone reading a newspaper in an old book about the world I used to own. We gave the freshwater paddling pool a miss because it was too chilly. Ditto the hot sulphur bath: too many fat Russians hogging the water.

It was hardly that spa break, but fun nonetheless. And I spotted a shop in the Old City that sells the mud, although given the rate the Dead Sea is drying up I should probably stick to face wash.

The Olive Mountain

2011-12-04T19:25:00.006Z

Olive face

IF EVER there were a site to appeal to Louis, it's the Mount of Olives. The bitter, salty Middle Eastern staple after which the hill is named is, inexplicably, his favourite snack, so his eyes lit up when I suggested a visit. To lessen a three-year-old's disappointment at finding little more than a giant cemetery - Jews have been buried on the slope since Biblical times and it is home to more than 150,000 graves - I packed plenty of olives for our picnic.

The coach loads of Christians (who comprise two-thirds of all tourists to Israel) have to walk up the steep hill because the hair pin bends up are too sharp for a tour bus, but with DJ finally back in town we had some (borrowed) wheels, so were saved the hike. We might not have earned our lunch but out came the olives anyway. And quickly disappeared into Louis's stomach. With any luck, the stones will help to make up for the lack of olive trees there today.

From the top you can see not only the Dome of the Rock in all its golden glory, but also some of East Jerusalem's most contentious neighbourhoods, including Silwan, which is today home to Palestinians but the Jews value because it flanks their precious Mount of Olives. Hence the efforts by Israeli settlers to evict Palestinians from their homes, citing in some cases claims that Jews owned the houses before the anti-Jewish pogroms of the 1930s. Laws favouring Jews help, but the legalities are always murky and judicial battles can last decades. Settler victory comes with flags attached, reams and reams of blue-and-white Israeli flags, draped from every corner of their new home, like the one atop the ridge.

Hearing the afternoon muezzin call made me think that even settlers can't have it all: the thickest double glazing in the world couldn't block out the cacophony of prayer calls that bounce off each side of Jerusalem's many valleys five times each day. And there's no hiding from the glare of that golden dome.

The toilet lady

2011-11-29T18:37:00.004Z

IT WAS Louis who spotted her: the stenciled lady on the side of a bus shelter, just up the hill from our flat. She'd appeared overnight, the familiar silhouette that adorns toilet signs the world over, rendered unfamiliar in the context of a Jerusalem advertising hoarding.

"What's that?" he asked, probably wondering where her habitual male companion was. I couldn't read the Hebrew daubed alongside but I could guess what it said given the city's unofficial ban on women appearing on public billboards. The image had to be part of the spiraling protest against rampant sexism that is turning Israeli women into second-class citizens.

It was still early - we were on our way to the yoga class at a local playcentre that keeps me semi sane - so I left the lecture on female equality for later in the day. But even our destination reminded me that gender segregation is commonplace here: all but three of the yoga classes are women-only.

From the army, where religious conscripts are being urged to walk out of events when women sing, to religious schools, which are banning dads from watching their daughters perform in end-of-term plays, women are getting an increasingly raw deal in public life thanks to pressure from the religious right. The situation is worst in Jerusalem, where even retailers can't use female images in their ads, but is deteriorating elsewhere.

Segregation starts in the synagogue, where men and women sit separately: at the Western Wall, a smaller wall divides the sexes. On the street, gender division is most blatant on buses, where the Orthodox men take the front seats, leaving the back for the ladies.

There are some unusual flipsides - some might say benefits - to such draconian notions about women: on Fridays there are more Haredi fathers than mothers stocking up for Shabbat in the shuk, the city's main food market. But there are downsides too. Consider the school textbook that teaches children about the virtue of respect. The illustration? A man.

With some leading questions, I managed to make Louis see the light but it's worrying to think his Israeli peers, including a new generation of kids whose parents have "made aliyah" (what Jews call emigrating to Israel), might ask the same question about a real female image on the side of a bus shelter elsewhere.

The Israel Museum

2011-11-25T18:17:00.007Z

Contemplating the Shrine of the Book

I HAVE discovered the secret to taking a three-year-old child round a museum. It's not the interactive kids' section (or, at least, it might be but I tend to avoid them - can't bear the other children), but rather the video art installations. Louis adores them. The more esoteric, the better, too.

Take today's trip to the Israel Museum: once he'd got over the excitement of the fountain spraying water over the white domed Shrine of the Book, which houses the Dead Sea Scrolls (the oldest bible ever found, for any heathens), the exhibit that most captivated him was a video of a pair of boots sinking into a frozen pond. Because every display had to have some kind of Israeli message, the boots had been first dunked into the Dead Sea to cake them in salt crystals, and then taken to a frozen lake in Gdansk where the salt was left to do its work.

To say the piece was light on the action is an understatement, but still he watched, spellbound, for the full 20 minute or so cycle it took to complete. Another favourite was a man spinning round on his stomach on some tarmac holding a piece of chalk. Yet another was some sort of take off of Eve and the apple, involving a naked lady, lots of watermelons, and some sea. It was supposed to represent the founding of a new country, but the nuances escaped me. And him, I imagine.

The only video installation that left him cold was the one I liked best, Chic-point, by Arab-Israeli artist Sharif Waked. Filmed on an "occupied catwalk", it featured outfits suitable for an Israeli checkpoint. Each one was cut away to reveal a slash of midriff, thereby saving the IDF guards the bother of stopping and searching each Palestinian hoping to pass through.

What with the scale model of Jerusalem at the time of the Second Temple, Anish Kapoor's polished-steel hourglass "Turning the World Upside Down, Jerusalem" sculpture, and the fun scooter trip, on an olive tree-lined path zig-zagging the hill up to the museum, the trip was a hit and one we will repeat - if only to brave the Youth Wing to see if it's worth the fuss.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem

2011-11-24T18:44:00.005Z

The Old City from the Haas Promenade

I STILL find it odd that I've wound up in Jerusalem. It's one of the rare cities in one of the rarer countries that I've never wanted to visit. Not that it isn't fascinating: as a historian, I could hardly ask for more to have happened in what is, after all, something of an outpost in terms of great geographic locations. It isn't on the coast, and nor is it on a major trade route. Yet it's been fought over more than most other cities in the world, changing hands some 26 or so times.

It's also beautiful, stunningly so, something a brief trip out to the hilly Ein Kerem suburbs yesterday underlined. Even the man made is easy on the eye thanks to British Mandate-era laws that prohibit building in anything other than limestone. How many new city centre shopping malls, such as Jerusalem's Mamilla arcade, which lies just feet away from the ancient city walls, chime in so well with the old ?

And yet Israel's contentious recent past has always put me off. It's been easier to avoid the country, then attempt to make sense of its domestic politics. We've still more than a month left but I know I'll go home more confused than ever about what to think. I'm fairly sure I won't succumb to the toddler-sized Israel Defense Force t-shirts on sale at the shuk but living here has killed any knee-jerk sympathies with the Palestinian cause. And I've yet to visit Yad Vashem, the country's Holocaust memorial museum.

I enjoy being here far more than I thought I would (and far more than I probably let on). We're spoilt with the location of our flat, bang in the middle of West Jerusalem. Which, incidentally, is politically incorrect - most Brits live in the East, in a show of Palestinian solidarity. But life is undeniably easier in the West, speaking as someone with kids in tow at least. There's a playground every few hundred yards, not to mention cafes a plenty and miles of beautiful promenades. Best of all is seeing the desert hills of Jordan from Louis's bedroom window, bearing in mind that just about every night since his birth I've sung him "Swing Low" in various ill-fated attempts to get him to sleep.

Even being on my own - if you can call looking after a three year old and a four month old being on your own - for two weeks isn't making me wish the time away. That said, Shabbat is looming, and another wet weekend. Perhaps we'll finally make it to the Israel Museum and nail some of that history.

Jerusalem's Train Theatre: destination somewhere dry

2011-11-19T18:46:00.005Z

Watching the show

IF, LIKE me, you stumble across Jerusalem's Train Theatre and think you've hit kiddie gold then a word of warning: the company's repertoire is distinctly engine free. And it's no longer based in the old train carriage to which it owes its name, and hasn't been for longer than anyone working there now can easily remember.

Instead, what it is, is a charming little puppet theatre that puts on a wide mix of shows two or three times a week all aimed at children of varying ages. Given Louis's Hebrew is somewhat patchy, I'd been giving it a wide berth. But desperation and a Biblical weather forecast - I'm thinking Noah, not Moses's locust plague - forced me to reconsider, especially as it's based in Liberty Bell Park, a mere stone's throw, or short scoot, from our pad. Even better, it looked like today's show, The Cubes Circus, was set to music, making it the perfect choice for the Hebrew challenged.

Alas, one of the dancers was sick so they switched the performance to a story for the 5s and up: Rain Bird - A Paper Tale. Not to be defeated, I paid up for two tickets and scanned a brief synopsis of the plot - broadly, "the most beautiful bird in the world" finds it tough to cope with life in the 21st century - and we settled down, Louis on one knee and a squirming Raf on the other. Despite understanding just the one word in the whole show ("tinoch", which means baby) I think I made a fairly good translator, especially as Louis could hardly argue with my rendition.

I'd like to say he was entranced by the stunning origami puppetry, which spanned the set to the protagonists, but typical Louis, a single plastic car turned out to be his highlight. That and the police siren used to help create the illusion of the village, where life for a paper bird was easy, turning into a city. At least the car made up for the lack of trains, although Louis bought my ill-informed claim that the mini stage was based in an old train carriage happily enough.

Actually, I'm being unfair: he loved the whole thing, and best of all, it set us up for an afternoon of our own origami, which was useful given the rain is making me regret bringing just the one Snuggle Bunny and Mummy Nelly with us to Israel. If it keeps up for much longer, we'll be able to put on our own show.

The giant candlestick

2011-11-10T20:03:00.010Z

Photo #36

NEVER LET it be said that Louis is having a dull time here. Today's treat was a visit to, wait for it, a giant candlestick. It had captivated him ever since he'd spotted its image on the mini Jerusalem jigsaw we picked up in a gift shop on our first weekend. He'd remark on it every time we saw a picture around town, and I'd promised him we could go and find it one day.

The candlestick, or menorah, sits opposite the Knesset on what felt like the highest of the city's seven hills. And that was my legs talking; goodness knows what our vertiginous scramble felt like to a three year old. It was a 6km round trip from our flat, which Louis initially insisted on doing on foot, but then conceded to take his scooter. As if that wasn't exercise enough, he stopped at a playground on both the outward and homeward legs of the journey.

Our trip took us through Gan Sacher, the city's largest park, which is somewhat hard to navigate as there are hardly any entrances. I'm sure we didn't go the authorised route, mainly because we were greeted by vast rolls of barbed wire. Then again, considering there were about three checkpoints even to get to the screening gate for the Knesset, maybe the barbed wire was par for the course; this is Israel.

My fears that what is essentially a 5m-high bronze sculpture would disappoint were entirely misplaced: Louis loved it. The 38 photos he took on my phone bear testament to his delight. I'm still not quite sure of the appeal. It's not as if he took in the ravages of Jewish history, as depicted by British-Jewish sculptor Benno Elkan on each of its prongs, or noted the irony that it was a gift from British lefties: the Labour Party in 1956 to celebrate Israel's eighth Independence Day.

But I guess to a three year old, it really is just a giant candlestick. Atop a very steep hill. And what's not cool about that?

Picnic for peace

2011-11-09T18:01:00.008Z

WITH THE Palestinian quest to join the UN on the same footing as their Israeli neighbour a no-go, the army of lobbyists and activists kept in business by the doomed peace process will be scrabbling for a new strategy.

Given that simplest solutions are often the best, has anyone tried a picnic for peace? Sniffing the air this week in Liberty Bell Park, which is the city's nearest park to Arab East Jerusalem, makes me think they should. The place was packed with Muslims from East Jerusalem - making them either Arab Israelis or Palestinians depending on your political sympathies - celebrating Eid al-Adha, the Festival of Sacrifice, but if you shut your eyes, the holiday smelt like a Jewish one. Like their adversaries, the Muslims are fond of a barbecue, and smoke filled the sky, much as it did during many of the city's parks during last month's Sukkot holiday. The only difference being the Arabic on the bags of charcoal.

And it isn't just grilled food where the opposing faiths overlap on the culinary front. The hijabed mums sitting around the playground were doling out pittas and felafels all but indistinguishable from those munched daily in Jewish West Jerusalem. There was more popcorn and candy floss than I'd seen but I'm willing to bet it was Kosher. Not that there were any Jewish children to share it; Louis excepted, the playground was exclusively Muslim for the entire week, a first since we'd arrived.

Next time perhaps someone could lay out a giant picnic rug and spread the word. After all, if the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, perhaps the way to a nation's peace is through that of its inhabitants.

An Israeli roadtrip

2011-11-05T18:57:00.010Z

The Golan and Nimrod Castle

WITH HINDSIGHT there were always going to be flaws: it's no coincidence that the phrase "Israeli" and "road trip" isn't a classic. But remind me to check a country's car-to-road ratio (and if that stat doesn't exist, it should) before setting out on our next wheeled adventure.

Not that we didn't have fun. But spending half my birthday in a non-moving jam to do a 40-km journey from Caesaria to Akko wasn't a highlight. Especially not when a certain three month old defies baby logic by hating the car, even a $XXXXXX (blanked out to protect licence fee payers' sensibilities) BBC jeep . Nor was the near-stationery hour on our way to the mountains above the Sea of Galilee with said infant showing none of the stoicism a certain other baby doubtless showed on another journey not a million miles from our own, a couple of millennia ago, anything to write home about.

It took Shabbat and a drive through a minefield in the Golan Heights before we finally had the road to ourselves. We were headed north, as far north as Israel goes, and a lot further than the Syrians would like it to, in search of a medieval castle on a ridge above Damascus. Our route skirted the UN-monitored buffer zone that still separates Israel from Syria. Burnt-out tanks and abandoned Syrian bunkers from the 1967 and 1974 conflicts littered the hilly landscape, a living reminder that Israel is still a country at war. We paused at a viewpoint to take in the ghost town of Quneitra, once Syria's main Golan town but destroyed in 1967, and the red, white, and black of the Syrian flag flying in the distance. Perhaps it's the islander in me, but there's something innately thrilling about staring across an international border, especially one to a country all but off limits.

The drive wound up being a highlight, not least because Nimrod Castle was shut when we reached it, at just gone 3pm. A real shame, as it looked amazing. Lucky, then, that Israel does a mean line in crusader castles, with the 12th-century Belvoir Fortress making the perfect lunch spot on our way back to Jerusalem the next day. Being Sunday - and the start of the working week around here - we were worried about the traffic potential, but needn't have thanks to the fact that the road went straight through the West Bank. And I mean straight through: the Israelis purposefully ensured the road bypassed all Palestinian towns when they built it, just to make life that little bit harder for them. The net effect was an empty highway, which suited us and our two sleeping boys but was something of an anomaly given the traffic chaos elsewhere.

At least it explained the heavy traffic elsewhere if roads exist that most citizens don't use - Palestinians because there's no point and Israelis because they won't travel in the West Bank. Next time I'm sticking to disputed border byways or taking a leisurely approach to my road trip and just driving on Shabbat.

Palestinian walk

2011-10-30T20:02:00.010Z

WE TOOK a leaf out of Raja Shehadah's Palestinian Walks book I gave DJ for his birthday by going on our own Palestinian walk today. Into Wadi Qelt, a valley that stretches east across the Judean desert to Jericho.

At least, I thought it was a Palestinian walk: the valley lies beyond the separation barrier, the vast concrete scar that stands sentry along Israel's perception of its West Bank border, and is the other side of an Israeli-manned checkpoint when it comes to re-entry. And yet an Israeli settlement - all smart houses, incongruous trees, and bougainvillea - overlooks the valley, which lies within an Israeli-controlled national park. "Welcome" said the sign, but the barbed wire ringed gate sent out its own message. As did our fellow hikers: where I had chosen to strap a baby to my chest, they'd opted for a gun. And not just any gun: MK 17s, or "battle rifles" according to Google.

Not that we paused to stare, opting instead to cross the stream that splits the desert valley and head up the hill the other side. The excitement of spotting the black-and-white paint dabs that marked the path was enough to lure Louis upwards, and the view across to Jordan, reward enough for reaching the top. Raf, meanwhile, was happy enough snoozing the trip away in what was his first Ergo sling outing - quite a moment, given how many hours/days/weeks he'll end up spending in said sling.

Back down and we found fig trees, palms, pampas grass and even eucalyptus (planted by the British forestry department back when we ran the show) lining the spring, which was invitingly cool for a paddle. And yes, more armed hikers, which begged the question of why there was a sign forbidding shooting. Unless it's a given that errant Palestinians are fair game. Certainly that's the impression the settlers give, arming themselves whenever they leave home, even to pop to the shops.

To an outsider, the trip summed up the complexities of the thwarted peace process. From the ambiguities over who controls which parcel of land, to the hostilities between the people that share it, the only thing that's easy to understand is the current stalemate.

Visit Palestine

2011-10-24T20:15:00.009+01:00

At Hisham's Palace; note the flag

IT WAS Raf's third; and - embarrassingly - Louis's ninth, the UK excluded. I'm talking countries, or I would be if things hadn't gone so awry in 1948. We had wheels, serious jeep wheels, and felt we should see more of the state they call Israel than just the view from Tel Aviv's golden sand into the Med.

And so, instead of turning left to the beach, we turned right to East Jerusalem, and beyond. To Jericho, to be precise, which is thought to be the world's oldest continuously inhabited city. Or one of them, although given it lies in the middle of a rocky desert, and didn't seem to have a whole lot going for it beyond masses of bananas and an over-priced cable car, I struggled to see why. More pertinently, it's in the West Bank, making it part of the Palestinian Territories, or, for kiddie country tally purposes, Palestine.

It certainly felt like another state: we might not have needed our passports, but we did pass through a Palestinian-controlled checkpoint. Israeli number plates (yellow, as oppose to Palestinian green) meant we got stopped, but saying we came from England saw us waved through. Not that they'd have stopped anyone with our liberal credentials. I mean, Robert Fisk is a colleague! Once through, the striking red, black, white, and green of the Palestinian flag hung from every possible vantage point. Per capita, it's a close call who waves more: Israelis or Palestinians.

Louis was under strict instructions not to repeat the faux pas he made on our first weekend: shouting "I love Israel" while sitting at an East Jerusalem cafe. (To be fair, he was reading it from his new mini Jerusalem jigsaw we'd bought at the Garden Tomb's gift shop. In the interest of BBC impartiality I'd hoped to find its Palestinian equal but all we came home with was a - free - camel.) DJ attempted to explain why affirming his affection for Israel would go down quite so badly, but short of deploying the Steamies vs. Diesels Thomas the Tank analogy I'm still working up, I'm not convinced Louis got it. And why should he, when even after my crash course in Middle Eastern politics I'm still struggling.

It sounds basic, but I found the lack of Hebrew on signposts striking. Especially when Arabic is liberally scattered throughout Israel, even if in the case of place names, it apparently just translates the Hebrew equivalent, rather than using the Arabic version of a town: so, Acre, for the northern coastal crusader town, and not Akko, as it's known in Arabic. Everywhere was also vastly more poor, albeit not quite on the scale of Gaza, which DJ likened to Dar-es-Salam after his trip there last week. Everywhere, that is, apart from the isolated pockets where the US has splashed its cash in a futile attempt to dull its pro-Israeli bias. Thus the site of Hisham's Palace, an archeological gem from the 7th century, had been newly tarted up with US money; as had the odd road.

The only tourists were religious ones: it was one in, one out to the cave atop the Mount of Temptation, where Jesus is reputed to have invented willpower, defying the Devil's attempts to make him break his 40-day fast. Fun as the cable car ride was up there, I fear we got more of a kick out of the political tourism than the religious stuff. That said, Bethlehem is also in the West Bank, so I guess we'll get another chance to combine the two.

The Outsider

2011-10-19T07:01:00.004+01:00

"Olden times cars"

Jerusalem March: as snapped by a 3yo

IT'S BEEN an odd week in Jerusalem. The never-ending Sukkot holiday - there are still two days left, and even then Shabbat looms on Friday night - has turned the city into one big party yet I've been left feeling my ticket got lost in the post.

It's mainly the Jewishness, which all the Sukkot-related customs has underlined since the festival began almost a week ago. It's impossible to step outside and not be reminded about the many ways I don't belong. And I'm not talking about one of the orthodox areas; even the local playgrounds, rich in expats, only serve to underline my outsider status simply because my reasons for being here differ so much from everyone else's. Take the American grandma who deigned to chat to me: her family come every year for Sukkot because her three sons all attended "yeshivas" (religious schools) in Jerusalem.

The influx of tens of thousands of Americans has exacerbated the weirdness: in the city centre, it's more common to hear a Yankee accent than someone speaking Hebrew. What with the vast American presence and Sukkot trappings - the shelters, the orthodox dress code, the constant visits to the temple, palm leaves and lemons in hand - I swear the city resembles a living theme park. Or one of those living history museums that the Americans are so good at, like the one in Plymouth, MA, where the Pilgrim fathers wander round in full 17th century garb. It's an usual town where men in giant busbys and satin frock coats outnumber those in jeans and trainers. By some degree.

The prisoner swap has added to the undercurrent of bizarre. It isn't often the Israelis and Palestinians have cause for concurrent celebrations but this is one of them.

Despite so much going on around us, it's been hard to find something to join in with. But I thought I'd managed today. The Jerusalem March is a day-long affair that starts with various groups hiking different routes around the city and culminates with the roads in the centre shutting down for a parade. We skipped the hike - I figured I walk most of the city most days anyway - but turned out for the parade, which kicked off a couple of streets from our flat outside the YMCA. It started well: two 1940s Army jeeps, several "olden times" cars, including one "just like the speedy car" he lost the day before (oops), three rubbish trucks (oh, the joy!), two fire engines, and a mini flotilla of motorbikes.

The marching soldiers weren't bad, although luckily Louis isn't the type to get excited by the guns. But then things went downhill. The parade's theme was something about welcoming foreign tourists - presumably to fleece them by charging through the nose for everything - so the procession comprised various different nationality OAPs waving their country's flag and banners praising God while tapping tambourines and shouting how much they love Israel. (Mini point of interest: massive Finnish contingent, small German one.) No wonder Louis wanted to retreat to the Y playground. I'm looking forward to everything getting back to normal, whatever that is, next week.

The flak jacket workout

2011-10-14T20:02:00.006+01:00

A sukkah

Rugalech in the sukkah

YOU'D THINK with all the hills, not to mention a baby to lug round and a loaded buggy to push (either with shopping, or Louis, or both), Jerusalem would be the perfect place to shed the post-natal pounds. But that would be to overlook the vast array of baked Israeli delicacies. So far, Louis's top pick is the rugelach: a sort of smaller, sweeter sibling to to the pain au chocolate, which he scoffed today in a sukkah. Finally. Their preponderance around town make chores a breeze, especially in the market where they only cost 1 NIS (barely 20p). The downside has to be their calorific punch. But I'm figuring that if things get desperate I can always add a spot of resistance training to my daily workouts by borrowing Daddy J's flak jacket. Weighing in at 10 kilos-plus, it could provide a totally new kind of new Mum exercise regime. Forget the Haredim guide to parenting (and you will want to after listening to this piece DJ did for the Today programme with Kevin Connolly about groups of ultra-orthodox Jews hurling abuse, and worse, at young girls at a school just outside Jerusalem), I'm thinking the flak jacket Jerusalem workout could be my ticket finally to cash in on the lucrative new parent market.

Sukkot and Christmas

2011-10-13T19:27:00.008+01:00

The Sukkah at the Gilat Shalit vigil

AT THE risk of offending two faiths in one swoop, I've decided Sukkot feels a lot like Christmas. The emphasis is on eating and drinking and the sukkah decorations - the paper chains and gaudy metallic garlands adorning the temporary shelters that have popped up in every available bit of outdoor space - are just like the ones festooning homes throughout December. The sukkah itself, with its palm frond thatched roof and flimsy walls, might have its roots firmly in the Old Testament but is distinctly Bethlehem stable if you ask me. Then there's the "lulav" - those palm fronds: all the talk here has been of crop fails and escalating prices because the post-Arab Spring Egyptians have refused to meet demand (handily fitting neatly into the Israeli isolation story Daddy J is working on in Istanbul for Today as I type). All very reminiscent of Christmas tree price hike stories (seriously, I swear we paid £60 for ours last year), even if Britain hasn't fallen out with Norway.

Everyone in their Sukkot best for the Temple today reminded me of the few trips I have made to church on the 25th, with people dressed up in their new outfits. The one glaring difference is I've never seen the streets of London congested with people spilling out of church the way that Jerusalem's city centre was today after late morning prayers. Again, I was astounded at the high proportion of Americans: the airlines must have cleaned up with ticket prices last week. And walking through town, on our way to the park, the air reverberated with the noise of people clinking dish upon dish out to their sukkah (as instructed by Moses, meals have to be taken in the sukkah for the duration of Sukkot). I half expected to hear the Queen start talking after they'd done eating.

Once in the park, Gan Sacher, the city's largest and just up the hill from the Knesset, the vibe was distinctly secular, with groups of Russians competing to out-shashlik each other with their BBQs. Until, that is, a group of proselytising Haredim turned up, lulav and etrogs in hand. One by one, they went round all the picnickers around us, making them do the Sukkot thing of waving the lulav around. Funnily enough, they gave us a miss. Which means we still need to seek out one of the many sukkot erected by the city's Kosher restaurants: Louis is desperate to join in somehow so I've promised we'll find a falafel or such like to eat under the palm fronds. Either that or perhaps we can pick some up half price and build that indoor camp after all.

Sukkot and shopping

2011-10-12T19:14:00.005+01:00

IF SHOPPING is the new religion, then imagine the frenzy when shopping becomes a Biblical imperative. That's what happened today, as the clock ticked down to another major Jewish holiday. Sukkot, or Feast of Tabernacles, a seven-day extravaganza of a harvest festival has a shopping list longer than an Orthodox hemline before the serious business of eating and drinking can commence. And raucous singing, judging from the din outside our flat tonight, audible because Shabbat-esque rules on day one mean the 16 lanes of traffic have fallen silent.

God apparently told Moses to tell the people to stock up on all things leafy to build special shelters ("sukkot" in Hebrew) to remind them of the dwellings in which the Israelites lived during their 40 years of travel in the desert after the Exodus from slavery in Egypt. Then there are the lemons, or "etrog": giant, knobbly affairs that get waved around during prayers. Or else. Cue frantic scenes across West Jerusalem as its entire Jewish population, and half of America's too judging from the accents and jetlagged children around, rushed to fulfill Moses' commandments.

The scenes in Jerusalem's Haredim quarters of Ge'ula and Mea Shearim made Oxford Street on Christmas Eve look peaceful. What I was thinking taking a buggy up there God alone knows. Stall upon stall of "lulav" sellers flogging myrtle twigs, willow twigs and palm fronds lined the tiny pavements, each surrounded by gaggles of frock coated, black hatted Haredim peering at each and every twig to check the biblical perfection of its shoots. The oddest thing was that in contrast to your typical consumer clientele, the Haredim out shopping were almost exclusively male. Given their general attitude towards women, I can only presume the fairer sex couldn't be trusted. This meant that my cunning disguise, of maxi dress, cardigan and headscarf - flesh being taboo - was for nought because simply being female made me stick out like a sore thumb. Not to mention Louis's shortish back and sides, or the boys' lack of matching striped shirts (I noticed some families prefer horizontal, others vertical, I know not why).

Being a kid after my own heart, Louis was keen to max the consumerist elements of the festival, and demanded that we too stocked up with palm fronds. But fun as the sukkot look squeezed into every available bit of residential outdoor space, from roof tops to balconies, I reckoned that a palm frond camp was probably beyond me, although I must admit I'm regretting it slightly now. Instead, we made do with our very own sukkot jigsaw, a 70-piece number for which I paid far too much. Still, it killed some time before the DVD went on. Not sure what Moses would make of it though.

The ultimate pre-school field trip

2011-10-11T19:35:00.004+01:00

IN ONE of life's more ironic twists, this trip to the Holy Land has come up just as we're supposed to be applying for schools for Louis. "Ironic" because the only good ones near us are massively oversubscribed Church of England schools, and our agnostic son stands precisely no chance of getting a place. Somehow the christening never happened, and as for Sunday church attendance: well, it felt wrong given the motivation would have been for the wrong sort of educational reasons.

Yet here we are in the birthplace of two of the world's three biggest religions, living in a city that Muslims consider their third holiest. Just getting through a day here requires a religious sensitivity that is completely absent from life in London, even, I'd warrant, for the majority of parents whose kids attend some sort of faith-based school. And a simple sight-seeing trip, to the Wall, for example, has me in knots trying to explain what it all means to a three year old when even I'm not that sure. Heck, (and I just had to delete "Hell") I'm even rusty about my Old Testament stories; hardly surprising when all I can dredge up from the recesses of my mind is one junior school production of Joseph.

But Louis will go home knowing more about the big three than most children pitching up at one of the CofE schools that turn him down. Our impromptu trip to the Garden Tomb on Saturday (our trip east in search of bustle to escape the Yom Kippur shutdown had us seeking serenity pretty darn fast and this was the nearest to a park our particular bit of East Jerusalem had to offer) means he can already weigh in on the controversy surrounding Jesus's resurrection. (The controversial bit being where he actually temporarily lay, for fellow heathens like me.) Give me a couple more days and we'll have Calvary ticked off as well - that' s provided I can tear us both away from the water slide at the local swimming pool.

Where, I'd like to know, is the bit on the schools' application form marked "field trip"? Doesn't three months immersion in the Holy Land trump a couple of half-hearted Sunday morning church services? I'm guessing not......

Yom Kippur at the Wall

2011-10-07T21:15:00.002+01:00

WE JUST had one of those ultimate Jerusalem moments. Standing by the Western Wall at sunset on the eve not just of Shabbat but Yom Kippur, as the call to evening prayer at one of the Old City mosques mixed with the gentle wailing of the devout Haredi at prayer, Israel sniper overhead silhouetted against the darkening night sky, there it was: the essence of what all the fuss is about. I'm sure if I'd craned my neck I could have seen the Church of the Holy Sepulchre too.

Despite being but one of a swell of tourists, it felt like snooping to witness one of the most religious sights at arguably the world's most religious site, yet I couldn't tear myself away. A Louis in tow gave me an excuse to linger because he was fascinated by it all, begging me to take him up close. I was shy to barge in, but seeing his interest, an old lady gestured me in to the bit segregated for women - or "for mummies, little boys, and babies, but not daddies", as Louis put it.

He already knew about the religions festival because I'd had to explain why we were dashing to the shops yet again at lunchtime to buy a last bottle of milk before the Shabbat shutdown, but once at the Wall I think the lack of music and bands confused him. You see, the last festival we were at was a street festival in SE1, and before that, watching Lenny Kravitz at a music festival in Hyde Park. Which left me rather stumbling for words to try and explain what everyone was doing, gently rocking back and forth, prayer book in hand, and for what purpose. Telling him people were wishing for things that they wanted made it all seem horribly materialistic, especially when he started confusing it with the time we threw a penny into a wishing well.

But he nailed it eventually: "Like no killing," he said. Exactly. Someone get him a seat at the peace talks.

A tram fan

2011-10-07T20:01:00.005+01:00

FORGET THE Dome of the Rock or the Western Wall, Jerusalem has a new top attraction. Especially if you're three. But, this being the city that it is, it's not without its controversies.

The Jerusalem light railway, or the tram to Louis, divides opinion because the first (and thus far, only) line runs from the Jewish settlement of Pisgat Ze'ev in East Jerusalem (the Arab bit) to Mount Herzl in the west. Which to your clueless observer (hitherto me) might sound unifying, but granted that settlements are illegal - because they sit on land captured by Israel from Egypt, Jordan, and Syria during the 1967 war - riles those who want East Jerusalem to be the capital of a future Palestine because it tightens Israel's grip on the disputed territory.

Not that you think about the potential political implications of a bright, shiny, new tram if you're three. All you want to know is when you can ride it and whether you'll see "where the trams sleep" at the end of the line. I answered the first question by jumping aboard with them both but despite giving Louis free rein as to when we got off, we only went as far as Damascus Gate at the edge of the Old City before heading back up the hill in the other direction to the shuk. He immediately wished we'd stuck it out longer because he spotted - joy of joys - a track splitter up ahead.

Being brand new - it only started running in August - it made for a pleasant half an hour or so even if we couldn't get on the first one because it was so crowded. But there were plenty of fun signs to spot while we waited (road signs giving wheeled vehicles a run for their money on the excitement front for Louis right now). And the ultimate bonus is it's free to ride on because it's still being tested, which means that along with the massive bunches of herbs once we made it to the shuk it's pretty much the only thing that's good value in Israel. I predict we'll be like the homeless on the Circle line as was, riding it up and down, before next week's out.

Swings and Roundabouts

2011-10-06T21:02:00.005+01:00

THREE DAYS down and the Old City may still elude me, but boy am I notching up my Jerusalem playgrounds. Happily for all three of us there are two beauties each within about seven minutes from our flat. Not that Raf's quite up to clambering up a rope ladder, but given the speed he backward crawls along the leather sofa I wouldn't bet against that happening before our stint here is up. He's happy enough sling snoozing while Louis scampers around though.

As guide books seem to have a thing against taking small people on holiday (see bwb posts passim), we're on our own when it comes to scouting them out. Some, like the multi-slide affair in HaPa'amon (or Liberty Bell Park, so named for its replica of Philadelphia's Liberty Bell), are obvious. Others, like the smaller one in Solovkov Park (pictured), less so. And others still, like one I stumbled across a block or so off the main drag in the German Colony while Louis grabbed a surprise late afternoon buggy nap on our first day, require a poke around the back streets. They're the ones I like best: where families spill out of their homes at the end of the day to congregate for a mass gossip while their kids run off yet more of their steam after a day at the 'gan' (daycare).

So far, we've mainly hit the playgrounds in the early afternoon, when they're all but deserted. The most Israeli new mums can take off is six months, of which only three are paid (by the government rather than their employer) so 'gan' places are in high demand, and there's a distinct absence of any little people around until their mothers have finished work for the day. Which will make it much harder to find Louis any little playmates. The poor child was so desperate for someone other than me to talk to today that he monopolised a brief Skype chat I had with a friend. Goodness knows how he'll cope when it really is just me and them 24/7. I'll find out soon enough though as DJ's first trip looms large next week. Perhaps if we can hit the after 'gan' crowd, and I can find out the Hebrew for 'slide', and 'my turn', Louis will manage to strike up a conversation or two on the climbing frame. Now where's that Hebrew-for-kids app?

Yom Kippur and kids

2011-10-04T21:31:00.005+01:00

TALKING OF fasting, we'll need to come Friday, and not just because I'll have run out of cash by then. It's Yom Kippur, or Day of Atonement, which caps ten days of reflection since Rosh Hashanah, Jewish New Year. It's the holiest of Holy Days, all the more so this year since it falls on Shabbat. The gist is abstinence: from eating, from driving, from pretty much everything bar intensive praying. That much is clear from the warnings I've had regarding making sure we've got enough food in, and giving sight-seeing a miss for 24 hours. We're talking a total national shut down, from the borders to the roads (although I'm told that the more secular minded take to their bikes and blades).

But what is rather more hazy is where that all leaves an avowedly secular Louis. (My attempts to explain why I'd donned what was effectively a curtain to nurse Raf in a market cafe today by talking about people's religious beliefs had him zoning me out even quicker than usual.) Where, for example, does the Torah stand on playing? Are climbing frames out? Swings frowned upon? And just what do the city's growing number of Haredi inhabitants do with their vast broods in between those five visits to the Temple? I'd like to see them try and make Louis sit still in contemplative fashion all day long. Come to think of it, if they could swing that, then perhaps the Haredi guide to parenting is the book for which the world has been waiting. I can see it on the bestseller lists now.....

Babies who fast

2011-10-03T19:52:00.007+01:00

TWENTY-FOUR hours into life in Jerusalem and I'm no nearer thinking up a new name for a blog. With two tiny people in tow, I saw scope in the Wailing Wall or something about needing to Settle them in our own little corner of one-time Palestine. Then there was the Advent Adventure we'll be having come December. That's "we" as in my very own Angels in the Holy Land (son #2 is a Rafael after all).

But all those, and others, lacked the neutrality I sought as the unofficial plus one of a BBC producer. (It's an unaccompanied post, so we're not really here.) Not that Auntie exactly has a reputation for detachment in these parts. I swear the immigration guy was about to wave us through until Daddy J mentioned the "B" word. Then it was all, "Why were you born in Istanbul?" and "What was your father doing there?".

So babieswhobrunch it is, and will remain, although if the evidence of last night's shopping foray is anything to go by then babieswhofast might be more apt. Admittedly it was 10pm in a posh mini-market in one of the city's better-heeled neighbourhoods, but £6 for a box of Weetabix? The good news for Louis is that henceforth he'll be able to have olives for all three meals rather than just two.

The #Secret to nutritional goodness

2011-02-02T14:32:00.005Z

I was invited to a party yesterday. Okay, so it was only a Twitter party; but, hey, I don't get out much. It's on Thursday from 1pm to 2pm and if I'm being honest, I shouldn't brag about the invitation because anyone can come. The party theme is getting kids to eat properly and all you have to do is use the hashtag #secret goodness and you're away. Oh, plus share a few of your concerns/tips in the nutrition department.

It's being sponsored by Kingsmill, which in my mind is synonymous with white sliced bread so doesn't exactly fit my eating agenda, but I guess those slices also come in brown. (I'll gloss over the fact that the loaves also come pumped with god knows what so they last forever in your bread bin.) And, let's face it, bread is pretty handy when you've got to feed a child in a hurry. Where would the world be without sandwiches?

Food is something I think about a lot, whether it's me or Louis who is doing the eating. Somehow we've lucked out because for a two year old, Louis is a pretty fantastic eater. (I've always figured it makes up for his ineptitude in the sleeping department.) Whether it's luck or by design, he's always had a pretty adventurous palate and a hearty appetite. Okay, so he likes cake and chocolate as much as the next toddler, even though I never intended to let him know what they were! But he'll chow down lentils for dinner and a pear for pudding happily enough.

He's always wanted what we're eating (which forces me to do a lot of surreptitious chocolate munching) and recently that means he's developing a taste for some serious heat. Spice heat, not temperature. It all started when we told him he wouldn't like Daddy J's stir fry because it was too spicy. "I like spicy," came the reply, so we let him at it. The upshot was lunch on Monday at a fabulous Japanese noodles house, Koya, in Soho. After polishing off the noodles I'd hived off from my dish for him, he demanded first DJ's curried version, and then more of mine, which by now came with additional zing. Did it put him off? On the contrary, and there's photographic evidence to prove it.

Which I think all goes to show that sometimes children might eat more than their parents anticipate, greens and all.

Mea culpa: or what happens when someone reads what you've written

2011-02-01T20:18:00.003Z

Odd thing, blogging: one minute it's just you, your sofa and a keyboard; the next someone half way round the world has read what you've written. Which shouldn't surprise me; after all, I make a (so-called) living writing for a national newspaper. And yet, when I got pulled up for something I'd written on bwb some months ago, it came as rather a shock to know I actually did have followers. Especially when it turned out they were somewhat closer to home than California.

So close to home, in fact, that the something I got taken to task about concerned Louis' nursery and some somewhat glib remarks I'd made about the torture that was leaving him there. (And when I say *torture*, I don't actually mean torture in a strict thumbscrew sense on the offchance I offend the same follower again; I'm exaggerating for something I believe is called poetic license, not that I'm claiming to be a poet.) Turns out, someone who knew Louis, read this blog, and, I'm guessing, knew of me, was so *worried* about me after reading a couple of my posts that instead of asking if I was okay, she - and apparently it was another mum - thought it best to show the offending posts to the head of the nursery because clearly they "had a real problem". Not with Louis; with me.

Never mind that this all blew up just as he was (finally) truly settling in. Or that it made me feel terrible, because inevitably the nursery then worried that I thought badly of them, when nothing could have been further from the truth. The only thing I felt bad about was me for dumping him there, which is a working mother's prerogative, after all. The one constant about Louis' nursery was how lovely the staff are, yet my throwaway remarks had made them feel bad. And me feel even worse.

Which I explain not for want of having something to blog about, but partly as a mea culpa for the original comments but also by way of explanation (if anyone was curious) as to why it's been nearly three months (three months?? where does time go) since I've last written a post. And for the record, an older and wiser Louis is loving nursery right now, which I'd love to report helps to ease that maternal guilt, but I'm not sure it does.

Catch 22

2010-11-10T14:24:00.002Z

For me, it' s bed time. His, not mine, although there's an inevitable knock on when it's always gone 9pm before you even start thinking about dinner or snatching some down time. Should I stay, or should I go? The dilemma gets me every time. No prizes for guessing what he says. Repeatedly. So I stay, but know that if I go I'd be doing him a favour. Or would I? He certainly doesn't seem to think so when I try and creep out.

Each night is like a game of Russian roulette. Sometimes if I stay, I just prolong both our agonies because he ends up staying awake just to make sure I haven't snuck out. But if I go, he gets so upset that I just end up flying back in to calm him down. And cuddle him. Again. Except for the odd miracle occasion when leaving him is the right choice because without my presence to distract him, he'll give up on the day that much faster and fall asleep. But then again, sometimes he'll do that when I cuddle him. Although sometimes he won't.

Part of me is desperate that it's been two and a half years and still I dread bedtime. But another part of me knows that he won't want to cuddle me forever and even those two and a half years have gone quickly (if you excuse the interminable hours/days/weeks spent waiting for him to drop off). The real catch 22 is that I feel if I leave him to cry now, then I may as well have abandoned my no crying rule years. Sometime I think we'd have all been a lot happier. But then I remember how sweet natured he is, and I like to kid myself that that's got something to do with him never having had to give up on the world because no one came. Until, that is, it's time for bed and I'm in a fresh quandary about what to do again.

This post was inspired by Josie's writing prompt at Sleep is For the Weak. I've long intended to write something for it as oppose to just write words in my head and this week, for some reason, I decided the time had finally come. I hope she thinks the subject matter apt......

BMB Carnival time!

2010-11-09T15:19:00.007Z

So, it's carnival time. Which for the unBritishMummyBloggersinitiated is a bi-monthly celebration of blogging posts. I had intended to suggest a theme, but didn't get the chance because entries started arriving about four weeks ago! And if you think that means I haven't pulled them all together at the last minute, well, think again. Enjoy. I know I did.

Pants with Names wonders how kids suss us out so quickly

Kate takes 5 seconds to embarrass her other half....

Muddling along Mummy wants to know if it's possible to fall back in love?

Carly at Mummyshoes on the cut throat world of baby modeling

21stcenturymummy tackles the torture that is miscarriage

A Modern Mother books in some time for herself

Mama and More bemoans how she’d rather her little girl never felt she needed make up

Smart Talkers reveals how signing can help more than just babies and toddlers

Frugal Family surprises with how much fun grown ups can have with 20 questions

A Mothers Ramblings wants you to remember how much children mean to their parents

Musings of a Busy Mum muses how to make the best of a bad soup

Baby Budgeting has some top tips for a bargain basement birthday party

Mommy has a Headache asks how you cope with that time of the month?

Maggie at Red Ted Art, on making a hobby horse for 50p

Mummy From the Heart sees red

New Mummy wants people to give mums a break

Sharon at I heart Motherhood on The big C

ebabee likes Stella’s new kids clothes

Steffi at Mummy Do That on how to make breastfeeding seem “normal”

Hot Cross Mum reveals how dads are really from mars

Mary at A Small Hand in Mine has some wise words from Dr Seuss

Rachel at Mid 30s Life on beating the gym humiliation

Northern Mum has tips on surviving Tesco - and reveals why that wine aisle comes at the end

Mission to Motherhood seeks the hidden domestic goddess within

Metal Mummy on debunking common myths

Packing T-shirts and toddlers

2010-11-08T19:15:00.006Z

Just what do guidebooks have against toddlers? Or new parents come to think of it? For some reason the Lonely Planet et al seem to have decreed that toddlers shouldn't go travelling. Turn to the section about children, and it's always all about older children with absolutely no tips for the under threes. Or fours, or fives.

Yet they're missing a trick. Take Madrid. A fantastic city for young kids as it turns out, contrary to its reputation as party central. The best thing is practically every plaza comes with a playground attached, from the brilliant one on Plaza Oriente, just in front of the Palacio Real (think Buckingham Palace with slides) to the two on Plaza Santa Ana, one of the city's most picturesque. And that's without counting all the ones in the Parque del Retiro. Then there was the tapas. Snack central. (Although I would like to know if there are any guidelines on the number of salty olives a toddler should eat in one sitting?) And it's totally walkable. We didn't make a single Metro journey - and we saw a lot of Madrid. It's also largely pedestrianised; buggy nap heaven. Plus everyone went crazy for Louis. Even the lovely lady in the clothes shop who followed us out into the street and begged me to pop him on the potty inside a changing cubicle rather than make him freeze outside.

It's not that the playgrounds were hard to spot. But a line or two pointing them out might have been nice. That way, Louis could have been bouncing on a see saw on the plaza just off one of the main shopping streets while I browsed, instead brumming his car in the gutter. Some advance knowledge that it was there would have been helpful, rather than leaving us to stumble upon it after Louis fell asleep. What gets me is that we're pretty much the last generation that will use guidebooks. So their authors could bear us in mind when they're updating them. Don't they realise that those student backpackers grew up? Or were we really not supposed to pack the toddler along with the T-shirts?

A potty break

2010-10-29T20:52:00.005+01:00

Note to self: it might have been a good idea to tone DOWN the emotional pants blackmail five days before going to Madrid rather than ramp it up. Something tells me the reason the books don't include a chapter on potty training a toddler while on a city break is because You. Just. Don't. Do. It. (Or at least I imagine they don't. It's a bit of a blur, but I think I gave up on baby books in about Louis's eleventh month of round-the-clock sleeplessness. Either way, I knew not even to open the Gina Ford potty-trained-in-a-week tome my neighbour thrust in my direction the other day!)

I was nervous enough about the prospect of a city break with a toddler. Especially to a city that doesn't even get going until several hours after toddlers are supposed to be asleep. So imagine my delight when Louis announced earlier this week that he wouldn't be wearing nappies again, only Thomas pants. (Oh foolish mother that I am to have dangled the prospect of Thomas pants in front of his former nappy wearing self!)

We've only ourselves to blame: that morning he'd moaned about me changing his nappy so I told him the only alternative was the potty and the pants. Trust Louis to call my bluff! "Okay. Nappy off. I'll sit on the potty. And wear Thomas pants." Turns out his Daddy J is equally to blame. They'd had one of those am-I-a-big-boy? conversations the night before, that ended with DJ telling him that big boys didn't wear nappies. And so now he doesn't. Well, apart from to sleep. But considering he told his nursery carer he'd rather play than nap for the past two days that's two less nappies worn already. (Cue more worries that he's given up his lunchtime nap as well - just in time for a city where everyone takes a siesta.)

Now all I need to know is how much easyJet will charge us in excess luggage when we bring back a suitcase full of Louis's wet trousers.

Manga Mama

2010-10-26T17:00:00.003+01:00

Some kids get magicians at their birthday parties, others get princess makeovers. But REALLY lucky ones get an original Manga portrait as drawn by my very talented friend Sonoko, who recently launched what must be London's only Manga portrait party service. Actually, make that Britain's only Manga portrait party service. For a frankly small amount she'll come and do a ten minute portrait of every child you've invited. You can read more about it (and watch a video demo) on her Manga blog.

And you should, you really should. Just think of the party kudos: how many other party bags contain an original Manga portrait? And she's seriously good. Her other projects include designing jewellery for Anna Lou of London and Giles Peterson's set at this summer's Standon Calling festival. You can read more about her work as a graphic artist here.

And the the record: this is NOT a sponsored post. (I don't think the Manga Louis she did as a present for his second birthday counts.) In fact, I've never done a sponsored post because I'm not on any PR radars. (Not that I'm complaining!)

The nursery net

2010-10-18T20:29:00.002+01:00

I know, I know. The "n" word seems to feature in a lot of my posts at the moment. (Well, two out of the past three at least, and considering the (ir)regularity with which I seem to blog that's quite a lot.) But I can't help it. I can't stop thinking about it. The nursery. And specifically, the nursery net. So called because I realised through the tears on Friday (mine and his) that we're caught. In the net. He might not like going - an understatement last week when, for the first time, he cried all the way there, both days - but, like a fish on the deck of a trawler, I don't think we can escape.

You see, I'd always consoled myself with the thought that if it all got really bad, there'd be an exit. A childminder, or a nanny. But despite him hitting a new low of late (he moved into the older kids room a few weeks ago and it hasn't gone well), I think I'm going to have to let him tough it out. As the lady who runs it pointed out, if I take him out now (aged 2 years and 4ish months), I'll only wind up trying to make him go again at some point in the not too distant future.

Even if I don't pack him off to pre-school, or whatever the term is for the full five-day affair that seems to be all the rage, the minute he turns three, I guess there's always the lure of those three free hours a day. (Provided the Tories don't get there first, and let's face it: they should, I can afford to pay his way.) And then there's school proper, which seems to begin earlier and earlier. I'd always thought kids were five when they start, but with a June birthday, Louis will barely be four as things stand. I would happily consider "redshirting" him (an American term for holding them back a year before they start school, which you can read about in this NY Times piece) but that seems to be one American fashion yet to cross the Atlantic.

I realise he might end up settling down; a new routine in new surroundings is a big deal when you're only two, plus he only goes two days a week, which I know is harder. But then again he might not. As the nursery lady reminded me, some kids just always cry when dumped. (*Helpfully* with an actual anecdote about a boy who never got used to being dumped by his mum, right up to still crying when he started school.) So for the meantime, I reckon we're stuck in that net. Now, how do I break it to Louis?

The perils of Thomas

2010-10-04T16:04:00.005+01:00

Hard not to inhale deeply at today's Mail story about the "little boy trapped in the world of Thomas the Tank Engine". It can't have been only me thinking, 'There but for the grace of God.....' Yet there is one big difference between Louis' Thomas obsession and the boy in the article: I'm trying not to let Louis find out that the Thomas of his many books also moonlights as a television star. Not because I think TV is inherently evil, as the piece goes on to imply, but just because I. Can't. Take. Any. More. Thomas.

Can someone explain what it is about the cheeky tank engine? Personally, I can't imagine a more boring series of books. Especially if you're *lucky* enough to own some of the original stories. Back then, children's authors didn't mince their words so the trains' adventures are described in full technical glory. There are sidings; couplings; buffers; and many, many more trainspotting terms that I don't understand let alone a toddler. Yet he couldn't be more gripped. Night, after night - with plenty of mornings, mid-mornings, pre-lunchtime naps, and mid-afternoons thrown in for good measure - it's Thomas, Thomas, Thomas. Not forgetting the hours spent pushing mini Thomas and pals round his own train tracks.

Bizarrely, I think the obsession was triggered by a cook book. A free one I got sent at work uselessly telling you how to make all sorts of impossibly different character cakes. I brought it home, Louis discovered it, and would spend hours getting me to explain how you make a Thomas cake. But I also blame the person who gave him two Thomas books for his first birthday! (If only the bump in her tummy was male, I could get my own back, but alas!)

(That said, Thomas did - briefly - become cool last night when Louis discovered an interactive Thomas playmat in his friend Yoppy's room that translated every single Thomas train into Japanese. I liked "Hen-ly" and "Haloldy" best. I want it!)

It was interesting, though, that the Mail piece, which was based on a paper published in the Journal of Developmental and Behavioural Pediatrics, used evidence of the boy's fixation to rail against television. Louis is (almost) as into Thomas and yet he takes all his stories from an old-fashioned book. I personally think TV can be an excellent teacher - as does Desmond Morris we learnt last week. Plus, I'll never forget one taxi driver crediting the Disney channel for his 12-month-old daughter already being able to count up to ten. And the lessons Louis learns from Charlie and Lola are invaluable. Not to mention the vocab. Perhaps the trick is just not to let him find out that there's such a thing as a Thomas DVD....

Nursery: the hidden upside

2010-09-20T14:42:00.005+01:00

Who knew there was an upside to nurseries? Certainly not me when I had to take Louis last Friday morning. It was always going to be tough, my first drop off after nearly a three-week break, and it was. Tearful, he clung, begging to be picked up for "one more cuddle", his plea of desperation for when the going gets really tough. Like at bedtime. It didn't help that his new "key worker" had a day off and there was another new face in the room. Somehow I managed to peel him off and make my escape, his "I want my mummy" refrain ringing in my ears for the rest of the day.

How could I do it? I couldn't stop thinking how wrong it felt for all that a) it's only two days a week, b) it's actually a very nice nursery and I know he's lucky to have a place there, and c) aren't they supposed to teach even toddlers useful skills such as socialising, etc, etc? And yes I'm assured he calms down once I have left, although he does spend the day asking after me. (And Daddy J, I'm sure.)

But then today it struck me. The upside. I don't have to worry that he prefers someone else. Not for us, the scene last week when a friend's toddler was cuddling her childminder when her mum was in the room. Or at playgroup today when one mum had to watch her two year old toddle off after the nanny he shares with another boy. Louis is mine, all mine! And I can stop worrying about the parade of new faces at nursery.

La bella citta

2010-09-14T14:41:00.005+01:00

Us urban mums are beset by guilt. There's the guilt that Louis can't scooter down the street because there's too much dog debris; the guilt his trips out involve the tube and the shops rather than his bike and some fields; the guilt that I need to drag him out in his buggy to get anywhere useful; and the guilt that our garden is the size of a postage stamp.

And yet. Day one back in the big smoke after a week luxuriating in the Italian hills with little but baa-ing sheep and partying grasshoppers for company and Louis couldn't be happier. It's not that he didn't enjoy la bella campagna - all that earth was perfect for his diggers - but he was genuinely thrilled to be back in London. What with buses, building sites, trains (including his own personal "toot" from a Bakerloo line driver), and taxis to look at I'm beginning to think city life with a child isn't too bad. It's certainly stimulating: there's always something different coming down the road, even if it is just yet another type of construction vehicle.

Maybe all those parents who claim they're moving out to the countryside for the sake of their kids actually have themselves in mind. Or am I just speaking as someone with a pre-school age child?

The Imperial Digger Museum

2010-08-31T13:40:00.003+01:00

You know when people tell you not to worry about something until it happens? Well, sometimes they're right. (Only sometimes, mind.) Last week's destination was a trip to the Imperial War Museum (triggered by collective parental guilt about our lack of knowledge about the Battle of Britain after a visit to Louis' great-grandpa). I figured we'd able to do a quick crash course, while Louis amused himself looking at an aeroplane or two and wandering through the trenches. What I hadn't figured was what I'd tell him the museum was all about. After all, war is a tough concept for anyone to grasp, let alone a two year old.

But as it turned out, I needn't have fretted. Louis took one look at the giant caterpillar tracks on the tanks dotted throughout the ground floor and said: "Diggers!" After that, it was just a question of dragging him away from them long enough to find the Second World War exhibit. Which we did, but only after walking through the replica trenches at least six times. (Again, concerns that he might be scared by the dark, like a fellow toddler who was inconsolable after her parents tried to take her in, were pointless; he adored them, mainly because we had to walk on the "train track" because of all the mud....) Only Louis would watch a black-and-white film of the Blitzkrieg through France twice over because he was waiting for the German Panzer digger brigade to reappear.

The only disappointment was that you can't actually climb into any of the diggers, sorry, tanks, although you can walk through the nose of one of the bomber planes and explore a submarine. And that he didn't give us quite long enough to atone for years of ignorance about the finer points of the Battle of Britain. So instead, I wrote a comment piece about it for the Indy on Sunday, which you can read here if you'd like. And no doubt we'll back at the Imperial War Museum soon enough, if only on another "digger" hunt.

Having it all

2010-08-04T21:28:00.005+01:00

So, it's official. As a working mum I can give myself a pat on the back for making the right decision and not staying with Louis 24/7 because he'll turn out the same either way. Or I could if I had a hand free. Because as a working mum, as everyone knows, "hands" and "free" aren't exactly sentiments that go together. Which is why any sane person grabs every bit of help that they can, whether it's the odd extra hour of childcare courtesy of some very kind grandparents or the ultimate luxury of a fortnightly cleaner (doesn't ask what the house looks like on day 13).

Or at least they do, if they're anyone but Emma Thompson. The actor and mother-of-two decreed this week (ironically via a publicity interview for her latest Nanny McPhee film) that working and mummying don't mix - unless you have a household full of staff to do the dirty work for you. Which was a timely dig at all those supermum celebrities who neglect to mention their back up when they preach about the effortless joys of being a mother (naming no names, Gisele-breastfeeding-should-be-law-for-six-months-Bundchen or Angelina Jolie). Weighing into the debate about how people's working lives just aren't working for a lot of women, Thompson claimed she never wanted to "delegate the running" of her house to others so that she could forge ahead with her career.

I applaud her sentiment but I'm heartily sick of the likes of her trying to pretend that their lives remotely resemble the wider populace. And I don't believe for a minute that she cleans her own toilet. Or mops her kitchen floor. And I resent her implication that she does. (I also resent the fact that I, like millions of other people, try somehow and see parallels between my own life and the rich and famous, but that's hardly her fault.)

It would have been more useful if Thompson had made more of the fact that she hadn't had her biological child until she was 41 to point out the ludicrousness of the situation that means any ambitious women out there feel they have to prove themselves in the workplace before allowing themselves the chance to have a family. Now that we'll all be working well past our dotage, isn't it time that someone pointed out it makes vastly more sense for women to have children in their 20s and then hit the world of work in their mid-30s, when, let's face it, they'll still have a good 40 years toil minimum ahead of them.

Perhaps that way we could move on from the debate about whether working mums are or aren't the devil's spawn. And women really could have it all.

Art attack: part two

2010-07-27T14:41:00.006+01:00

Inside the Serpentine Pavilion

More news on the toddler-friendly gallery front (on the offchance anyone is following what seems to have become what newspapers love to dub an "occasional series"): we stumbled on two more gems this past week. The first is admittedly obvious: Jean Novel's giant red tent - well, at least that's how I sold it to Louis - outside the Serpentine in Hyde Park. It's their annual summer pavilion-cum-cafe; architecture and caffeine, a winning combination. Louis enjoyed the chill out corner, complete with red air mattresses and red beanbags to bounce on (everything's in iconic London red; even the fruit and vegetables growing in the garden) and DJ and I enjoyed the coffee. There are chess tables and ping pong tables, so it might be fun checking it out without Louis too, especially as it's open into the evening.

The second exhibition I picked purely with me in mind. Francis Alys at the Tate Modern. I'd stumbled on him a year ago at the National Portrait Gallery where he'd curated, rather than painted, a room full of portraits of a Catholic Saint, Fabiola. I may not know my religious art, but somehow her image, side one, head hooded with a red veil, is hauntingly familiar. All the more so in fact after seeing 300 or more different takes on her that he scooped up over the years at various car boot sales or what have you and hung in a single room, barely inches apart. So simple and quite outstanding.

This time Alys, a Belgian artist who has lived in Mexico City since the mid-1980s, has some powerful stuff to say about the state of Latin America. Witness a video of a man pushing a giant block of ice around Mexico City on a hot day. Unsurprisingly he is left with nothing to show for his endeavour. Likewise the driver of a VW Beetle that tries to drive up a steep dirt track to the soundtrack of a brass band rehearsing. Every time the band stops, the car stops, sliding back down the track. There's also footage of around 500 people strung out in a line along a sand dune. Spades in hand, they advance, step by painful step, digging as they walk in a futile attempt to move the dune. The video of children building a sandcastle on a beach as the tide turns has a similar message about the futility of life, especially for a Latin American. Ditto the one of children skimming stones into the sea. Plip, plip, plip, plip, sink. Plip, plip, plip, plip, sink.

All those videos made it another perfect exhibition with Louis in tow; the sand and digging an added bonus. Not to mention getting in early with such a vital life lesson. Or is that a bit bleak?

Toddler logic

2010-07-21T20:43:00.007+01:00

(A piece of watermelon; but it might as well be a sausage!)

You've got to love a toddler's logic. And here's two reasons why:

1. Louis and the sausage.

It's the end of a BBQ at ours. So far, so delicious: Geof and DJ have enjoyed some Mummy-made beefburgers and sausages, while Louis and I have tucked into the usual vegetarian barbecue fare of aubergines, peppers and some halloumi for good measure. There may even have been a corn on the cob. But now Louis is trying to work out how he can wangle some ketchup. I attempt to point out that he can't have any because, "ketchup is just for sausages". So Louis, my darling veggie son who hitherto has turned up his nose at even the scant bit of chicken I've reluctantly offered him, immediately declares: "Louis wants a sausage."

Me: "Really? But Mummy doesn't like sausages."

Louis: "Louis likes sausages!"

Me: "Really? Are you sure? Mummy really doesn't like sausages."

Louis, smiling: "Louis LIKES sausages."

Me, grimacing: "Okay then....."

And, readers, he ate the sausage; well, half of it. Liberally doused in ketchup.

2. Louis and the bicycle

One of Louis' best books is one that a friend bought him just before we jetted off for DC: Little Louis Takes Off. It tells the tale of a little swallow, little Louis, who can't fly, so instead of flying south with his family for the winter, he has to travel in an aeroplane. After (re-)reading it the other day, I contrast "Little Louis in the book" with "Big Louis" who is reading it.

Pause, as Louis' brain works overtime to recall all those conversations (aka tantrums) we've had about bicycles that conclude with me telling him that 'no, he can't have a bicycle until he's a big boy'....

Louis: "So now Louis is big, Louis can have a bicycle!"

Tell me how I can argue with that?!

Ernesto Neto: the toddlers' artist

2010-07-13T14:24:00.011+01:00

In the interests of balance - well, I am theoretically a journalist as well as Louis' mum - I figured it wasn't fair to moan about the dinosaurs at the Natural History Museum without eulogising about the amazing exhibition we went to this morning. (On the dinosaur front, I'm told that first thing on a weekend is the time to go, plus we managed to miss the moving dinosaur that was at the end of the very hot and sticky throng of people in one particularly crowded gallery.)

But back to today. After giving up on seeking out kid-focused museums, we figured we'd use yet another overcast, dull day we had all together (heatwave; what heatwave?) to check out Ernesto Neto at the Hayward Gallery. The exhibition is part of the South Bank's summer homage to all things Brazilian. Which thankfully stretches beyond the ubiquitous Haviana flip flop. Two things inspired us to go: my lovely and very talented artist friend Sonoko, who is keen to see it, and the much photographed open-air swimming pool that is part of his show and which would have provided respite from the heat, had the weather not been lousy.

If you don't know Ernesto Neto - and if so, join the club - he belongs to the tactile school of art. He doesn't so much make sculptures as redecorate entire galleries with wonderful interactive creations you can touch, sit on or even climb into. He has transformed the internal concrete mass of the Hayward Gallery into a sensuous living organism, with nylon membra strung from ceiling to floor to create tunnels and caves that suck you in before spitting you on the terrace where you can take a dip in an inflatable, crocheted pool. (Provided you're taller than 1.10m. And have brought your cossie and a towel, which we, inexplicably, hadn't.)

I want to say it was parental heaven. Just imagine: an art gallery where you won't run the risk of being thrown out just because your toddler/child has come within looking distance of an exhibit; an exhibition you're actually encouraged to interact with. But I'm wary of sounding exactly like the sort of nightmare the Independent's art critic feared would regard Neto's work as the ultimate bouncy castle for their "shrieking Toms or Daisys".

In my defence, I was so busy telling Louis not to touch the sides of the extremely tactile nylon tunnels that the gallery attendant told me not to worry so much! Needless to say, Louis had a blast. And thankfully the Hayward isn't a magnet for the fluorescent-yellow bibbed school crowd that make places like the Natural History Museum such a nightmare so we did too. In fact, I can't wait to go back. If I thought I'd be able to get value out of the members' bar at the Royal Festival Hall I'd pony up for South Bank membership, which would give me a summer's worth of floating in Neto's pool. If I didn't have a sub 1.10m Louis in tow, that is.

Dino-sorry we went

2010-07-08T13:05:00.007+01:00

To be tired of London, is to be tired of life as Dr Johnson famously said all those centuries ago. But I wish he hadn't. Every time I get frustrated by living here, his words come back to haunt me, making me feel bad for not being more grateful for living in one of the world's great metropolises. Yet I bet Dr Johnson didn't have to queue behind the longest line of fluorescent-bibbed schoolchildren before he could use the loo in the Natural History Museum. Or fight his way across London on the Circle line to get there in the first place.

And if he'd kept quiet, then chances are we wouldn't have felt the need to schlep all the way to South Kensington to fill a bonus day en famille after the weather gods kiboshed our beach plans. Instead, we'd have been happy with our umpteenth trip to the Tate Modern, just so we could pretend it's walking distance from where we live. (To be fair, it is; it's just a very long walk.) But no, we thought we'd take Louis for that childhood rite of passage that is visiting the dinosaur skeletons, especially as his current favourite Charlie and Lola episode ends with them donating the fossil they have found to their local museum.

In retrospect, we should have aborted once we saw the queue. To get in. But we dutifully trekked to the other entrance, even if it was at least a mile from the dinosaur in question. It wasn't the distance we minded, but the fact that we had then to negotiate the length of the museum to find the dinosaur hall. And everyone else in it.... On the plus side, Louis did spot a bonus digger, or half a digger, in the lame exhibition about our earth's resources. Or whatever it was. But on the downside, that meant the second we finally made it to the dinosaur, Louis took one look and announced: "I want to see the digger."

And the moral? Next time we get the urge to test our zest for life we're sticking well clear of anything aimed at children. Art galleries, yes; museums popular with kids, no. I hope Louis took a long, hard look at those dinosaur skeletons because it's the last he'll be seeing of them for quite some time. Until he dons his own fluorescent yellow vest on some future school trip I imagine. Provided London doesn't totally tire me out first.

Double trouble

2010-07-06T21:09:00.005+01:00

What is it about toddlers? Why do they have such a bad reputation? Louis has just turned two, which by all accounts should make him twice as annoying as when he was one. But frankly he's anything but. I realise I'm tempting all kinds of fate in writing this, which partly explains my recent reticence in posting (either that or I'm still struggling to come to terms with my new look), but if anything life with Louis is getting easier, not harder.

If I'm honest, I'd always been dreading this. Dreading him hitting two. Double trouble and all that. Babies, I figured I could deal with. After all, they don't want for much beyond copious milk and a warm chest to cuddle. And with enough coffee even the sleepless nights were bearable. Kind of. But two year olds. Quite a different matter. For starters, you actually have to do stuff with them; you can't just tout them around on endless walks and lunches out. And this prospect had, frankly, terrified me. Thinking of them as their own little person, with opinions, and wants, and needs. That, that scared me.

Yet the reality is quite, quite different from my misguided anticipation. And what I'm wondering is, why? Why is it that everyone fears a toddler? Why do you only ever hear about the tantrums; the frustration - theirs and yours; the potty training nightmares; the sibling jealousy? I'm not exaggerating the bad press they get. Just the other day I got an email at work from some random PR telling me "two-thirds of parents admit their toddler is a thief". (Apparently they filch stuff from shops.)

So I realise this might be unpopular and I'm prepared for it to come back and bite me on my copious behind, but just for the record I'd like to pay Louis a tribute. Heck, I'd like to pay all toddlers a tribute. They're funny and smart and loving and sweet and darn good company, all at the same time. And that's a lot more than I can say for most of their parents; present company very much included.

Or am I totally bonkers??

New year, new look

2010-06-22T22:20:00.003+01:00

Same old haircut though!

New year, new look. Well, it was probably about time. Not sure I like it though. I know the white on black font was never very popular but I liked it, which is why I kept it for so long. But, well, bwb is getting on a bit now; at least, its protagonist is. Can you believe he's two? Post to follow....

But for now, let me know whether you like the look. Or indeed like the blog. Bwb has had a bit of a hiatus of late, and to be honest, with the exception of Sophie I hadn't thought anyone had noticed. Or cared. But then one loyal friend did email me with a request. That said, she's not loyal enough to comment! Talking of comments, please do. I love them. Honestly. And I'll comment back and everything. I promise.

But back to the new look. Blogger promised it would be so easy, but I feel let down by the result. And I'd really like a swanky header. No clue how to do one though. Heavens, I can't even upload a twitterpic. But seriously. Do let me know what you think. Please?

Chai baby

2010-06-14T15:45:00.004+01:00

It's the little things that make a holiday.

- Like those two men sending two cups of Turkish tea over to DJ and I while we were grabbing a little respite from the Istanbul hubbub in the courtyard of a mosque while Louis napped.

- Or Louis declaring that "Louis come swimming too" after I told him I fancied climbing down the steps from the pontoon into a very wavy sea for a swim. And coming with me. And loving it.

- Or even our ill-advised late evening ferry over to the Asian side, which resulted in the best Turkish food we've had plus two lovely pedestrianised streets to wander through that deserve to feature in my future best buggy pushing spots in the world travel guide.

- Not forgetting Louis dancing in the street to a busking band - and drawing nearly as big a crowd as the singers.

- And our impromptu late-afternoon Ergo walk through the ruins of Olympos, or the "falling down houses on the beach" as Louis called them. And, more importantly, chancing on a little Anatolian shack serving yummy pancakes just as it became impossible to ignore a little voice insisting "Louis is hungry". (At 6pm. It was fair enough.)

- Plus the tractor we spotted "resting" on the grass by the runway from our window seat on our flight to Antalya.

- Then Louis declaring he was "floating all by myself" in the swimming pool when I finally persuaded him to try on his armbands.

- And more dancing: this time on the beach en famille after dinner with Norman Jay DJing in the background. And those half 11 bedtimes that meant we were getting the same amount of sleep as Louis. Plus a lie-in until, oh, at least 7am and sometimes 8am.

- And lastly two hours of pure heaven: getting Louis to nap in his buggy under the shade on the beach while I devoured Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna (before it won the Orange prize for fiction award I might add).

But mostly it was that cup of tea. And the second one they sent over after Louis woke up.

Turkish toddler

2010-06-14T14:21:00.016+01:00

Bosphorus boats

Turkish "acorn"

Bosphorus see-saw

If one of the attractions of travelling is seeing the world through other people's eyes, then a holiday with a toddler in tow is like one of those two-for-one offers at the supermarket because you get their take on things thrown in for free. Starting with with the pre-holiday build up. I purposefully kept it pretty short for Louis because he's still struggling with the concept of time. (He's trying: it's amazing how many things we're going to do "tomorrow". Or what we did "last morning".) I left it until a week to go before I revealed we were going away but I should have waited a bit longer. Somehow I'd forgotten that even an afternoon stretches away like an eternity for a toddler; Louis nearly died of anticipation during those seven looooooooooong days. But somehow he made it to Sunday. (And I made it to our 6am easyJet flight, although in retrospect: what was I thinking?)

Istanbul through a toddler's eyes looks like one big playpark. If Louis wasn't marvelling at the tram that ran the length of the main Istiklal shopping street or the ferries that ply the Bosphorus, he was having fun careering down one of the city's many steep cobbled streets or snacking on the corn on the cobs that are hawked everywhere. "Acorns" he called them. Other excitements included the men fishing off the Galeta Bridge that bisects the Golden Horn. I don't know which he enjoyed more: watching the silver sardines jerking around in the buckets or seeing them being reeled up from the sea from his fish sandwich pitstop vantage spot underneath the bridge itself.

Another Louis Istanbul moment was his impromptu trip to a haman. Our hotel had given his parents a free pass to the city's oldest (and most tourist-friendly) hamam to make up for the drilling that destroyed our day one nap hopes. We had intended to visit the hamam in rotation, for a spot of serious steaming and a massage, Turkish-style. But the lady on the door insisted that Louis come too, claiming a nearly two-year-old could cope with the heat. So, not wanting to deprive him of the chance for a splash about I thought we should give it a go. Needless to say he adored it, even if my massage wasn't very relaxing. Then again, that's hardly the point of one of those abrasive Turkish body sandings. I only wish I could have snapped him wrapped in his little modesty cloth, filling his silver bowl with cold water from one of the cooling off taps. It's an image that will stay in my head forever.

Then there were the playgrounds themselves. We found two of what must rank as some of the world's best situated swing-parks, right on the shore of the Bosphoros. The first was in the nick of time. Given how down on taking toddlers to Istanbul our guidebook was, warning only that the pavements were hopeless for buggies and decent parks a serious schlep out of the centre, we'd long since despaired of finding anywhere better for Louis to play than the square in between the Aya Sophia and Blue Mosque. But there, like a mirage in the desert, mere minutes after Louis declared, "I think we'd better find some swings now", loomed a picture-postcard perfect set of swings, see-saw and climbing frame. The other, even better, playground was in Bebek, the now achingly-chic northern district where DJ was born many moons ago and which fittingly means "baby" in Turkish.

If nothing else, our four nights in Istanbul were the perfect reminder that just because something or somewhere might not initially seem designed for a toddler, that's probably a greater reason either to do it, or go there, than not.

Sophie Pas-taaah!!

2010-05-18T22:24:00.004+01:00

Parents-to-be face many conundrums from whether or not they should find out the sex to where to give birth. Not to mention what pointless baby crap to buy. As if the hours we spent debating which buggy to buy (Bugaboo Gecko, if you're wondering, although in retrospect I favour the Bee) weren't enough, I also stressed about which surname we should use and whether whoever popped out should eat meat.

DJ might claim the surname was never in contention, but given that I never took his when we got married, I didn't see why it should automatically follow that our child would. Especially as far fewer people have mine, which makes it more interesting. Turned out he felt pretty strongly about it - something to do with it being the only concrete link to him, while I had the benefit of actually being the one to give birth - so in the end I didn't put up too much of a fight. But I did score a good deal out of it. If our child got his surname, then I got to bring them up vegetarian. Or at least start them off not eating meat - even I realise I can't control everything they do.

Roll on nearly two years, and so far, so veggie. Or pescie, I should say, as he does eat fish. It isn't that I haven't ever offered him meat. There was the turkey he turned his nose up at Christmas, and I've tried him on roast chicken a couple of times, but he just doesn't go for it. (That's my boy!) At a friend's recent birthday party I shuddered as he grabbed a scotch egg, but he barely sniffed it before swapping it for a mini Babybel. The same went for the sausage roll, much to my delight.

The upshot of his veggie roots is that he's really rather partial to vegetables, although I'm well away that what babies eat and what toddlers eat are completely different beasts and he's very likely to start hating the broccoli with the same passion as he'll chomp it down now. He even had all his Lego animals eating a vegetable feast this morning. (Although hang about, there's nothing odd about cows not eating meat!)

But for anyone struggling with their daily greens quotient I'd like to offer this pasta recipe from Sophie's lovely mummy Katy. It was such a hit with Louis that it's now called "Sophie pas-ta". It's dead simple: all you do is fry a little garlic in oil, then add frozen peas and spinach (which I'd actually cooked in the microwave), some basil, a tub of ricotta, some oil and some parmesan. Oh, and I chucked in some basil. Whizz it up and there you go. Katy also added salmon to hers but you could always use chicken, or just serve it without. Stirred into the pasta of course.

You can see how popular it was with Louis from these videos, which basically show him trying - and succeeding - to steal Sophie's lunch. (And me trying to make him ask her nicely for it!) They are extra poignant because it was their last lunch a deux before she flew back to DC. Sob. (And yes, this post was just really a long winded excuse for me to stick up these videos for Sophie's benefit. Although I do honestly recommend the pasta recipe.)

Extremely obsessed

2010-05-11T21:14:00.005+01:00

True dedication: reading and watching Charlie and Lola simultaneously!

I've spotted another gap in the market. Where is the 37-part animated series of Shakespeare? I speak selfishly of course: if it existed then perhaps when Louis springs a line from one of the "episodes" at me out of the blue I wouldn't feel quite such a fool quoting the next one back. I've lost count of how many scenes from Charlie and Lola we've reenacted on the bus/walking down the street/in the bath/at dinner/in bed etc etc.

"What's that funny noise? That's not growling, Lola, it's drilling/ Is your daddy Mr Wolf? Is your mummy Mrs Wolf? And are you Arnold Wolf? A Wolf? I knew it, I knew it!/ Charlie! Mum! Dad! Wake up! It's all gone extremely white!"

Not that I've got anything against Lauren Child's prose; it's really extremely charming. Which is just as well as it seems to be Louis' main source of new vocab. Whenever he comes out with something unexpected, you can bet it's something that Charlie or Lola have just done. This morning he pointed to my tea strainer and said: "That's Louis' tennis. Like Charlie has." And I couldn't quite understand his excitement at my new skipping rope, until I realised that Lola and Lotta are, of course, skipping queens. He is also a dab hand at somersaults and coping solo ("Louis do it on my own"). With thanks, again, to Lola.

Last night his C+L obsession hit a totally new level when he declared, on climbing the stairs for "bubbles", that he actually was Lola, which meant I could be Charlie. I'm just waiting for him to have an imaginary friend called Soren Lorenson.

Given how seriously he takes it all, I couldn't help wondering whether Lauren Child ever considers the implications of what she writes. My heart skipped a beat the first time he watched I will not ever never eat a tomato because I'm always waiting for the day he stops eating his vegetables. So when I wound up interviewing Child last week that was the question I most wanted her to answer. (Well, that and the real reason she doesn't have children, but I'm just not that kind of journalist.)

For some reason, I didn't end up including her answer when I wrote up the piece, but if you're curious, no, she doesn't. The other main conundrum she solved was DJ's: he's always been worried that Charlie and Lola lived in East Dulwich but it turns out their extremely lovely life is set in Copenhagen. Even better: it's 1970s Copenhagen. Which explains the funky fabrics. I now covet their sofa, not to mention several of Lola's dresses. Surely far more worrying than being able to recite the scripts?

Wait the bus no more

2010-05-09T21:38:00.006+01:00

This, to the the casual observer, might just look like any old picture. Of a little boy, sitting at a bus stop. I didn't take it; DJ did. And then pinged it over to my phone while I was at work. They were off for their regular balloon boys brunch with Geoffrey-engine. But I digress. The reason it's not just any old photo is because it marks a watershed moment. Louis can talk. Yes, I know he's been chatting away for months now, but seriously, the kid can really talk. Properly. With prepositions and everything. DJ confessed that although he'd texted: "Louis sitting in the bench waiting the bus!" to make me think that's what Louis had said, the truth was rather different. And he didn't like it. Because it made Louis sound all grown up. What he actually - apparently - said was: "Louis is sitting on the bench waiting for the bus." Which gave DJ quite a shock.

I mean, it was one thing when I finally faced up to the fact that Louis no longer said "didi" instead of "TV" or "Bam-ma" rather than "Grandma". But peppering his speech with prepositions is something else. I know parents aren't supposed to encourage baby talk, but I always liked it. I loved that he said stuff like "Mummy sit the chair" when he wanted his nighttime milk, or "Gessie" for "Geoffrey" or "Stee" for Steve". I always figured he had the rest of his life to talk properly; I just didn't realise it would begin so soon. Before I know it he'll stop holding out his arms and saying "Mummy carry you". Heck, one day he'll even stop wanting me to carry him. At least I guess he will......

PS: I hope it isn't a horrible cheat given that I'd already written it but I couldn't help entering this in the Gallery because I saw the theme was men and it just seemed so apt.

Election '10

2010-05-07T00:02:00.004+01:00

It was heralded as the mumsnet election but it was frankly anything but. I'm struggling to think of any policies that got mums excited enough to skip down to the polling station this morning. Vote blue and you'll pay more for your nursery place; vote red and you'll be lucky if there's money left to keep state nurseries open. Vote yellow and, well, to be honest, I don't know what will happen. Not that anyone is likely to find out.

With so many voters still undecided even today about where to mark their cross, I find it odd that neither party made more of an effort to address any of the issues that mums really care about. Okay, so I wasn't expecting anyone to solve the working mother's conundrum of how to hold down a decent job while bringing up a child who isn't a brat, but a little more support might help.

Or perhaps I'm just making excuses for, whisper it, just not finding British politics very interesting. I can't help but compare this election to the one over the pond that featured so heavily in so many bwb posts. I have been singularly unmoved today, except to fear a future under David Cameron, even if I don't quite know why. And I certainly won't be dragging Louis out of bed at sunrise tomorrow to watch a new dawn.

In fact, I'd say the biggest excitement of the entire campaign came this morning when we made a family trip to our local polling station to cast our vote. Louis was full of enthusiasm, mainly for "voting Daddy", although when we told him there was such thing as a "yellow taxi" party he quickly changed his tune. He was especially thrilled to find there was some "crayoning" to do in the booth. "Louis crayon, Louis crayon". I just hope he didn't deface my ballot paper!

Memory man

2010-05-04T20:53:00.006+01:00

In Yoppy's buggy

Grandma-Stee's diggers

Okay, so I know it will only get harder to think of the right thing to say but I definitely boobed tonight. Upset, as ever, that I wouldn't give him any milk, my milk, that is, not the cow's milk in his red cup, I think I made the mistake of saying something like: 'There's none left. Maybe I can get some more." Why, I don't know. Five minutes later, as I lay in his bed with him (oh yes!), a little voice said: "Mummy, get more milk tomorrow. From the shop." And I know he wasn't talking about popping out to pick up a pint.

It wouldn't matter but his memory is razor sharp these days. He only has to see or hear the most tenuous of triggers and something he did months ago comes pouring out of his mouth. Seeing Simon Hughes' yellow taxi drive down our street this morning had him chatting about the yellow taxis in New York, while just about any mention of a horse reminds him of "Harold the horse" in Central Park. As does spotting a carrot. (He fed Harold a carrot; it was the highlight of his trip.) Then there was the other night in the bath: asking him to turn round got him chatting about Katy and singing Hokey Cokey, which has been her song ever since he got him dancing to it at New Year's. Or there's any mention of Yoppy-chan, which has him prattling on about "Louis in Yoppy's buggy" because they swopped buggies once, aeons ago.

For months, every digger we saw prompted a, "Digger, Dandad" because his first official sighting of one was with his Grandad. (I'd been walking quickly past them for months, hoping to delay the inevitable obsession.) Now, I fear "Dandad" may have been supplanted as an association: the pebbly beach outside Grandma P's house is a veritable digger park at the moment because they are rebuilding the beach, which had been in danger of disappearing into the sea. Ever since we popped down there last week for a peek (I felt obliged) every time Louis gets to the bulldozer page in his digger book (I didn't buy it) he goes on and on about "Grandma driving the red digger; Stee driving the yellow one."

With that in mind, I fear I should be very afraid about what he might yell out if we do pop to the shops tomorrow......

Striking that balance

2010-04-28T21:16:00.005+01:00

Louis and Soph. (Check out the matching knitwear.)

I thought I'd cracked it a few months back. You know, struck parental gold by chancing on a solution to that perennial daily battle that is Getting Ready. Instead of expecting Louis to get dressed on demand each morning, which was becoming an increasing struggle, I started bribing him by getting him excited about the day ahead. It started with a proposed trip to a playgroup to see Yoppy. They'd played there the week before, so he was more than happy to put some jeans on if it meant he could see her there again. Not to mention play kitchens while wearing a fireman's helmet.

I've since used it practically daily although obviously some excursions hold a bigger appeal than others. Try as I might to get him addicted to his daily frothy, it lacks the pull of my coffee - or his fire engine. And it's hard to think of anything that excites him about being dumped at nursery, although our orangutan cycle ride there - with him strapped to my back in his baby carrier - is helping. (Nobody tell health and safety.)

But I fear my device might be backfiring. On Monday, when I sprung my impromptu plans for a visit to Grandmas on him, he was desperate to leave at once. "Get dressed. See Grandma." I, however, had plans to finish a stack of chores, give him lunch and drive down while he napped. Then again today, with a trip on the big train to St Albans to see Sophie on the cards, it was all I could do to finish my cup of tea before he had bundled me out of the door. I jest not: we were ready to leave well before 9am, a feat never before achieved even on a work day.

Which made me realise that this parenting lark is all about striking a balance. In this case, it's about how to balance getting him excited enough to put down his lego and get ready but not so excited that I can't get myself dressed first. And if parenting really is about balancing then I can't help but find it ironic that the early days are all about such extremes. I'm talking about the sorts of extremes that get Daily Mail headline writers shrieking that leaving a baby sobbing could damage its brain - for that was how they interpreted Penelope Leach's latest wisdom on the subject in her new book - or the new parenting dilemma du jour: do you, or don't you, Gina?

Then again, thinking back, I'm not sure whether it's possible to find any equilibrium in those frantic early weeks. My finals-style approach to parenting by attempting to read all the literature out there so I could just use the snippets I liked from each so-called grand savant failed spectacularly. Perhaps we just have to accept that there are no easy solutions.

Unless you know better??

Sod NCT.... bring on the Lego lessons

2010-04-14T21:30:00.005+01:00

Here's a question: how is it that the world seems full of people trying to flog stuff and life lessons to prospective and new parents.... but none of it is remotely useful? Where, for example, are the Lego lessons? It's okay for the architecturally-minded: your towers and houses and farms and cities just seem magically to slot themselves together. But what about the rest of us? For some reason those multi-coloured bricks have me stumped every time.

Try as I may, I just can't work out how to get them to do anything more interesting than make a very tall tower. (Although I am a dab hand at a spot of colour co-ordination.) Which means I look enviously at everyone else's creations. Even a simple Lego tunnel over the train tracks (thanks Louis' Grandad) had me turning green. And as for Daddy J's Eschereque marvel, with twisting staircases leading up to Lego heaven, well, I refused to let Louis destroy it for days. I briefly had a good thing going with the odd skyscraper, but they weren't very stable. I've tried copying the pictures on the front of the Lego box but what sort of a lesson in creativity does that send Louis?

The same goes for "crayoning". It's all very well for Louis to demand "Mummy come crayon" but what I want to know is: Crayon what? Even after a 20-year break, I'm still just as useless as drawing horses' legs as I ever was, a fact I still find unutterably frustrating. Louis might be happy scribbling away with a green pencil and calling it a "zebra" but I'm afraid that's a step too avant-garde for me. I found myself cheating and buying one of those how-to-draw-animals books from the Tate the other day, but my efforts are still pretty lousy. You'd never know I got an A at GCSE art.

Singing would make another potentially useful ante-natal lesson if you ask me. For years, no, sorry, decades, the only singing you ever have to do is either the odd Christmas carol, or in extremis - or better still under the influence - some karaoke after hours. And then suddenly it's non-stop lullabies and nursery rhymes at all hours. And in all locations. We can be in a shop, out for a walk, on the tube: Louis isn't fussy. Neither is he choosy about the actual songs. "Mummy sing it the polar bear one," was his ultimate classic. Um, what polar bear one?? Now it's one of his all-time favourites.

And what about a drama class or two to help with those bedtime stories? How much more fun would reading out loud be if you could actually pull off the odd regional accent? It might make the umpteenth reading of Tiger who came to tea a bit more interesting.

Have I missed anything out? Perhaps I could be onto something here......

Hanami update

2010-04-14T19:00:00.004+01:00

It's getting tense on the sakura front. Despite a decent run of spring sunshine, those little blossom buds are refusing to unfurl. And we need them to. By Sunday, which has been designated Hanami day. Not really sure how we'll be celebrating, except I'm sure it will involve photos of Louis and Yoppy with the blossom - unfurled or not. Plus apparently some plum wine has been acquired. And I'm planning on baking. All invited.

To blog, or not.....

2010-04-12T22:03:00.004+01:00

I've long steered clear of the whole why-do-I-blog post because I've never kidded myself anyone would care - much as I've been interested in reading other similar ones. (I would link to some but I'm sure anyone who's interested will have already read the same ones as me.) But recently I just can't seem to stop thinking about it.

In classic me fashion, this blog falls between several stools. I started it to fill people in on how fast Louis was growing while we were living in DC. And it was fun writing about what we were up to, especially given the US was a pretty interesting place while we were there. I also just enjoy writing for writing's sake, which pretty much makes me born to blog.

But given bwb's raison d'etre, I should have probably packed it in once we got back home. Brief hiatus notwithstanding, I didn't, partly because I figured it was a nice way to keep in touch my lovely DC mom friends who'd started reading it and partly because I'd grown kinda fond of the whole blogging lark. I also managed to stumble on the whole Mum blogosphere that sprung up while I was Stateside. Without really meaning to, I found myself getting sucked in to the likes of British Mummy Bloggers - initially because I was researching a story and then because I found it fun. Bit by bit I started to find other bloggers I liked reading, and to my surprise they started to find me. And sometimes they were sweet enough to post the odd comment about something I'd written. Which I enjoy very much, so thank you.

But then I noticed other bloggers starting to get het up about things like their blog rankings in something called the Tots 100, which ranks all the best Mummy (and Daddy) blogs according to a bunch of stuff I simply can't get my head around. Then I found out you could track your so-called blogger stats, to see who was stopping by, and how they found you. It all matters - to some people - because if you're popular you'll start getting freebies and being invited on day trips out and even weekends away. Oh, and how could I forget Twitter? You're nobody in the blogging world if you don't tweet your posts.

Now I see there's something called the MADs, which is the inaugural British mummy bloscars, sponsored by Butlins no less. And come July, there's going to be a conference dedicated to mummy bloggers called Cybermummy. (Which I should add sounds very interesting.... but very far removed from tapping out this and that in the early hours.)

So far, so 2010. But for some reason I've let all of that take the edge off writing bwb. Partly because I don't really care about it all, but mostly because deep down I guess I do. How could I not? I briefly made the Tots 100, but wisely opted not to tell anyone because I - correctly - figured it was probably only a blip given I didn't know what I'd done to get myself onto it. I think the problem with being able to "measure" bwb's popularity - whether by user stats, comments, "retweets" (zero), MADs nominations - is that I now feel under pressure when I spew something out online. Which is the opposite of what I used to feel back in DC when this laptop and this very website often seemed all that kept me sane(ish).

I'm not really sure where that leaves me. But I wanted to write it all down to try and get it all out of my head. And now that I've written it, well, I guess I might as well hit "publish post" because after all, that's what you do when you blog. Don't you?

**On the user stats front, I just read a really interesting post over at Notes from Lapland.... **

DJ in NYC

2010-04-02T16:28:00.003+01:00

Slightly after the event, but in an echo of bwbs past (that was supposed to read like Christmases past but not sure it worked) I promised to link to the three radio packages that DJ put together from our NYC stint. Disclaimer: Louis and I had absolutely nothing to do with any of these except that we really did try and stay out of his way.

He was back working with Kevin Connolly, the BBC's US radio correspondent, and okay I'm biased, but I think they did some great stuff. The first is on whether the UK can learn from US spending cuts; the second on how Harlem has solved some pretty big social issues; and the third about how charitable societies can create illusive community spirit - in the US at least.

Hanami watch

2010-04-01T22:08:00.008+01:00

This is for Sonoko and Yoppy-chan! It's bwb's very own sakura forecast, seeing as Sonoko is a bit too far from home to log onto one of the official Japanese ones. Judging from the slow progress of the blossom in our street there's no need to put the sake on ice quite yet for the Hanami celebration. Am not sure quite what that comprises, but I'm hoping I will find out. If you want a sneak preview of what the sakura will look like, click here.

And this was Yoppy-chan and Louis-chan working out earlier this week in preparation for the Hanami sushi fest.

The pain of parenting

2010-03-28T17:38:00.004+01:00

Striking a pre pink-eye pose

It's a given that it hurts becoming a mum. But I'm quickly learning that the physical pain of the birth is just for starters. All the emotional angst is equally bad. If you're not worrying, Philip Larkin-style, about filling your offspring with the faults you had, and worse, then you're fretting about the latest parental travesty you've committed according to the latest piece of research or author with a book to publicise.

Last week's crime was entrusting your toddler to a nanny. Or, more specifically, your son: dumping him with another woman is a red rag to adulthood philandering according to the psychiatrist Dr Dennis Friedman. He reckons delegating his care teaches him the concept of "The Other Woman". Gee, thanks. Now you're damned if you leave them in nursery because it messes with their stress levels and damned if you pay someone the earth for some one-on-one care. Some doctor he is. (And note it took a man to come up with that 'theory' - excuse more likely.) As one of my DC mom friends put it, 'If the first rule of doctoring is to do no harm, then he's harming working mums by heaping on that maternal guilt.' I might just be in the clear on that one though, because apparently the biggest danger is before they turn one, when the serious mum-to-son bonding is going on.

And from emotional pain to physical pain: this week I've succumbed to the punishment that is doled out for shoving your child into a nursery. I refer, of course, to the joys of an illness passed from son to mother. A medley of cold, sore throat, conjunctivitis and an ear infection. (That's me; he just had the cold and pink eye.) To be fair, the nursery is only obliquely to blame for the ear ache. I fear I brought it on myself by doing a headstand for Louis. We were trying to replicate how one of the kids there was dancing on his head, so Louis wanted me to do likewise. Not a wise move as it turned out. It immediately triggered the most intense pain I've experienced since trying to make a certain little person embrace the world. One week on, it's still agony. My top tip is if your ears already hurt, stay the right way up.

My guilt trip

2010-03-28T16:45:00.003+01:00

Just in case anyone is interested in my ultimate verdict on the ski trip. No obligation. And I posted this pic because it made it into the paper, but not onto the website.

What's toddler for metrosexual?

2010-03-26T16:25:00.005Z

He sweeps; he cooks

If a modern man in touch with his inner femininity is a metrosexual, then what do you call a toddler who fancies himself as a domestic goddess? Any improvement on culinary cherub?

A new Standard for toddlers

2010-03-23T19:18:00.005Z

Hanging in the lobby

And a glimpse from the High Line

I'm not sure Andre will thank me for this, but I thought a question I received from Planethalder about the toddler-friendliness of the Standard Hotel merited a quick post rather than a long return comment. Now, I feel kind of bad making a big thing out of staying there, because it's NOT the sort of place we normally wind up. Sure, we'd like to; if someone else was paying. (In fact, we debated exactly what sort of job you'd need to do to stay there for work. Not sure of the answer except it's definitely not working for a loss-making newspaper or a licence-fee funded media group.)

The only reason I booked it was because we stayed there for a couple of nights last year when it was barely open. The "barely" bit is crucial because it meant the rooms were a steal. Okay, so they'd only finished building about five of the 18 or so floors but we certainly didn't miss the lack of fitness suite or cocktail lounge. Or restaurant. Especially when the lack thereof meant they threw in a room service breakfast, which I worked out this time would have cost north of 50 bucks! And under 21s weren't allowed in the cocktail bar. Which was just as well because given it was like walking into a Bond film - we popped in one by one to check out the amazing view - we probably wouldn't have been allowed to stay either.

Anyway, it being March and the weather being awful meant the advance internet-only rates were vaguely affordable on a one-night only basis. So I decided to splurge. I'm guessing Andre Balazs didn't have under twos in mind when he designed it, but it turns out high-end luxury is perfect for little ones. From the sleekest hotel cot I've ever seen, to the peekaboo shower, the (small) room was perfect for Louis. A King-size bed helped too, even if it did take up most of the floor space. And yes, that means he's still often to be found in our bed come the early hours. So, no, Planethalder, we didn't have a suite. Gulp. I'll admit it was cosy, but hey: we're family. Apart from the view, the best bit was the bathtub, which was big enough for Louis to swim in. And they provided bubble bath.

Annoyingly, given that it was our last night in NYC we didn't need to make use of the Standard's most toddler-friendly aspect: the first floor bar that served drinks and meals 24/7. Where was that on our second night when I couldn't get Louis back to sleep at 3am?! We could have both done with one of their potent cocktails. Not to mention fries. Instead, I needed a 7am coffee but balking at the room service charges I went on a foray and found Hector's Cafe, "the low rent" option according to the guy at the front desk. One of the few genuine relics from back when MePa was all about packing meat, Hector's has been dishing up greasy mountains of corned beef hash and stacks of eggs and pancakes since 1949. An institution. Writing this makes me feel bad that we actually had breakfast in the Standard Grill, just to check it out. Ah well, next time.

And I nearly forgot: the staff are lovely. Plus, it's smack, bang over the High Line, Manhattan's newest - and most pretentious - park. Don't get me wrong, it's lovely. But when you're not even allowed to walk on the grass, well, that's America for you. As is the fact that there were more "park wardens" than visitors there the day we were there. But I'm probably just sore because the weather was so bad. It's beautiful and Louis loved it. Even if he couldn't play on the old railway track.

Toddlertown: the hidden NYC

2010-03-20T20:18:00.010Z

Boy oh Boyhattan! Who knew there could be so many different New Yorks? There's glam New York of SITC fame: cocktails, shopping, shoes, the West Village. And tourist New York: museums, bus tours, buildings, Fifth Avenue shops, street pounding. Or, even, film set New York: iconic skyscrapers, bustling businessmen, Park princesses. And then there's Boyhattan: or New York with a toddler in tow....

Happily, what I thought would be the least toddler-friendly city, turned out to be anything but. It helped that Grandma Penny warned me to prepare myself mentally for a totally different trip. Sionara splashing cash in SoHo, bye-bye new DVF dresses. In short, as she put it: "The key is to forget the things you used to enjoy doing in NYC and enjoy being a kid again!" Easy enough, especially when friends with toddlers from DC were sweet enough to make the trip up to see us.

What didn't help was the weather. There we were, all set to exploit the many joys of Boyhattan - watching the horses in Central Park, catching the Staten Island ferry, riding the Central Park carousel, checking out the children's zoo, hitting the Bleecker Street playground - when the weather gods turned against us. To say it rained would be an understatement. This was rain like I'd never seen before in a city. The streets looked like a movie set alright: a scene from 2012 when a tidal wave hits Manhattan. Well, that and an umbrella morgue; dead brollies were strewn on every corner.

Bang went most of my plans. Central Park was out on all bar the first day, which killed me and left Louis distraught since horses sensibly stay stable-bound when it's wet. Happily, however, fire trucks still have to go out in the rain. As do taxi cabs. "Yellow!" taxi cabs. And Moma - or "Momma" as it's now known - has a Friday night window when it's free to get in. Plus, it turns out there's a great FDNY - Fire Department of New York - exhibit/shop just by the Rockefeller Centre, so we didn't run short of things to do even if I did run short of places to push a snoozing Louis in his stroller. (Check me out slipping back into the dialect!) Turns out the elevators in Saks make far too much noise to make it past the army of perfume-squirters on the first floor, darn it. In short, we coped. In fact, for the most part, we thrived. Especially Louis, who didn't suffer nearly as badly from jet lag as I'd feared, even if I was out pounding the streets on day two at 5.30am after attempts to get him to make it past 3am failed miserably.

Although the obvious highlights were seeing our friends - and especially me sneaking off for a couple of cocktails solo with one of them on the Friday evening while DJ worked in his room and babysat Louis - the trip was pretty much made by a reckless last night back at the Standard, the epitome of cool in MePa that stands astride the now finished High Line. Staying there even vindicated turning in early since the rooms are so amazing: all look out either on to the Empire State Building or the Hudson river. And I got to teach Louis a new word, "funky". Maybe one day we'll get to return. For now, there's always the movies. But I'm staying clear of 2012.

Trans-atlantic toddler travel

2010-03-12T01:32:00.003Z

One maxim pretty much sums up travelling alone with a small child: if something can go wrong, it probably will. Like your taxi for the airport arriving half an hour late. Or south London being more grid locked than I've ever seen it. Even policemen were abandoning their "nee-nor" cars and continuing on foot. Suffice to say at 9.25am, 90 minutes after I'd orderd my cab and five minutes before I wanted to arrive atHeathrow, we were still the wrong side of the river and barely inching forward. At which point I was honestly doubting if we'd ever make it and was quite happy to divert instead to Paddington to catch the most expensive train in the world, aka the Heathrow Express. Somehow we made the 9.41am, but only thanks to my taxi driver dumping his car and running behind me, the buggy, my two bags and Louis pulling my big suitcase behind him.

Even at Heathrow I still felt cursed. The so-called fast bag drop queue was longer and slower than I'm convinced any check-in queue used to be. Then there was the umbrella incident at the security gate: apparently you're not allowed umbrellas on "eppa-planes" either anymore. Or at least that was the new law Sod decreed especially for me. I kid not: even the lady back at the Virgin desk said I'd been unlucky to get stopped.

I guess the lesson learned is that it pays to leave more time than you could ever imagine needing. The extra half-hour I'd felt oh-so-grown-up about leaving us was the difference between us catching and missing the plane, but it was still barely enough. That said, I did manage to down a coffee, buy Louis an egg sandwich and grab an emergency London bus for additional plane amusement purposes from Hamleys, so it wasn't a complete disaster.

And if Sonoko is reading this fearing for her solo trip to Tokyo this summer, then there is a happy ending to this tale. Despite life conspiring against me, Louis couldn't have been more angelic. He did everything right from actually sitting in his buggy when required (a minor miracle, trust me) to making a dash for it at the final security queue at just the right minute, which meant the lady frisking people took pity on me and let me jump the last bit. He was a delight on the "eppa-plane", which thoroughly delighted him; I'm not sure he's ever enjoyed eight hours so much. The "special Louis didi", which is what he still calls the TV, was just the most exciting thing ever, even if he did barely manage ten minutes of Fantastic Mr Fox. I'd be lying if I said the time passed quickly - with the exception of the blissful 60 minutes that Louis napped, during which I ate my meal, drank a G+T and watched half of Julie and Julia - but I'd also be lying if I said it was a nightmare. In fact, I'd happily do it all again, which is just as well seeing as we fly back on Monday.

"Newark, Newark"

2010-03-09T20:56:00.006Z

Mummy's Lego skyscraper

This Boyhattan trip thing has got me thinking a lot about comprehension. And I don't just mean that I'm still struggling to comprehend what possessed me to book a trip that requires solo trans-Atlantic travel with Louis and then jetlag the wrong direction when it really matters, i.e. when he wakes up for the 'day' at 1am just as I am nodding off....

No, what I'm really curious about is how much Louis actually comprehends about what's going on. I've been telling him we're going to New York for a while now, and he dutifully spits it back at me when asked. (Although what he actually says makes it sound more like we're going to "Newark" for five days.) He knows DJ got an "airpoplane" to New York a couple of days ago and was still "sleeping in Newark" this morning when I was trying to persuade Louis that 545am was not a good time to start the day. But what I really want to know is what he thinks "Newark" actually is?

DJ spent Sunday singing "New York, New York" to him while playing every other song on iTunes that we have with New York in the lyrics, which is quite a few. And I was hoping to buy Madagascar, which is set in Manhattan, because I thought that might be fun but clearly made a mistake thinking the HMV I popped into yesterday might actually stock something I wanted. Ahem. I digress. So instead he's had to make do with pictures of skyscrapers in old guidebooks. Not to mention building them out of Lego. Then yesterday morning he picked up the DVD box of Manhattan (I was getting in the mood), looked at the buildings on the front and (unprompted, I promise) said "Newark". Then today, when I said we (I) had to do packing, he knew it was for "Newark".

But he can't really understand that New York is a whole other city, like London, only not, and a long way away. Can he? I tried spinning the globe we have around and pointing it out, but he just thought that was a game and started spinning it faster and faster. Or perhaps he really does know what he's talking about. Who knows: maybe he'll remember his last trip there and start pointing out the sights.

Okay, so I don't really think that. But something is definitely going through his head. And on that time wasting note, I'd better go and pack because somehow I don't think his contribution - a set of mini books for his 'wow' bag - is going to be much use when we finally get there. That's assuming we both survive the flight.

Boyhattan

2010-02-28T13:37:00.005Z

...or Babyhattan, as it was then

When it comes to the least toddler friendly holiday, I used to think skiing ranked pretty high. But I think I have managed to trump myself. And all within the space of a month. For, dear bwb fans, I am taking Louis to Manhattan. Or Boyhattan as it shall henceforth be known chez L. What’s more: I am doing it by myself. Well, the flight bit. And most of the wandering around. DJ will be there – he’s going earlier for work – but by the sounds of it, he’ll be wall to wall.

My logic for going is simple. Pricey as those trans-Atlantic flights might be, they are a darn sight cheaper than they will be in June after Louis hits two. Which I realize means eight-plus hours (because whose flight has ever actually departed once you get on the plane? Not mine, for sure) with a hulking 21-month-old-to-be on my lap. And yes, that’s more than a little daunting. But hey, even if it’s a disaster, at least I’ll be doing something. And aren’t traumatic memories better than no memories at all? Or something like that.

What’s more, we won’t be alone in wreaking toddler havoc upon Boyhattan. No, Louis will have no less than two toddler friends with whom to run riot in the Met. Or whatever the hell else you do in a freezing March week with three boys under two. (And if anyone knows, please spill the beans!) As for whether Louis will ever get to go on a NYC trip he remembers – we were also there when he was seven months – well that particular jury is out. Maybe we’ll have to take a leaf out of the book of some friends who became parents last summer. They, too, are going to Manhattan (as they’ll get to call it). But alone, sans son. Incidentally, that particular fact was probably instrumental in pushing us to go. With Louis.

Nursery nightmares

2010-02-27T21:36:00.004Z

Tell me something. Why is it that life just seems to get harder? No sooner have I (sort of) got used to abandoning Louis with his erstwhile lovely nanny while I go out to work then wham, she hits me with the news that she can’t look after him anymore because it clashes with the English class she wants to take. I couldn’t face the emotional investment necessary to find another nanny, so I had no choice but to become one of those nursery mums. You know, the ones who spend so much time insisting their kids actually love it once they are there that I can’t help but not believe them.

I have to confess Fate played a small part in my decision. Two weeks before Anna dropped her bombshell, a local nursery I’d put Louis’s name down for BEFORE we left for DC (i.e. when he was three months old) had got in touch to say they had space on the two days I needed. Which at the very least was prescient timing. And he is 20 months now. So a lot older than he might have been starting out at nursery. And yet. He’s still so small. So attached to his Mummy and Daddy. And he was so happy with Anna. Sigh.

After jumping through the requisite hoops to nail the place, we’re now busy settling him in. Or, unsettling him in, I should say. I’m being characteristically wimpish about it, staying with him for twice as long as most parents. But last Thursday I actually had to leave him. Not for long. Just an hour or so. But as soon as he clocked what was going on he became frantic. “Louis coat. Louis coat,” he bleated, as he grabbed my hand and marched me to where his coat was indeed hanging up, tears falling all the time. I nearly bottled it yet again, but figured I should probably go through with it. And so I abandoned him, crying, to the embrace of the lady charged with his care while I can’t be bothered. At least that’s what it feels like. And yes, I was crying too.

I’m told he settled quickly – after about five minutes – and that he spent the rest of the time doing “individual play”, which seems to be the nursery gold standard. But it didn’t make me feel any better about leaving him. Especially as I can’t stop the words of a child psychologist we saw on a recent TV programme about childcare echoing round my head. He called nursery, ‘the biggest social experiment ever carried out,’ referring to the fact that we are the first generation to have handed care of our children over to complete strangers. Then there are those studies that show boys aged around two fare the worst in nurseries, becoming either withdrawn and sad or aggressive. It' s because they are under stress; in tests their brains appear marinated in cortisol, the stress hormone. Worse, they are consequently at a higher risk of emotional and social problems in later life.

Each time I express doubts, I’m told that ‘it’s good for him’. And that he needs to snap that cord eventually. But I’m still far from convinced, albeit totally willing to eat my words if need be. That said, I fear doing so will just turn me into one of those mums (see above). And so the cycle of angst begins again.

Who knew? I like boys!

2010-02-22T13:50:00.005Z

Louis and Samuel (and those retro boots)

Samuel and the sledge

One unexpected upshot of our week away was that - whisper it - it turns out I might actually like boys. I mean, of course I *like* boys (although I respect anyone who doesn't). It's just that I've always had my reservations about little ones. For instance, here's a confession: my first thought when shown my brand new (c-section) baby was, 'Oh, isn't it beautiful'; my second, 'Oh, it's a boy'. I'll leave you to imagine my third....

Needless to say I adore Louis. And I'm pretty keen on his dad. But it's those ones in between that cause me concern - with the notable exception of my godson. (Plus anyone else who is feeling offended.) You know, the testosterone-filled ones that only like trucks and dirt and fighting. Not to mention shouting and causing general chaos and devastation. And yes I know I am stereotyping, but thus far my experience has been pretty limited to former classmates or my brother. (Apologies Uncle Rob.)

So I was genuinely delighted when Louis decided to befriend some older boys while we away. Or, correction: they befriended him. First up was Adam, who was sitting with his Dad on the seat behind us on the coach from the airport. Louis kept asking, 'Who's that boy? Who's that boy?' and so the introductions were made. Adam, 6, made a point of saying good morning every day at breakfast and chatting to us at various moments. (Which is more than I can say for his parents.) The following Saturday, back at the airport, he told me: 'The first time I saw Louis I wished he was my brother." Why? I asked. "Because he's the cutest baby I ever saw." Melt.

Then there was Samuel. The lovely Samuel. And his friend (or brother, we never worked it out) Jacob. We met getting skis on the Sunday morning. Irrespective of the age gap - Samuel was 11, to Louis's 1 - they instantly became equally besotted. To the extent that the older boys started ringing our room to see if they could play with Louis after skiing. Louis spent every day wondering where Samuel was, and according to Samuel's Dad, Samuel did likewise. They'd trot off together for 'a walk' halfway through each meal. Which was a godsend for me, although I'm not sure Samuel's family was as delighted.

Samuel even quoted back that don't-you-know-pink-is-retro line to me that I'd used when he'd queried why Louis had pink snow boots. I don't think Samuel and Jacob ever did notice the age difference. They'd ask us stuff like, 'Is Louis on half-term too next week?' and 'Why isn't he talking properly?' Um, try because he's only one! Even now, Louis still begs me to see the photos of him and Samuel on "Mummy's 'ello". I'm only sorry that he's too young to have a pen-pal, although I am wondering whether to send Samuel a link to bwb......

How to really ski with a toddler!

2010-02-21T10:13:00.004Z

Okay, so this is how you really take your toddler skiing. (If you think this makes us look like perfect parents because we finally stopped being selfish and started hanging out with Louis then I guess I should confess that this was actually the last day and we were waiting for our journey-from-hell home to begin. Of which, doubtless, more later.)

p.s. totally unsure why this video isn't showing up. i think it works if you hit play, but it's odd.... perhaps i should just delete this post.

A skiing downer

2010-02-15T20:52:00.007Z

Day two in the French Alps and in theory I couldn't be happier. We've actually done it. Gone skiing. Not only that but the snow is great and the blue skies almost touchable from the mountain peaks. Plus thus far I have survived with both knees intact despite somehow both starting and ending my first day on a black run. Or just about.

And yet. And yet. This will sound utterly bonkers to anyone who has endured me moaning about the lack of snow in my life the past three years but, whisper it, I really didn't enjoy myself. Sure, the days had their moments. Like when my phone rang at lunchtime on day one as I was about to tackle a bumpy black and it was the nanny telling me that Louis was doing fine and "an absolute pleasure to look after". And I coped with the slope. Not to mention that feeling of catching some high altitude rays in the middle of what has to be the longest winter ever.

But for the rest of the time I honestly felt wretched. Utterly wretched that here we were, on holiday, and we'd opted to dump Louis with a total stranger so that we could head up a mountain without him. Sure, we'd watched him settle in and there was no way I'd have left him if he'd been crying. (Unlike plenty of other parents using the creche.) And I knew the nannies would be keeping him busy. After all, there was sledging to do and a snow park to explore. Not to mention feet painting and cookie baking to come.

Yet that didn't change the fact that for all the stimulation, I knew Louis would have been happier spending the day doing chores with me than a day without me. Especially on a so-called family holiday. I just couldn't get the knots to leave my stomach or the echoes of "Mummy toys" out of my head. Even if I managed to forget about him briefly while negotiating the way down, there was always that long chair back up again to dwell. Even the fact that we'd started both days late and finished early - well, for us, at least: normally I'm fanatical about getting the first and last lifts - didn't help.

What to do? Except hope that the guilt will dissipate as the week wears on. Who knows: by day six I might even manage to enjoy myself.

Pink stinks. Or does it?

2010-02-03T20:09:00.006Z

Here's a question: is it ever okay for boys to wear pink? I ask because I was confronted with a dilemma today. I needed to buy Louis some snow boots to wear next week because wellies are just too chilly; ditto his brown boots. I found some great Columbia ones in one of the posh Kensington ski shops. For a mere £20. They're black and really rather funky. But although they're the right size, there is no way they're going on his feet. And trust me I've tried. And tried.

So instead I went to Decathlon, that French magnet for all things sporty and cheap, which is handily but a short hop from our 'hood. But this being February and still the middle of winter, you can imagine what their selection of kiddie snow boots looked like. (Is there a shortcut key to inject a heavy note of sarcasm??) All they did have were rows and rows and rows of pink ones; the neutral coloured toddler ones apparently sold out in early December. What to do? (You can probably guess where this is going from the picture.) So, I got him to try them on, figuring if I had to fight either the boots or him then I'd just leave them on the shelf. But the first slipped on like a dream, and he demanded the second one too. They were also less than half the price of the Columbia ones. Just.

Reader, I bought them. Yes, pink snow boots. I did briefly figure I might be able to get a fabric pen and colour them a different shade. But realistically that's not going to happen. Thus far he's just been stomping round the house in them: he really loves his "snowman boots". Is that cruel? Bear in mind his lovely blonde locks are already too long - we had another failed attempt at a trim this morning - and that he's often mistaken for a girl, including, ahem, by the Decathlon check out girl. I wanted to check what the Pink Stinks campaign policy was on boys in pink but they haven't got back to me. I'll update this if they do. For now, though, can he pull it off? Or is it just too cruel? Then again, making him walk round with cold feet won't exactly win me mummy of the month.

The C word

2010-01-31T18:17:00.007Z

Steam engine!

Steering

The boys who brunch

And Louis' wheels

It's started. I thought I'd be able to hold off for a few more years.... but no. I haven't even been a mum for two years and already I'm wondering: just how much longer can we live in London? Yup, it's time for the C word: the countryside. It's not that I'm suddenly fantasising about living in Dorset, or wherever us townies seem to congregate when we Leave The Big Smoke. And nor have I come down with an early case of inner London school stress. But there is something about living somewhere so urban that it's a good 25 minutes even to a park - and not even a great one at that. Okay, so he could probably kick a football around the council estate car pack at the back of our house but it's hardly ideal.

This particular burst of angst was sparked by a Sunday outing to deepest Kent to visit a very close friend. Or more specifically, his grandfather's steam engine. Sorry, traction engine, to give it its proper name - although Louis still thinks we saw a 'steam train'. He had an amazing day, riding on the steam engine, visiting the sheep, playing with the (little) dog and helping drive the mini tractor. Plus lunch in the very nice local village pub. Granted that's not exactly your typical day in the countryside but there was something about all that space. I get the same feeling when we visit Grandma P: she's lucky enough to live just yards from the sea (even if it is just the English Channel).

I might feel more London love if we lived around the corner from one of the beautiful parks. But that's realistically never going to happen and there's nothing like a long tube journey to take the edge of a park outing. I don't even want to move somewhere less central that is nearer more green because then I'd moan about getting "into town" as I'd have to start calling it. It's a conundrum, but lacks an easy solution. The obvious answer is to do nothing. But I can't help feeling that's not a long-term resolution.

Snow blind

2010-01-30T11:58:00.007Z

I usually forget everything I read. I could own only 10 books and I'd probably still be surprised how each one ends. I can barely even recall what happens in Rebecca despite having read it countless times. Which means most of my pre-Louis reading was utterly pointless, and not just because it turns out I'm not such a fan of baby "tips". But one piece of advice did stick in my mind from a book called something silly like the Yummy Mummy handbook (but which turned out to be surprisingly good). It was to avoid taking your new child skiing. At all costs. Apparently all the thrills of a ski trip - the mountain peaks, the sub-zero temperatures, the eye-watering descents - aren't exactly baby friendly.

So we steered clear of the slopes. For at least a year. And this despite being a stone's throw from Colorado's top powder resort last March. But 12 months on and my anti-skiing resolve has weakened. Or, rather, melted. After all, two years ago my stomach was the size of a small mountain so I had to give skiing a miss then too. But now. Now is a different story. Okay, I'm aware that skiing has to be about the least toddler-friendly holiday. And that's if they're old enough to hit the nursery slope; even resorts that start them young balk at 20 months. (Something to do with baby bones still growing. Although surely that applies all through childhood?)

But what to do with Louis? Other parent friends bailed on a joint trip - I had hoped we could take it in turns to babysit - and funnily enough Grandma Penny didn't jump at my ultimate elegant solution: getting her to come too! So instead we're testing out a ski package that bundles a creche into the mix. I have my doubts about whether it will work out. We've never left Louis in any sort of nursery (although watch this space) so I suspect he'll have something to say if we try and abandon him all day. Especially given his low tolerance threshold for group activities: he'd had enough of the local library's storytelling session well before it had finished and started saying 'Luli home, Luli home'.

Still, given our expertise in tag-team parenting, I'm hopeful that DJ and I can at least take it in turn to hit the slopes. And contrary to some parents, my ideal holiday isn't actually one where I never see my toddler. Now all we need is for it to snow where we're going.

Sleep damaged

2010-01-25T14:04:00.006Z

Very awake

In case any regular bwb readers are wondering why I haven't moaned about Louis' sleeping lately I have a confession. Since about Christmas, we've actually had some nights that have been, whisper it, OK. Well, better than ok. I've clocked up at least six hours of sleep in a stretch at some points. (Oh, okay, well, once. The other couple of times he's slept soundly I, of course, haven't, waking, wondering what on earth is wrong.)

I didn't want to mention it because I obviously didn't want to jinx it. But I'm safe now because Louis is still Louis: we've had plenty of shocking nights stirred into the mix. Including some classic evenings last week when I abandoned gave trying to get him to sleep after I'd passed the two-hour mark and just brought him back downstairs. One ended with him and DJ rocking around the kitchen at 10.30pm. Which was pretty funny. But I digress. The breakthrough, I'm sad to say, has all revolved around milk. Turns out there's a direct correlation between the amount he gets in the night (from me) and the amount he sleeps. Well, that and the number of hours Daddy J spends rocking him and singing the Gambler. (Thank you!)

The reason I'm writing about sleep is because (as ever) it's on our minds. In particular, I'm curious: what kind of a toll does missing all that sleep take? (Some nights he barely manages eight hours and he doesn't exactly catch up on it during the day.) Compare that with his cousin, Tommy, who we reckon clocks up an extra three hours shut-eye in every 24 to Louis'. Which, by my rough calculations, means by the time they hit two years, Louis will have spent four MONTHS more of his life awake than Tommy. Four months! (As will I......)

Now consider that scientists reckon kids' brains do most of their most crucial developing at night, while they are sleeping. And that research is now blaming pretty much every modern disease - obesity, hyperactivity (ADHD) etc - on a lack of sleep. An article at the weekend on this very subject even claimed that some scientists believe that sleep problems during formative years cause brain damage. Now can someone please tell me what I'm supposed to do when Louis just won't go to sleep before 10pm? And, more importantly, how much I'm meant to worry about it?

Crossing the line

2010-01-20T14:25:00.006Z

Babyccino

"Sosee milk"

And again

As a Mum, you're constantly battling not to do things. One of the hardest is not crossing the line. My course faltered today when, in an attempt to grasp one of my Louis days rather than let it grasp me, I decided we'd go to that south-east London Mummy magnet, the Horniman Museum. So far, so good. (I'll gloss over the fact that, as per, I left an hour later than intended.) Mummies like it because kids like it - there's lots to see, with the mini aquarium a particular hit. Plus there's precious little else to do in that particular corner of London.

But first, again as per, I needed a coffee. Or, a "cossee" as Louis calls it, seeing as he can't do "fs" for some reason. As ever, I asked for a small cup of warm milk for Louis - or "sosee (frothy) milk" in Louis speak. Because we were smack bang in Nappy Valley land, instead of getting a small cup of frothy milk, Louis got a "babyccino", complete with sprinkling of chocolate. And I got a bill for 50p. Which I don't mind, but considering it was a tiny espresso cup with about three teaspoons of froth, it lasted Louis all of about 30 seconds. So I asked for a little bit more. And got charged another 50p.

It's not that I'm bothered about the money, but there's something about the babyccino branding that makes me feel like a fool for crossing that line, that mug line, which separates sensible Mums who don't waste their cash on all sorts of baby paraphernalia and other Mums who do. Especially when £1 doesn't even buy you five minutes to drink your coffee. I realise I probably sound stingy but "babyccinos" just make me feel I've been had. Like I do when I buy anything made by Organix (I'm thinking particularly of those mini boxes of raisins) or those pouches of fruit purees (surely a banana or two would do the same trick?).

Happily, our particular grotty bit of south London hasn't cottoned on to the con of babyccinos. When it does, it might really be time to move. Especially since I'm willing to bet that there's a strong correlation between the prevalence of babyccinos on cafe menus and house prices. Now there's a house price index that might make interesting reading.

Not even snowed in

2010-01-14T21:24:00.006Z

Walking the sheep

Inaugural snowman (sort of)

Kent snow

Call me heartless, but I have little time for anyone bemoaning being housebound because of the snow. (Disclaimer: it's my lifelong ambition to be snowed in.) When you've spent the past week trapped at home with a sickening toddler - and I mean one who kept getting more ill not one that's just really annoying - you'd long just to be stuck at home because of the snow. At least you can bundle up and go outside and play in snow; a sick toddler just has to stay indoors. And so does his Mum.

Or, rather, that's what she's supposed to do. In reality, ever since the white flakes started falling I've been desperate to get Louis outside. Fever or no fever. Not that he had a temperature when it first started snowing last week. Somehow though that changed on Saturday night, although for some reason we didn't that that detract from our Sunday mission of hunting some 'proper' snow after making do with the scant dusting that had fallen on London thus far. I guess the outing was a mistake. Pretty though the Kentish hillside was. I guess, too, that I should have stayed home all day on Monday - and Tuesday, rather than head to check out a still snowy Greenwich Park.

Five days, several high temperatures, one chesty cough, a horrid cold and an ear infection later, perhaps next time he starts to get sick I should stay put. Although that's easier said than done with a toddler. It's all very well being stuck at home if you're ill yourself: bring on the daytime telly, lunchtime duvet sessions and Lemsips. But try telling a toddler to just chill and watch a DVD, even if it is Charlie and "Lala".

For next time - for there will certainly be one - can someone please tell me what exactly you are supposed to do with a sick child under two? I haven't even managed to put him down for a nap the past three days because he'll only sleep entwined in my arms or on my chest. In "Mummy bed". Am not sure how I've just got away with a whole 90 minutes off. No doubt he's about to wake up coughing. Never mind, I'm told all the germs are good for him. Something about building up his resistance. All I can say is I hope it gets good and strong really fast. Especially as he's - gulp - got to start nursery next month.

In search of time

2010-01-04T21:49:00.006Z

If today is indicative, Louis has resolved to climb more hills

Technically, I guess, one is supposed to make new year's resolutions somewhat earlier than 4 January. Or whatever date it is when I finish writing this. But seeing as I only just got round to posting my highlights of 09 I feel I'm kind of about on track. Plus everyone knows new year's resolutions never really kick in until about February.....

I often um and ah about whether to make resolutions: sometimes they can just add to one's general feelings of inadequacy (I'd already had alcohol, chocolate, crisps and a late night by 2 January), but as they kind of go with the whole liking the start of January thing, I reckon I should give them a shot. I've learnt from experience that they work best if you keep them simple. (My top year was when I resolved to get into the O.C. Seriously.)

I'm keeping them (it) simple again this year. Basically I want to find more time. For me, DJ, Louis, everyone really. My impetus was just coming off the phone with a very good friend I hadn't spoken to in probably a year. My excuse was that pretty much all of last year had vanished in a blur of trying to get Louis to sleep. That one task wiped out evening upon evening and destroyed whatever time I might have had spare in the daytime by making me too incoherent to speak. But if I could dare to hope that we might be past the worst on that front, then I should be able to make more time to do the 101 things I feel passed me by in 2009.

I'm not talking about anything grand: I might have listened wistfully yesterday to a friend telling me how he's managing to write an amazing sounding history book while holding down a 9 to 5 job, but I think I'd better save that particular resolution for another year. For now, I'd be happy just to be able to escape to the odd film, meet friends for a meal and somehow manage to visit my Dad/Grandpa/friend(s) in Scotland/Switzerland/DC/Brussels/Ealing. To make this resolution work, though, me finding more time means I need to work out how to spend less of this year operating a one-in, one-out parenting policy in this house and spend more of it with DJ.

If this week is anything to go by (he's working solidly, including through two nights until I go back to work on Thursday when he's then got four days off) then I'm going to have my work cut out. But it's still only 4 January (I've written this in one sitting) so for now, at least, I can still hope. (And while I'm at it, this resolution sits alongside the usual, namely: run that half-marathon, actually print out some photos of Louis, learn a new hobby, blog more frequently, eat less sugar, switch jobs, emigrate, make a wedding album, etc, etc, etc.........) How about anyone else?

PS Just saw this HuffPo piece on resolving to get more sleep. Another good one. Check it out.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/sleep-challenge-2010-wome_b_409973.html

Looking back in fondness

2010-01-03T08:37:00.006Z

If bwb was a newspaper I'd have got my reminiscing about 2009 over with by about November, such is the rush to beat rival publications to write the same stuff. But seeing it's my blog, which makes me the editor, I'll allow myself some flexibility to pause for a second to look back on the previous 12 months. I need to because Josie at the brilliant Sleep Is For The Weak, which is something of a kindred blog spirit, tagged me in a High 5 meme (am still not really sure what this actually is....) that requires me to tell you about my top five highlights of 2009.

So here goes. In no particular order.

1. Inauguration day, 20 January 2009

He might not be my President, and he might be struggling a bit just now in the popularity stakes, but no matter: being there for Obama's inauguration has to rate as a high spot, if only because we made it to the Mall on a bitterly cold day to soak up the atmosphere from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and to - kind of - see Obama getting sworn in. We being me and Louis as DJ was down the other end where all the action was actually happening. Thanks, of course, to Katy and Jason and Sophie coming with us; plenty of other (more sensible?) moms opted to watch it from the warm of their living rooms.

2. Standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon at dawn

Okay, so I won't make all of these about America, but this has to be up there, if only because we've got a photo of us all looking pretty darn happy up in our kitchen so I must have enjoyed it. Again, we made it out despite the bitter cold, and come sunrise had the top spot to watch the new day break all to ourselves. Truly magical. Even if it did make Louis sick.

3. That first "Mummy"

It's hard to pick a Louis highlight; there were so many. But that first time he said Mummy, properly, was a real bright spot. Even though he made me wait for it. The only thing that topped it was when he started saying "Mummy cuddle" when he wanted a hug. Or as a get-out-of-Louis-jail card when he's been naughty!

4. Those night feeds

Well, maybe not quite all of them. But seriously, nursing Louis for as long as I did was very special. It might sound bonkers, but I particularly treasure the memories of us all snuggled up in bed together with him feeding away. Despite the fatigue, we said at the time that we'd miss it if he ever made it back to his crib. And we meant it. All the other mums (and dads) who enjoy that closeness will know what I mean.

5. That first lunch a deux

I can't resist one more from DC. Sorry London, but that's just how it goes. This one is up there because it was just one of those magic moments, the first time Louis and I went out for lunch together. It was totally spontaneous - we were on the way to the hospital for a check up after a particularly grim illness and one or both of us needed a snack. I forget which. So we went to Kafe Leopold, a particularly special DC spot (thanks again Katy) and shared their delicious cucumber salad on a table for two. Even at just on nine months old he felt very grown up and I knew I'd really look forward to many more lunches to come.

I think I'm supposed to tag another five blogs to do likewise now, but I'm not sure they'll thank me for it now we're in to January? Can someone advise? Should I just ask people what they're most looking forward to in 2010? Am not sure of the meme etiquette....

PS DJ has just roundly criticised this for missing out at least another five major highlights. So either he'll post with his top five or I might need to do another blog!

Happy 2010!

2010-01-01T19:48:00.005Z

Last night's party guests

"Hammas"

New Year's Day

I like 1 January. Especially when I get a bonus day off work out of the blue (yes I know it's a bank holiday, but try telling that to a newspaper editor). It's a day when normal rules are suspended and time seems to pause before the onslaught of a fresh year starts in earnest on the 2nd. It's also a day full of hope and promise before the reality of life kicks back in. I especially 1 Januarys when they launch a new decade. This time 10 years ago we were living in Tbilisi and partying in Malindi to see in the new millennium. Fun as last night was - a NYE party for six adults and three toddlers at our house in London - I like the thought of imagining us living somewhere else in 10 years time. (I also like imagining us living somewhere else in one years time.....)

That said, for now, much as I could have fancied seeing in the new year somewhere glam, there was really nowhere else I'd have rather been than where we were, with very dear friends and an even dearer son. Thanks to the noisy fireworks in our street all three children were awake shortly after midnight so were able to join in the fun. I'd have been sad if Louis had slept through it all. Especially as he was up with us to celebrate last year. Strange to think that in another 10 years Louis will be 11 and a half. And we'll be properly old. If we're not already. Hopefully we'll all still be together, safe and having fun. Happy 2010 bwb readers.

More sprouts!

2009-12-27T08:37:00.006Z

"Santa came!"

"Digger!"

"Tree"

"Ooh! "

"Hats!"

"Train!"

I don't think anyone was quite sure what to expect of Louis on Christmas Day, including Louis. Could an 18-month-old really "get" Christmas? I mean, it's all pretty bizarre, what with a tree suddenly appearing in your living room dripping with what are basically toys that he's not allowed to touch, and men dressed in red popping up all over the place: at parties, on houses, in gardens, in pictures.

But come Christmas morning, Louis was pretty excited that "Santa came" and the "stocking" we'd hung up the night before had stuff in it to "open". Especially when Santa turned out to be a lot less fussy about gender specific toys than his Mum and brought him a "digger sand". (Am not sure what happened to Father Christmas; I guess Louis must have picked up more American than we thought.) Although he scoffed the "orange" Santa had left, he was more excited by the "money" that "Dan-dad" and G'ma Sue had stuck on Mummy and Daddy's presents. Apparently it's a Dutch tradition. Nobody tell him they're actually chocolate!

Judging by the pile of presents for Louis, no one had thought to test out the old adage that little children are just as happy playing with a cardboard box all day as a pile of presents. Not that I'm complaining. Louis' presents are all brilliant: lots of lovely, stylish warm clothes, a wooden 'sicycle', his first train set, some great Lego, books, a mini wooden toolbox, "jamas" with matching toy, and his very own "Piggle" doll that I bought him somewhat misguidedly in slight desperation at not having found anything else.

Like his Mum, Louis took his present opening slowly to start with, but as he warmed up the wrapping paper came flying off. He made a useful present delivery man but only if the recipient didn't mind him doing their "open" for them. Somehow we stretched "open" out all day, but only after pausing for a cliff walk and an enormous lunch - Louis' second of the day.

Lunch probably provided the biggest surprise of Christmas. Even though Louis's non meat-eating Mum relented and dished him up a smidgeon of turkey, the bird barely got a look in from Louis, and not just because there were eight different veggies accompanying G'ma P's bird. No, the biggest shock was Louis' taste for sprouts, sprouts and "more sprouts". Someone tell the sprout marketing board. Louis even has a special sprout pose when his face bunches up in excitement at the thought of yet more. I guess it means he'll be a cheap date for the rest of the festive period given that sprouts always seem to be discounted in the supermarket after Christmas. "Happy Kissmas" everyone.

More tree-ditions

2009-12-23T17:31:00.005Z

So much for my fleeting plan to do a 12 days to Christmas countdown blog. There's now only two to go but suffice to say, we've ticked off a fair few more traditions. There's been the getting sick one (Louis, twice, and now DJ); the Christmas tree stress; and, a new entry for the Noughties, the nightmare that is internet shopping when you lack the luxury of a concierge, as in DC.

The tree stress was classic. Initial disagreement over where to buy tree followed by B&Q being totally sold out of all things festive by 15 December, which incidentally was the earliest we've ever decided to do a tree. Then the tree that we brought home from the super pricey flower shop near us was vastly bigger than anticipated, so of course didn't fit in the tree stand we had. But could we find another tree stand, anywhere? Obviously not. Even when we'd managed to cadge one from 'dand-dad' we then had the joys of not one but two sets of tree lights breaking. It clearly would have been insane to imagine we'd be able to buy another set so 'close' to Christmas - thanks Selfridges - so we were stuck waiting for one to arrive in the post from John Lewis, only of course the 5mm of snow on the ground means that there hasn't been any post for days.

And what has Louis made of all this? Well, he's enjoyed the additional Christmas cooking: 'stir it biscuits' and mince pies. And he's already firm friends with 'Santa', although he snoozed through the trip to his grotto that 'Curry and Go-seph' had planned for us the other day. But his favourite part of Christmas has to be the tree. Or the tree decorations to be more precise. He spends most of his time taking them all off. At least I can put him to work on Twelfth Night.

Christmas present

2009-12-14T21:08:00.006Z

Christmas comes early

Am still thinking a lot about Christmas traditions. Although I've always enjoyed them, having Louis seems to elevate their importance. Like the cake wishing. I'm already wondering what sort of Christmases Louis will remember having had when he looks back on them one day. Obviously I realise time is on my side. He is only 18 months and clearly has trouble just remembering what he's done each day. But, still. It gives me something to think about other than my general fatigue .

Given that we're going to G'ma P's for the actual day, my musings thus far have been fairly materialistic. Specifically: will we be a heavy-on-the-presents family or a more spartan one? I'll never forget friends I had (still have) who must have had diametrically opposed Christmases: one, I'll swear, was pleased to get the two items on her Santa wish list, while the other would spend the entire day opening presents and have a totally new winter wardrobe at the end of it. (But actually, seeing as she didn't get bought any clothes for the rest of winter it was more a question of distribution, my mum pointed out.)

I'm actually getting rather alarmed at the thought of Louis getting lots of Christmas gifts. Which might explain why I haven't bought anything yet. By the time I've finished plotting the cost versus how long I think he'll play with something on some sort of mental graph with x being the amount of space it will take up and y its contribution to the plastic fantastic universe, somehow the transaction never gets made. So far, I haven't bought: a trampoline, a wooden bus, a hobby horse and an Iggle Piggle duvet cover. Not to mention a mini wooden kitchen from John Lewis. (Although the only reason there is that it's £106. If it wasn't it, I'd snap it up.) It's saving me a fortune. But I can't help feeling a bit mean.

That said, the only person who's asked me what Louis might like is my dad, so perhaps the 25th won't be the giftfest I'm imagining! And I already vetoed the replica police bike, complete with siren, that my mum was looking at. Nobody tell Louis!

PS Have just realised how horribly materialistic all that was. I should be worrying about which Christmas church service to take him to. Whoops.

That'll be a D-

2009-12-12T17:47:00.004Z

Okay, so can someone please tell me when it's supposed to get easier? This parenting lark? I've barely scraped a D- this past week, which was capped last night by Louis pushing his firetruck round the living room at, I kid you not, 11pm, screeching "nee nor nee nor". (At 9.30pm, I'd got so bored trying to persuade him to go to sleep that I took him downstairs to watch Gossip Girl with me. My hope that he'd crash out backfired: he watched agog, and this morning was telling DJ - who'd been at work - all about "Goss Goss".) He then proceeded to wake hourly from 3am....

If that was the cherry on the top of my bad mum week, I cooked the cake on Wednesday when I broke every mummy rule in the book after Louis hit his head. Well, before, really given that I shouldn't have let him escape from the swimming pool in the first place. I was just about to scoop him up when, obviously, he slipped backwards, smacking the back of his skull. Ooops. Mistake number two was deciding to get back in the water with him, whereupon he was promptly sick, then thereafter they just kept on coming. Let's just say the NHS Direct nurse clearly thought I was nuts when I told her he was asleep during our phone call. In my defence, it was nap time and he'd been awake since half five.

I then ignored her advice to take him straight down to A&E in favour of going to Chloe's first birthday party. Only to spend the whole time stressing out that Louis was way below par and did indeed need to get checked out. So for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to wait until his dinner time to break my A&E duck and take him along. Turns out the rest of south London had had a similar idea. The upshot is I didn't even manage to pull off a successful A&E trip: the wait was so long that once we'd seen the triage nurse I decided to scarper.

As it turned out, my initial judgment that he was probably okay, was probably the right one. Well, I'm guessing it was because he was clearly back to his old ways last night. Unless insomnia is a sympton of concussion that I don't know about? Perhaps it's just as well that we've had to cancel the babysitter tonight because DJ is sick. I'm thinking this evening just wouldn't have been the best time to attempt to leave Louis (asleep) with someone he's never met before. Though it is a shame about our evening out.

Christmas wishes

2009-12-07T14:09:00.005Z

'Stir it cak'

Talking of getting old, one highlight of having your own family, as oppose to just being part of one, is that you get to start your own Christmas traditions rather than just join in everyone else's. For me, this means getting to put the tree up earlier than Christmas Eve. It also means making my own cake, rather than just one at my Mum's. That's because of all the traditions, by far the most important is our annual baking session, and not just because we have sweet teeth.

Far more important are the Christmas wishes you make while stirring the mixes. It's always the same Christmas pudding recipe but we switched to a different cake one about ten years ago - from Leith's cook book if you need one. Various friends have joined in the wishing over the years, sometimes even telephonically. We're semi-religious about our wishes, which meant I had to time my cake baking last year for a weekend when Bam-ma was visiting. I recall having to substitute quite a few ingredients - who knew glace cherries were morello cherries in American? - but it came out okay in the end. And I think my wish came true.

I have high hopes for 2010 because this year I've managed two wishing, sorry, baking sessions: one at Bam-ma's and one at home (we needed a cake too plus DJ needed a chance to wish). Louis was in 'cak' heaven. Despite being seriously overtired this morning, 'stir it cak' kept him entertained for easily an hour. First he had to help me measure the raisins, currants and sultanas. And re-measure them to make up for all the ones that ended up on the floor. It all got very 'sticky'. Then he had to 'stir it' and keep 'stir it'. Until it was time to 'weeeeeeesh'. I think his must have come true, because five minutes later I caught him with his finger in the bowl. 'Nice!'

Getting old

2009-12-05T21:33:00.007Z

At 18 months

Getting old, it has always struck me, boils down to a handful of things. In no particular order, these include listening to the Archers (a Radio 4 evening drama for US readers), listening to the Today programme (a morning news show on Radio 4), listening to Radio 4 generally, taking up gardening, birdwatching and hoovering before you have visitors.

And that's just for starters. Other markers, for me at least, are being called Susanna not Susie - for some reason, I remember being adamant when I was little that I'd have to be called Susanna when I was a grown up - cutting my hair short, properly short, not just in a bob, and wearing high heels to work.

I'll leave you to guess which ones I've succumbed to so far. There is one more key trait, though, to which I'll admit I'm guilty. And, surprise, surprise, it concerns Louis. Actually, there's another: you definitely had to be old to have kids. To be more precise, it concerns Louis and time. Namely the passing of time, which, as everybody knows, just gets faster and faster and faster the longer you live. When you're small, an hour can stretch on for a lifetime with a whole day, especially Sundays, lasting an eternity. And not in a good way, as I recall.

But now. Oh no. Now time is a completely different concept, speeding up practically daily. Thanks to Louis it is blindingly obvious how quickly it is galloping by. For instance, do you know what day it is today? It is his one-and-a-half year birthday. Granted, not a conventional milestone to celebrate, but it feels like a milestone nonetheless. Not least because it casts me back so clearly to this time last year, his six-month marker. We were in Boston, spending the weekend with Mum, and I recall that at six months, with his new taste for baby rice, Louis seemed all but grown up.

Little did I know then how old he'd seem today, 5 December 2009. If all his chatting - he's started stringing words together now - wasn't evidence enough of his aging then how about this: from now on he is apparently no longer a baby. Or so says my BabyCentre email anyway. And to be honest, I'd have to concur. I guess that might explain at least why I've been trying to wean him. It doesn't explain, however, why I feel so bad about doing so.

Never rock a newborn and other 'useful' tips

2009-11-23T20:43:00.009Z

A Day Three pre-rocked Louis

I'm never alone when I rock Louis to sleep. Aside from the obvious, I can always count on the company of a nagging voice in my head that gets stuck on repeat. "Don't get your newborn used to being rocked to sleep; you'll regret it when they're 17 pounds." That little gem was one of the many priceless tips I gleaned from my extensive pre-birth baby book reading: I find it comes in particularly handy now that Louis is 17 months and a good 10 or so pounds past that 17 pound cut off.

Given how 'useful' that bit of advice turned out to be, I started thinking about all the other so-called top tips I wish I'd never read while pregnant. Up there with thou shalt not rock your baby, was the one about those glider rocking chairs. You know, those ridiculously comfy (and expensive) chairs, that adorn "proper" nurseries. Well, apparently they're lethal. All that rocking might comfort your baby so much that they get too used to it. Plus heaven forbid you should actually be comfortable for all those hours and hours - and hours you spend nursing and soothing your child. Avoid! Avoid!

Then, in no particular order of irritation and uselessness we have:

- Don't carry your baby around too much in a sling. He/she will get so sick of hearing your voice that they'll start tuning you out. (With thanks to, 'What to Expect those first 12 fraught months for that one, a personal favourite that yes I did worry about as I burbled away to Louis.)

- You're the boss, not the baby: don't let him/her dictate when he/her needs to eat. Put the baby on a schedule asap and don't be its slave. (No prizes for guessing where I read that. And yes, I know I want shooting for even picking up the dreaded Gina.)

- Think EASY and you'll have your baby in a routine in no time. That's Eat, Activity, Sleep, You time. (You think it's obvious when the baby's still in your tummy, but you try keeping a newborn from sleeping after a feed, or getting it straight to sleep after playtime. Actually, don't. It will drive you nuts. Thanks for nothing Baby Whisperer.)

- It's never too early to start getting baby used to a bedtime routine. (But what the books don't tell you is that do that and you'll miss out on all those opportunities of taking out your very portable newborn. Plus routine, schmoutine: I was anal about bedtime from about week three and fat lot of good it did me.)

- Start expressing milk pronto so the baby's dad can do the 11pm feed and you can go to bed early. (It might sound sensible, but that advice is just wrong on so many levels, from making you stress about expressing when you have better things to worry.)

- Sleep when the baby sleeps. (What if it doesn't? Or you can't? Another way to make me feel incompetent.)

- Avoid vibrating baby bouncers. Ditto singing mobiles or anything else that will get your baby too used to a sleeping 'crutch' ever to fall asleep by himself. (And make life even harder for your sleep-deprived self? Brilliant advice, that. Advice that I diligently followed, opting instead for a beautifully designed number that I liked but Louis - sorry Great Aunt Claire - never adored.)

I could go on, but I'm seriously depressing myself. I had intended to balance this post with a list of tips I did find useful (that'll be quite short, then) plus add some of my own, but I've already broken Daddy J's golden "keep it short and sweet" blogging rule. I'd love to hear which "tips" keep you constant company in your hours of need. Or, cynic that I am, any that did indeed prove sanity saving.

Bugging me, Bugaboo (ah-haaa)

2009-11-15T21:40:00.006Z

Regular bwb readers will know that Louis and his buggy don't exactly always see eye to eye. Not the one he's pushing in the picture but the one that cost us a small fortune that I thought I 'had' to have before he was born. These days he seems to spend more time 'buggy surfing' than actually sitting in it. Which means that I too have a love-hate relationship with his pushchair. As fellow bloggers will know, there's nothing like writing about something to vent your wrath, and I got to do that in spades this week, with a comment piece about, yup, buggies in the wake of the great Maclaren saga. I'd be interested to know if anyone else feels the same.

17 months going on 3 days

2009-11-12T21:00:00.004Z

Last Sunday at the Flower Market

I blame it on the picture. Ever since I posted the photo of Louis as a newborn, he's decided to behave just like one. If it wasn't for the extra 15 odd pounds he's carrying round and the blonde rinse, I reckon I'd struggle to tell the difference.

Take the past couple of nights. After napping during the evening, he's proceeded to wake up hourly - yes, hourly - during the rest of the so-called night. I swear there's precious little difference between the amount of time he's then spent nursing and when he was a few days old. His favourite place for sleeping still seems to be in my arms: last night he only dropped back off at 1am after I sat up cuddling him for the best part of an hour.

Then there's the buggy. Yet again I spent half of our walk home pushing it with one hand while carrying him with the other. It brought memories of walking home from Borough Market with him aged three weeks: my Mum pushing his buggy and me carrying him, worrying I'd get him into bad habits. Yet this time there was the small matter of him weighing the best part of 25 pounds (I'm guessing - to know for sure I'd have to either brave a session at baby clinic or stand on our scales holding him and I'm not prepared to do either).

Not that I'm really complaining. How can I when someone seems to have pressed the fast forward button on time and he'll be all grown up before I know it? Besides, he makes up it all in other ways. Perhaps if new borns popped out being able to say "Mummy" and plant mushy kisses on their mothers' lips then PND rates would plummet.

A special birthday

2009-11-04T00:01:00.006Z

Birthdays are funny things for Mums. For instance, I now realise that the day itself is of far more significance to my Mum than to me. After all, she's the one with the actual memories of 3 November 197.... no, on second thoughts, I won't say the year!

I remember last year (for bwb passed it's own little birthday last month, something I had meant to highlight, but never got round to, story of my life) musing something about how even my own birthday got hijacked by Louis. So I expected more of the same this year. Especially as I was recently reminded that it was all downhill in terms of birthday enjoyment once you'd had a child.

But actually I don't think that's right. It sounds selfish to say it, but I honestly think today totally revolved around me, not Louis. My lovely friend and her son made the day very special, and it was more of the same later on when we went out en famille for an early supper. Even the waitresses contributed, bringing me a surprise birthday pudding and candle. (To be honest, I think a round of, 'Happy Birthday to Me', which I'd spent most of the day singing to Louis, mainly because every time I finished he laughed and said, 'More!,' helped.)

So, chin up fellow Mums: you might not relish the passing of another 12 months in terms of what it does to the age on any forms you fill in (or the wrinkles on your face) but your birthday can still be special. If you doubt me, just give your baby/toddler/child a huge hug and think how much nicer it is to have them around to share it with.

*I would post a birthday pic, but my phone broke this morning and I forgot to take my camera out with me. So, instead, I thought you might like one that I just came across of Louis on his actual birth day. Plus I don't want to be able to see how aging a year of not sleeping is!

Part-time living

2009-11-02T20:57:00.004Z

Four months in to my new part-time life and I'm still trying to figure out what I make of it all. And I mean 'part-time life': working three days a week means I not only do the job and Mummy bit part time, but everything else as well.

Yet tough as it is to squeeze five days work into three, it's probably the part-time family stuff that I find hardest. We pretty much operate a one-in, one-out policy on the parenting front in this house, which speaks for itself. The only reason I didn't stop writing bwb when I came back from DC was because I spend so many evenings alone.

Then again, part-time friendships aren't exactly easy. We're useless socially because one of us is usually working - day or night - and dinner party invites for one just don't happen. I'd love a decent night out, but can't even manage to organise that for my birthday.

It's working part time that's got me into this mess. When you're still on maternity leave, it seems such an elegant solution to the conundrum of whether to go back. But from this side of the fence the reality is pretty different. It's just not possible to feel you do either the job or the baby justice. Although I'd like to think Louis suffers a little bit less than the paper. Mainly because he gets to hang out more with his Daddy, not forgetting the lovely Anna and his 'Bam-ma'(s) when they have time.

The old guilt of the working mum is as old a chestnut as they come, yet each new mother struggling with her conscience comes to the issue afresh. The conundrum got an airing this weekend when the Observer's political editor described why she'd decided to resign and get to know her toddler instead of working round the clock. It's a great piece, but only served to magnify my own work insecurities because anyone who knows me knows I'd never have cut a holiday short to return to work! (As retail correspondent I managed to miss the bid battle of the century when Philip Green tried to buy Marks & Sparks because I was getting married.) I utterly applaud Gaby Hinsliff for quitting but slightly worry that she's called her inevitable blog usedtobesomebody. It hardly makes it sound like full-time motherhood has much going for it.

And the solution? There isn't one. Not working full time, not working at all, and not even working part time. What to do?

Louis Samson

2009-10-28T21:22:00.008Z

Working the mullet look

Matching bouffants

Call me shallow but one of the most pressing concerns I had when Louis was tiny concerned his hair. Namely, would all the lovely locks he was born with fall out? And, more pressingly, how long would they take to grow back? Not that bald babies aren't cute.... it's just that hair looks pretty good too.

Fast forward 16 months and I can report that Louis did keep most of his hair, save a slight stripe round the middle (which apparently his Dad lost too). But happily it wasn't long before Louis's bouffant was rivaling his Dada's. (See photo above.)

Interestingly, it seems that Louis shared my early worries. I know this because he won't let me near him with a pair of scissors. I've tried on several occasions, but he's having none of it. If I so much as pick up a pair, he starts pulling the most miserable face while frantically combing his hair flat; he's clearly very proud of that blonde "bouffe", as it's colloquially known in our family.

More interestingly, those rare occasions I have managed to trim the odd bit (and I mean 'odd bit' - you should see how raggedy the back is), are always followed by Louis getting sick. In Bermondsey, in Athens, before we left for Paris the other day.... I'm starting to understand where Samson was coming from. One man's bouffe is another man's mojo.

Still tired after all these months

2009-10-28T20:16:00.004Z

Back in the day, you know, B.L., when I used to think being tired was that feeling that hit you around 4pm on a workday, I remember reading that the average new parent lost out on around 800 hours of sleep during that first year of their baby's life. I have a feeling I've blogged this fact before, but to be honest, everything gets a bit hazy after more than a year of sleepless nights. I do, however, recall a sinking feeling of dread at the prospect of all those sleepless nights. And days.

But thinking about the past 16 or so months, as I was while putting Louis to bed the other night, I started calculating another, far more pertinent figure. I wanted to know how many hours I'd spent actually trying to get him to sleep since he was born. I'm talking about all that time spent rocking, singing, swaying, pushing (the buggy), nursing, nursing, nursing, praying, crying, nursing, walking, nursing, patting, singing, nursing.... You get the drift.

So, I totted it all up, pretty conservatively I might add, and I reckon I've spent the equivalent of two months trying to persuade Louis either to nap or sleep. Yup, two months. Give or take a day or two. If that sounds unlikely, consider that this is a child who even as a newborn, when most babies apparently sleep an average of 20 hours in every 24, he was getting by with barely 12 to 14. Not for want of my trying, I might add.

Fast forward 16 months and Louis's (non)-sleeping habits still dominate most of my days - and nights. Every now and then, there's a glimmer of hope that things might be improving. Like tonight, when he miraculously fell asleep about 10 minutes after I switched off the light. But that's forgetting about last Friday, when he had me practically begging him to shut his eyes after he spent a good two-hour stretch of the early hours awake.

The reason I'm writing about sleep - again - is because I thought I'd link to a piece I wrote recently in the Independent about our travails. It may not have yielded the answer, but writing it was pretty cathartic. I mention it mainly for all the great comments and tips that readers posted at the end of the piece just in case they might come in handy for anyone in my boat. And if they don't, then let me just add one more observation that I received in a letter from a very kind reader. Even non-sleeping toddlers grow up eventually. And that time passes quicker than you might think. Even at 4am.

Eco mountain living

2009-10-05T20:09:00.005+01:00

There's a certain irony about tipping up at an eco-resort with a toddler. Come to think of it, there's a certain irony about eco-resorts, but I digress. Having a baby has to be the un-greenest thing anyone can do, regardless of how many cloth diapers you might wash or wooden toys you find at charity shops. (And for the record, my cloth diapers went through the wash all of, oh, two times and our house is full of so much plastic tat it can feel like stepping into a Chinese toy factory.)

Not that we headed up to the eco-retreat of Milia, in the moutains above Chania, to try and assuage our new parent guilt at creating another carbon-guzzling citizen. These days, as I toss another day's worth of dirty Pampers in the rubbish (whoops, I meant Nature Babycare, although I reckon Pampers leak less at night) or get through yet another age range of baby clothes, I have almost accepted my lot as planet destroyer. But I'm not knocking Milia's green status.

Milia bills itself as a traditional settlement where, for a tidy fee, you can live like Cretan peasants of yesteryear. (Yet another irony, surely.) All the guest houses have been restored from the ruins of old village cottages. Luxurious they are not. But it's a great idea for a resort. I'm not sure it was the best place to head with a toddler, however. Especially one who chose our one day in the mountains to get sick. It was like being in the Navajo Nation all over again. But on the plus side, at least he slept for most of our walk, ahem, rock scramble.

Louis survived but I think his personal jury is still out on mountaineering given that every time we've taken him above sea level thus far he's become ill. At least after downing sufficient Calpol he managed to enjoy elements of being there. Namely the four footed ones: the 25 or so cats and umpteen goats were definately his highlight. I would post more pictures as evidence but I've misplaced my blogging camera. Am very much hoping it's not still in Crete, because we're now in London.....

Holiday vocab

2009-10-04T08:29:00.006+01:00

"Cat" hunting

One thing that's been really fun has been Louis' Greek holiday vocab. Okay, so his eating strike/illness (yes, another holiday illness - we're beginning to think he's trying to tell us he doesn't like travelling) means he isn't quite saying 'spanokopitta' or 'gyros', but he's got the seaside stuff down pat.

We head to the "sand" so we can go "swimming" in the "sea" and then take a "shower" when we come out. His other favourite pursuit is to go "cat" hunting: this being Greece there are plenty around to chase among the bushes. I can feel a kitten hunting mission of my own coming on when we get home...

Although he's struggling with Raphael's German - "key" is just so much easier to say than "schlussel" - he's having lots of fun playing "cou-cou" with Mathis, the very sweet two-year-old from Versailles who is our next door neighbour here.

Then there's "bum". For a day or two we were stumped about where that one came from, but then all became clear when he started pointing excitedly to the "bummer". Which is, obviously, the camera. Try it, "bummer" isn't as far off as you might think.....

Baby Butlins, Chania

2009-10-04T07:05:00.008+01:00

Captain Monkey's breakfast

Louis and Raphael

Posing on the Marimekko cushions

So, it turns out that despite our odyssey to get here, Daddy J might just have struck holiday gold with his choice of hotel. Not only is the Ammos, near Chania, an i-escape pick (that website will bankrupt us, damn it), but it also does a mean sideline as a Baby Butlins.

Forget designer one-pieces; the accessory des vacances is a cute toddler. From Mathis and Athena, to Raphael and Noé, the Ammos is swimming in little playmates for Louis. And being one of Crete’s few boutique hotels, the Ammos attracts a cosmopolitan crowd, making poolside playtime into a virtual UN crèche. In fact, we wondered whether Nikos, the owner, had some sort of EU-style quota system in operation when it came to bookings: we counted Dutch, German, French, Poles, Brits, Greeks, Italians and even Danes, Swiss, Icelanders and Russians among the guests. Louis will be practically chattering in Esperanto by the time we get home.

Nikos apparently has a website called Baby Friendly Boltholes to “thank” for his baby magnet status. I am still trying to decide whether that's a website to use - or avoid in the future. If this stay has been anything to go by, then having other babies around is a real bonus. For one thing, it makes all the parents heaps friendlier. You have to be when your little ones are all sharing toys and splashing in the sea together. Which means that come bedtime, we've got someone to share a glass or two of wine with as well. Double bonus.

Taking it easy

2009-09-26T14:26:00.008+01:00

After abandoning the buggy

Why don't my shoes have pom poms?

The view

This time, we swore we'd get it right. Holidaying with a baby. Not for us the madness of a two week roadtrip; instead, we'd seek island serenity. Not the deserted, hut on a beach, almost-camping-in-a-vastly-different-timezone kind, but the child-friendly, mod-con equipped, Mediterranean kind of island. Greece would do, we figured. Or more specifically, Crete. After all: you can fly straight there from Gatwick. What could be easier?

Except that in our vocab easy seems to be a dirty word. So, rather than book a direct flight to Heraklion, which would have been but a short hop in a car to the boutique hotel DJ promised would represent positively our last, last blast before a future of actual camping holidays beckons, we thought it might be more fun instead to fly to Athens and take a ferry. To the furthest Greek island that you can get to, thereby turning what could have (and should have) been a relaxing two week beach holiday into more of a hybrid city and beach affair. And just to make packing even more fun, we decided to throw some mountains in for good measure. Because there's nothing like trying to squeeze three types of clothing into two smallish bags to put mummies in a good pre-holiday mood!

At least we weren't doing our usual getting-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night thing. No, this time we thought we'd play it safe and get the afternoon flight. We did all the calculations: landing at 9pm Greek time would be only 7pm back home making it barely a late night for Louis once we finally managed to check in to our hotel. But somehow I forgot to take account of the fact that by the end of the flight he'd be so wired by the excitement of traveling that in future I think even that 3am alarm call would be more painless.

And for the record, Athens, for all its Olympics makeover, is still Athens. That is to say, chaotic, dirty, crowded, pavement-less, traffic-ridden, and utterly buggy unfriendly. (Not that Louis minded that we had to leave the buggy behind on day two: these days you can't even bribe him with snacks to stay in it. I wonder if Bugaboo does refunds?) We hardly helped ourselves when it came to trying to take it easy on the sightseeing front. We ended up walking round the whole of the city, including taking a funicular to its highest point, on our first day. If this sounds like toddler hell, then consider the mummy torture of zooming straight past shop after shop, not to mention cool looking bar after cool looking bar.

Next time, I guess we're getting that direct flight straight to the beach. And staying put once we get there.

Great birthday wishes

2009-09-15T21:55:00.006+01:00

Cheers!

There's birthdays, and then there's great birthdays. And my grandpa's 92nd birthday today definitely falls into the latter category. Not least because since Louis came along, his status has been elevated from "merely grand, to great". (I quote from the card he sent when Louis was born.)

92. It makes you think, doesn't it. About lots of things but mainly that if Louis is lucky enough to clock up a similar number, then he'll have lived to see in a brand new century. The 22nd. Now there's a thought. Happy birthday (Great) Grandpa!

Missing shadow

2009-09-14T21:20:00.004+01:00

Pants protest without Louis

And reunited with my shadow

There comes a point, during that first, looooong, year of motherhood when you begin to wonder if the day will ever come when you will get the chance to shake off your shadow and venture out, solo. Such is the intensity of that relationship it can be hard to remember that the umbilical cord actually was cut at birth. Especially if you don't have the luxury of family or friends who can take the odd shift to give you a bit of a break.

I should know. For the six months I was in DC the only Louis downtime I got was the odd yoga class. I began to wonder if I'd ever manage to use both hands simultaneously again or walk down the street without either a baby strapped to my body or a buggy in tow. Or worse. A baby strapped to my body AND a buggy in tow. (Or a stroller as it was then.)

Don't get me wrong. Come the weekend, provided DJ was actually in town and not off on one of his trips, he'd always offer to take Louis off so I could have a break. But I never wanted to miss out on time spent a trois. So I stuck around.

And I hardly let having Louis around 24/7 cramp my style. Whatever I wanted to do, he just came as well. (With the exception of going out for a night on the tiles; somehow that just never happened!) Which meant he got about a fair bit. One of my personal favourites - and I imagine his if he can remember - was the Prop 8 protest march we went on with Sara, Jen and Alex.

My excuse for reminiscing like this is that last week I found myself at another protest. But because it was a Friday, and because I was there for work, I was by myself. Well, I say "work" - what I really mean is that I was there on work time because I'd have gone regardless. It was a protest in support of Lubna Hussein, the Sudanese UN worker who was on trial facing 40 lashes for the crime of wearing trousers. I'd written a piece querying where the International Sisterhood was when it came to supporting her, which had led to a (very terrifying) slot on Women's Hour and the aforementioned protest.

I'd been there about half an hour, when I realised something was wrong. Something was missing. My shadow. I'd been so used to dragging Louis along wherever I went, it just seemed wrong that he wasn't there with me. I missed him. Hard as I would have found that to believe had you told me that all those months back when I longed even to drink a coffee without balancing a wriggling little bundle of menace on my knee. I guess that from now on he'll always be an extension of me to some extent.

Where's "Mama"?

2009-09-09T22:18:00.006+01:00

Louis and Mama throwing "stones"

It's a fascinating thing watching babies learn to speak. Endless months of babbling and then, finally, the odd word emerges from the baby burble. I obviously liked to kid myself that his first word was, of course, ma-ma, way back at about month seven. But, clearly, Louis was just discovering that pursing his lips and breathing out at the same time gave him a 'ma' 'ma' sound, to add to the others in his repertoire. And then it was on to the next consonant. And the next one.

I say "clearly" because for months now Louis has obstinately refused to say Mama at all. He'll "Dadada" until the cows come home, and has done since, oh, so long ago that I forget exactly when. And he definitely means Dada when he says it. He' says it when Daddy J comes home, when he sees photos of DJ, when he hears him on the stairs, etc etc. But when he sees me - in the flesh or in pics? Nada.

Now that he's trying out even more words, it's interesting to try and work out why he chooses the ones he does. "Nana" (for banana) was easy. He was pretty much weaned on bananas and has eaten at least a treeful ever since. "Quack, quack" because he was obsessed with ducks (although he apparently also thinks that dogs and cats also quack). "Key" and "car" came spilling out of his mouth simultaneously, which makes sense, I guess and reflects his love of both. Especially "keys".

Then "shoes" are exciting because wearing them means he gets to go out. And "stones" just popped out at Grandma Penny's the other day because he was having so much fun throwing them on the beach. "Toes" and "nose" were an easy addition because we spend quite a lot of time looking for them and pointing to them. Today he was trying for "squirrel" (although it's a tough one to spit out) while watching one in our garden.

I figure that what all those words have in common is they are all things that make him happy and excite him. Which begs the question of what exactly do I do? I guess he's just starting as he means to go on: taking his Mama for granted.

The solution to losing the sleep battle

2009-09-06T14:45:00.009+01:00

Louis outside Monmouth Coffee

When did it become lose-lose to have a kid? I refer to the options, as presented to me at 1am last night, for getting Louis to sleep properly. My choice: the pain of 15 months and counting of less than five hours of broken sleep a night, or the pain of listening to a hysterical Louis if we instead opt to leave him to figure out sleeping by himself. And, heaven knows, I seem to have spent enough time trying to help him.

Too much time, apparently, according to a new study I wrote about in the paper today, which blames anxious mums for having offspring who refuse to sleep. There's no point trying not to worry, either, because by the time you've had the baby, you've already done the damage: it links expectant mums' beliefs about sleep with the reality of life with their newborn. Marvelous. Thanks for that.

Some months back I blogged that I was searching for a Third Way, a compromise between leaving Louis to cry himself to sleep and being there for him every time he woke. Well, we called off that search pronto after a hideous week of trying to persuade Louis to spend all night in his cot and are firmly back to square one. Which is frankly, pretty tiring.

What I want to know is, how did it all go so wrong? Contrary to the Israeli study, I was adamant before Louis was born that I could get him to sleep well. I started a bedtime routine for him pronto and spent countless hours coaxing him to sleep by himself in his Moses basket. All was going so well, at three months he was sleeping though. Too well, as it turned out. I blame the jetlag when we moved to DC, but that's probably a lame excuse.

The truth is, I haven't a clue what I did wrong. But more worryingly, I haven't a clue how to put it right. And I'm tired. So tired. My one saving grace is that I've discovered the ultimate caffeine antidote to a(nother) bad night. It's called a Flat White, and it's an Aussie invention. I even managed to get a story into the paper about it. (My job's pretty good really: I get paid to write about things I'm interested in!) All I can say is, try it. And if it's not on the menu, ask anyway because if your barista knows his stuff, he'll whip one up. And, boy, will it wake you up! Louis, you're forgiven. For one more night, at least.