Liz's Journal

Child sponsorship

2010-10-29T14:52:43Z

So, friendslist, what do you think about 'sponsor a child' schemes like Plan or Action Aid?

I'm considering it, particularly as a way of introducing my children to world inequality in a graspable and hopefully not too overwhelming and depressing way. Daniel has shown quite a lot of interest and concern around the latest Action Aid commercial which shows a 5 year old girl living in an Indian slum. I think it might also spur me on into taking more action generally - keeping abreast of international developments; writing protest letters etc. just because it's much easier to get motivated when faced with a single human face than a bunch of statistics.

However, I also have some reservations - obviously it incurs more admin costs than giving direct to a charity and letting them spend it as they like, but I'm also worried about whether it is essentially treating a child as a form of entertainment in a way that does more harm than good.

Also, are there any significant differences between the different organisations that offer this and their approaches? I'll do my own research of course, but if anyone knows of any examples of particularly good (or bad) practice, that would be helpful.

Voting gizmo

2010-04-22T20:09:22Z

Help ixwin and get your own badge!
(The Livejournal Electioniser was made by robhu)

ixwin @ 2010-02-07T18:13:00

2010-02-07T18:13:42Z

I'm just about to finish my (third? fourth?) replay of Deus Ex

View Poll: Next Game

Extra information which may or may not be useful:

I own all three already (presents from my wishlist) so cost isn't a factor
I'll be playing on a PC
As the above list suggests, I like RPGs. I like open-endedness and player freedom, but I'm willing to forfeit a measure of them for good story (I enjoyed KOTOR for this reason)
I already started Mass Effect a while ago and didn't really get on with it (interminable wandering around an easy-to-get-lost-in space station, plus dialogue options that didn't come out the way I meant them) but I'm willing to give it another chance if people think it's worth it
I tend to play as a fairly moral character - not killing things that aren't a threat to me; trying to talk my way out of trouble before attacking - but some fighting is still fun
In general, I prefer shooter-style combat where you just aim and fire/hit where the stats are hidden than ones where you're queuing up special moves
I like games where the stats actually mean something - where gaining XP allows you to decisively trounce a foe who was previously super-tough to beat. I didn't get on with Oblivion chiefly for this reason
I'm going to be playing in short-ish bursts (probably 30 mins to 2 hours) and may go a week or two between plays

ixwin @ 2010-01-17T09:28:00

2010-01-17T09:28:09Z

Another Daniel story - feel free to skip if you're not into 'cute kid' tales

D: *listens to his new (Christmas present) music box clock* What's that song, Mummy?
Me: It's called My Grandfather's Clock. *sings lyrics*
D: "When the old man died?"
Me: Yes, that's what it says in the song.
D. *thinks for a second* Maybe someone put poison in his ear or something.

(background: I watched the David Tennant Hamlet when it was on television over Christmas. Obviously, more of it was retained than I'd realised...)

ixwin @ 2009-10-12T20:28:00

2009-10-12T19:35:57Z

Now Daniel is three, he is spending an increasing chunk of his play time in roleplaying: doctor, postman, etc. Today things took a slightly more unusual turn when he decided to roleplay a Jehovah's Witness. The conversation went something like this

D: Mummy, you be in your house
Me: OK
D: [knocks]
Me: [pretending to open door]. Hello?
D: Yes, hello. Would you like to come to our church? 'Cos we don't have many people there.
Me: I'm not sure. What do you do at your church?
D: Well, we sing and things.
Me: Do you have to pay any money?
D: No, it's free.
Me: Okay, I'll come. Is it near here?
D. No, it's a long way away. You will have to come with me in my car.

ixwin @ 2009-10-08T17:45:00

2009-10-08T16:52:02Z

Matthew having taken several afternoons off in the last few months to play golf, today took a day off so that I could get a bit of a break (outside weekends which always feel like they should consist of going out & doing lots of stuff)

One of the things I did was to experiment with applique by decorating two of Daniel's old tops to make pretty new ones for Abby, and I'm rather pleased with how they came out. They're a bit wobbly in places, but not enough to spoil them.
[cross-posted to facebook]

ixwin @ 2009-09-11T20:46:00

2009-09-11T19:48:05Z

If anyone's interested, photos of me crossing the finish line last Sunday are up at MarathonFoto

Free energy monitor

2009-09-04T20:04:16Z

On a visit to my local library today, I discovered they are offering the free loan of an energy monitor for a two-week period as part of an initiative from the energy saving trust. This gives you a moment-by-moment update of how much electricity you're using, so you can track down wastage e.g. from things left on standby. They only had one at my local library and it was out; but it's part of a nationwide initiative so if you're looking to get a handle on your energy usage it might be worth finding out if your local library is offering the same thing.

State of the Liz

2009-08-31T21:04:56Z

Haven't posted in a while so thought it was time for a brief update

Daniel starts preschool tomorrow (3 afternoons a week). Cue my first "wow they grow up so fast" moment. I'm fairly confident he'll enjoy himself and settle in without problems, and I think he will benefit from being in a different environment with people other than family. Since I'll still have Abigail at home I don't think it'll free up that much time for me, but we shall see.

Talking of Abigail, she's growing up fast too. Her vocabulary at the moment consists of the spoken words mama, dada (Daddy or Daniel), teeth, this, and cha (chocolate) together with signs for food, sleep, hat, no, and open. She's also toddling about at quite a pace.

I'm running in the adidas Womens 5k in Hyde Park next Sunday. I ran the course last week in 28 minutes 15 seconds, and will be aiming for something similar, or a shade under on the day itself. I'm halfway to my sponsorship target of £250 - thanks to medievalbunny, almooredudley, and smhwpf who've already sponsored me. If anyone else would like to, you can do so at http://www.justgiving.com/LizStanton/. I've already signed up to try for a 10K next May - if that goes well, maybe a half-marathon later in 2010, and the London Marathon in 2011 (or 2012 if that proves too ambitious)

Have been using the bank holiday weekend to have a bit of a clear out - sold my first thing on ebay (a 21 inch television) this week. We have a lot of baby stuff (cot, moses basket, steriliser etc.) which we no longer need, and which I'd prefer to pass on to someone I know rather than sell/freecycle it, but most of the people I know locally already have children. If anyone reading this is thinking about having children in the next couple of years & might be interested then let me know (obviously I would keep this in completed confidence and wouldn't bring it up in conversation either). I'm happy to keep stuff in our loft for a while if there's a reasonable prospect of it being useful, but there's no point in things gathering dust up there for years.

Words meme

2009-07-24T14:17:41Z

Reply to this meme by yelling "Words!" and I will give you five words that remind me of you. Then post them in your LJ and explain what they mean to you.

Words courtesy of ashfae

patience

There are multiple sorts of patience; some of which come naturally to me and some of which I have had to learn. One sort that comes naturally to me is waiting out unavoidable delays e.g. if stuck on a train. My mind easily wanders, whether through observing my immediate surroundings, making future plans, or setting myself little challenges like "try to think of a sort of biscuit starting with each letter of the alphabet". Another sort that comes naturally is doing comparatively dull tasks; partly by the aforementioned mind wandering, but mostly by 'mindfulness' - just being able to be absorbed by the moment & appreciate what there is to be appreciated in it. I think this latter skill has been particularly useful in looking after babies/toddlers - I don't mind reading them a book for the nth time, because I can look for details I might have missed before in the illustrations or something.

One sort of patience which I have only acquired through conscious will is the self-restraint involved in reading through the instructions before trying to assemble a bit of furniture or waiting for one coat of paint to dry before applying the next. My preference is to leap into something straight away and work it out as I go and I'll still do that if I judge the risk of irreversible damage to be sufficiently small; but I've learned through experience that sometimes it really is worth measuring twice.

Any reputation I have for a further sort of patience, patience with irritating people, is probably partly due to being genuinely difficult to rile, and partly due to mostly preferring to keep my own counsel (and possibly rant a little to a third partly) rather than say anything to someone's face, partly through an intrinsic dislike of conflict, and partly through a belief that it's unlikely to be effective(just to reassure, if you're on my flist you aren't an irritating person in my eyes)

non-perfectionism

This was something I added to my interests list at a time when I was getting irritated by a series of occasions when I'd been referred to as a perfectionist (I don't now remember by whom, or in what context), as it is something I am emphatically not. It's not that I don't have standards or a desire for improvement; it's that I'm 100% about the 'good enough' rather than the 'perfect'. Partly because perfection is so rarely achievable, but mostly because I would much rather do five things fairly well than one thing perfectly.

motherhood

I had always wanted to become a mother when the time was right; and I was confident that the right time had arrived. I wanted to do it because I was too curious as to what it would be like to be willing to go through life without experiencing it, and also because I thought it was something I would enjoy and be good at. This seems to have proven true so far.

The shift involved in acquiring a child is massive; this absolute and 24/7 responsibility for another human life. Particularly so if you are exclusively breastfeeding because you really can't just up-sticks & take the rest of the day off. Becoming a mother has thrown new light for me on the maiden/mother/crone archetype: the shift from being childless to being a parent has affected my life so hugely that I can imagine the shift when the children do fly the nest being equally huge.

wisdom

I frequently get called 'wise'. I sometimes feel slightly odd about this because 'wisdom' carries to me an implication of something acquired through experience, particularly difficult experience; whereas I seem to have just been extremely fortunate in that my instinctive take on the world is one that (so far at least) has proven extremely successful (and, presumably, helpful to others - hence the 'you are wise' comments).

mystic pig

For those of you who weren't reading my journal then, or whose memories need a jog, the mystic pig was a little fortune-telling gizmo I wrote back in 2004, when I was teaching myself basic perl. It was a straight rip-off in concept from a similar (though apparently now defunct) meme called the magic magic cactus. It has that essential meme-propagation tool: the code to post into your livejournal, but otherwise it's just some very basic word-recognition (e.g. if you ask a question starting with "when" it'll give you an answer like "sooner than you expect" or "never if you carry on as you are now") combined with some specific answers for questions that came up a lot like "Why is the sky blue?" or "Am I pregnant?" (I log the questions asked in a text file, but it's completely anonymous - no IP addresses recorded or anything). I think the coolest thing resulting from me creating this was a complete stranger deciding to attend a fancy-dress party as the mystic pig's bodyguard (complete with their own mystic pig for answering questions)

Programming is something that's completely dropped off my radar since I had children, because it was something I used to do in long concentrated bursts and finding that sort of extended quality time is very difficult when there are babies and toddlers around; and what little I have got, I have tended to use for visual arts. I enjoyed the brief fame it and the interests meme generated for me, and it's something I might go back to at some point, but it's not a big priority for me.

Preschool

2009-07-01T15:27:02Z

Just had Daniel's introductory afternoon at preschool today. I stayed with him the whole time today, though he'll be attending on his own (3 afternoons a week) when the new term starts in September. It's uncanny how Joyce Grenfell things remain, although I suppose it shows that children don't change: genuine sample dialogue from this afternoon

"Now remember this week we're learning about the number seven. Yes Rakesh?"
"There are a hundred countries in the world."
"That's very interesting, Rakesh, but we're talking about the number seven right now, but thank-you for sharing that with us"

Obligatory Dreamwidth post

2009-05-07T18:59:22Z

I haven't opened a Dreamwidth account but I have set up using OpenID (ixwin.livejournal.com) which seems to be working fine in terms of giving me access to friendslocked posts both on my Dreamwidth reading page and on cross-posted-to-lj posts.

I intend to carry on reading both my lj and Dreamwidth friendspages for the foreseeable future, with lj perhaps the slightly more frequently viewed one, but both several times a week. Ideally I'd remove crossposted content from my default view on lj, but I don't want to do that if it's going to mean missing out on comment streams.

I may move to Dreamwidth in the future if any of the following occur
a) lj deteriorates further in terms of user experience
b) people I want to read my journal stop reading their lj friends page regularly
c) the balance of my friendslist gets skewed so far in favour of Dreamwidth that lj becomes incidental (in which case I'll crosspost here from Dreamwidth as long as there are people who want that)

Edited to add: I'm updating my dreamwidth reading circle every few days to include everyone who's added me, so giving me access (via my OpenID) is the best way of making sure I read you on Dreamwidth.

Bloomsbury Theatre

2009-04-08T20:11:51Z

The spring/summer lineup at the Bloomsbury Theatre does sound suspiciously like someone picked a selection of things from my friends interest lists. I mean: Lucy Porter, Clive James, a comedy night in aid of a peace charity, Show of Hands, Tony Benn, another comedy night in aid of a mental health charity...

Don't know if we'll be going to any of them, but thought it was worth giving a heads-up to others.

ixwin @ 2008-12-07T20:30:00

2008-12-07T20:35:39Z

Lovely unprompted flight of fancy from Daniel this evening which got me giggling. He had a piece of bread and butter in front of him

Daniel: Mummy cut bread [into] two pieces
(Mummy does so)
Daniel: Bread talking each other. This piece say "Bye-bye other piece. I am going into Daniel's mouth with butter on"

Parenthood

2008-10-26T09:38:43Z

Before children:
Clocks going back = an extra leisurely hour of Sunday morning

After children:
Clocks going back = two little ones wide awake and raring to go at 6:15 a.m.

(I'm only complaining a little bit really)

Cookery question

2008-09-03T12:53:41Z

If a recipe calls for "450g of fresh peas, shelled" would you interpret that as the weight before or after shelling?

Edit: I went with the pre-shelled weight in the end, and it seemed okay - it could have coped with more peas, but probably not as many as there would have been if I'd used 450g post-shelling.

For the curious, the recipe was for a pasta dish involving spaghetti, cream, pecorino cheese and fresh peas. It was labelled as 'paglia e fieno' although googling this suggests the dish going under this name more commonly includes ham and mushrooms as well, which I can see working very well, upping the interest and 'savouriness' of the dish.

ixwin @ 2008-08-23T11:58:00

2008-08-23T11:04:44Z

I will be leaving the house today with a rucksack containing

3 disposable nappies
2 bottles of wine
a copy of the complete works of Shakespeare
some Greek marinated olives
a half-completed passport application

The disparateness of this selection pleases me.

Baby Abbie

2008-07-10T20:06:35Z

As those of you who read vectorious's journal will know, I am now a proud mum of two. Both are now sleeping peacefully*, giving me time to write this. I'm feeling surprisingly together at the moment, but we'll see if it catches up with me tonight or tomorrow...

We've decided to name here Abigail. Daniel was the final arbiter of this - we were pretty much down to a choice between Abigail and Charlotte, and then I had the following conversation with him.

Daniel: Baby Abbie?
Me: Baby Abbie? Not baby Lottie?
Daniel: Lottie? No!
Me: Abbie?
Daniel: heh heh heh

So she'll now be Abigail Charlotte Stanton.

*well, she was - now sucking equally peacefully though...

Daniel manual

2008-07-06T16:51:21Z

No sign of number two's arrival yet (she was due on Tuesday). Have an appointment at the hospital on Wednesday afternoon to discuss options re: induction, but hopefully it won't come to that.

My mum will be coming to look after Daniel when things do kick off and she asked me to put together a guide to his daily routine so she can keep things as close to normal as possible, particularly if I end up needing to go into hospital. It's the longest thing I've written in a while and I thought I'd post it here for any of you who might be interested in reading about the minutiae of a toddlers life and/or wonder what I actually get up to all day.

Needless to say, if you're not particularly interested in small children this will probably make for very dull reading and you should feel free to skip it. I also want to add that this isn't all I do - for a start there's the general housework of cleaning/shopping/laundry etc. which I'm not expecting my mum to do, as well as generally cooking something a bit more complicated than the pasta with bought sauce suggested here. Also there are various activities I go to like playgroup, swimming etc. or visiting friends and family, which vary day-to-day.

Guide to Daniel

First thing

Daniel generally wakes up properly between 6:45 and 7:30 am. If he’s ready to get up, he’ll sit up in bed & hand you his dummy to be put on the shelf above his bed.

He then has a nappy change, and is dressed. Clothes are in our bedroom with the exception of socks (in the drawer of the changing unit) and shoes (by the changing mat). He likes a choice of tops & trousers and may ask for a doh-doh (i.e. lorry) top – these are the long-sleeved tops with a small picture of a lorry on the front. He likes to pull off his pyjama top & put on his day top by himself as much as possible – will probably need help with arms. If he gets over-fussy and refuses either choice, just say “sorry, you have to get dressed” & put them on him yourself.

Once he’s fully dressed, I then get washed & dressed myself. He usually likes to accompany me into the bathroom & either play with the bath toys in the bidet (may ask for ‘water’ which in this context means turning on the cold tap on the bidet) or brush his teeth with his toothbrush and a small blob of the Milk Teeth toothpaste.

Breakfast

After I’m dressed, we go downstairs for breakfast. He sits at the kitchen table in the highchair (or improvise with booster seat as discussed) and has Shreddies & milk in one of his yellow bowls. Shreddies are in a glass jar to the left of the kettle and yellow bowls will be either in the draining rack or the cupboard above the worktop to the right of the sink. Cutlery (yours & his) is in the top drawer in the unit to the left of the sink, and bowls for you are in the cupboard to the left of that. He can feed himself breakfast, although he may ask you to do it – in that case I normally feed him a spoonful or two and then put his spoon back in the bowl and say “Daniel do it” (except for the very last few spoonfuls which are trickier for him).

His appetite varies, so he may finish the whole bowlful, or may only have half of it. If he has most or all of it, I’ll offer him a banana as well. He’ll eat the first half out of the peel, but then likes the peel entirely removed from the second half.

Morning

Staying in

You know about the books and toys in the living room & the garden. Daniel may also be keen to play with playdoh (which he pronounces ‘ray-o’) which is in the cupboard above the worktop to the left of the kitchen table. Cutters are in the blue tin marked ‘Cakes’.

Going out

‘Whoo’ means slide & by extension playground (which you know where it is). You could also go to the town centre (where Daniel will probably point to the shops/places he wants to go in – he likes to sit on the various ride-on toys dotted about the place e.g. in Mothercare and outside TK Max on the first floor of the shopping centre; although I never put any money in them. He also likes going to look at the books in Waterstones, or going to one of the coffee shops e.g. the café in BHS, or Starbucks and having a croissant and an orange juice). Another place to go is the library which is on St Johns Road opposite Debenhams. To get to the children’s section simply go through the main doors and then straight on past the lift.

Lunchtime/nap and afternoon

If Daniel seems dozy or cranky at any point after 11am, I usually ask him if he’s ready for a nap (both in words and by using the sign for it – hand to side of face and head tilted as if sleeping). If he thinks he is, he’ll make the sign back; if not he’ll say a definite ‘no’ (sometime he’ll say no without thinking and then make the sign, which I take as assent). I usually take his shoes off, and allow him to grab his dummies, and then sit by the side of the bed reading until he drops off – if he’s not asleep within ten or fifteen minutes, then I’ll get him up again and try later.

If he does have a nap before lunch, he’ll be ready to eat when he wakes up whenever that is. If he doesn’t we usually sit down to lunch between 12:30 and 1pm. There may be some leftovers in the fridge from the night before that he would like. Other things he is most likely to eat which require no preparation are bread (‘bed’) or toast (‘doe’) with butter, cucumber, yoghurt (‘doh’), and banana (‘mina’). He also enjoys pasta, noodles, baked beans, or sweetcorn (he is happy to have the latter two straight out of the tin without heating). To drink he will have either orange juice or orange squash. Sometimes he eats a good lunch, sometimes he doesn’t have much at all – if he doesn’t eat much, he’ll probably have some substantial snacks around 4pm instead (see ‘snacks’ section later).

We will then generally have a short play after lunch and if he hasn’t had a nap already that day, I’ll try him again around 2 or 2:30pm. He can sleep for as little as an hour or as much as two and a half hours. Once he’s woken up, the same choice of activities apply as for the morning.

Early evening

By around 5pm, Daniel is often starting to flag a little (as am I!), so this is when I allow him to indulge in watching television/DVDs or playing with the Wii, and also when he is allowed a small amount of chocolate or cake. Since these will be unusual circumstances, I won’t mind if you end up allowing these earlier in the day if it seems necessary.

All remote controls are on the wicker basket in the living room on the shelf near the laptop. The television remote control is the one labelled Panasonic; and you push the red button on the top left to switch the TV on. To switch to watching DVDs, you need to press the button labelled TV/AV followed by the yellow button. If you have switched the TV correctly but the DVD player is not on, it will display the word ‘Component’ onscreen. To switch to using the Wii, you need to do the same thing, but push the green button instead of the yellow one, and it will display ‘AV4’ onscreen. The DVD controller is the small white one. If he asks for ‘amal’ (animal) program he means ‘Zoo Days’ which is at 6:30pm on weekdays on channel 5. If it’s earlier in the day than this, you can either flick through and see if anything else catches his interest, or put one one of the Life on Earth DVDs (on the shelves on the left hand side of the fireplace, in alphabetical order)

Dinner

We sit down to dinner around 7:15pm, and unlike breakfast and lunch, this is eaten in the dining room. The easiest thing for both of you will probably be pasta (from the jar to the left of the sink) with a pot of Dolmio stir-in sauce from the pantry and some grated cheese. This can again be served in one of his yellow bowls, and again he will have juice or squash to drink. After this I offer Daniel yoghurt or fruit (which in this context means one of the small pots of peach pieces in juice in the pantry), which he may or may not finish. Once he’s had his dinner, he gets his face wiped with one of the wipes from the packet on the dresser.

Bedtime

Bedtime follows on straight after dinner. The routine is: 1) go upstairs, 2) have a sit on the potty (though he probably won’t produce anything), 3) get into night nappy & pyjamas (nb night nappies are the Huggies Super-Dry ones, and Daniel likes to pick one out of the packet himself & usually discuss the picture on it. Same comments apply as for morning re. dressing/undressing himself), 4) have his teeth brushed, 5) close curtains & into bed.

If he says ‘bed’ and taps the pillow, that means he wants you to get in beside him If he asks for a teddy I get the box of cuddly toys down from the shelf and let him choose one or two. If he asks for ‘mimi’ (=’wormy’) that means either the musical caterpillar on the shelf above his bed, or Matthew’s yellow caterpillar in our bed. If he wants water, he can have it from the water bottle by his bed, which he can open and drink from himself, but keep an eye on him as in mischievous mood he may tip it into his bed. If he’s not drifted off or very close to after about half an hour, I call Matthew, who uses the following approach 1) Take him into our bedroom and look out the window and talk about what you can see 2) When he is fairly calm lie down with him in our bed 3) When he is very nearly asleep, transfer him back to his bed (though you can leave him asleep in our bed if he falls asleep there and you don’t want to risk moving or waking him).

Before you leave the room, check that the baby monitor is switched on (under the bed – if it is on there will be a green light showing, if not then push the button on the top to switch it on). The listening end of the monitor will either be in the living room or in our bedroom – again you will need to check that this is switched on either by looking for the light (which is slightly out-of-kilter and hard to spot) or by listening – there will be a faint hiss of static even if Daniel is making no noise.

Nights

Daniel will rarely go through the whole night without waking, though he often goes through until about 5am. When I first hear noises from his room, I will give him a minute or two to see if he settles back by himself which he does about half the time. If he grows more agitated, I will go into his room and lie down beside him, and check if he still has access to his dummy (sometimes it falls down one or the other side of the bed); and either wait until he is asleep and go back to my room, or else stay in there with him. Unfortunately, he may react badly if he wakes up enough to realise that the person beside him isn’t me or Matthew in which case you will just have to use your initiative and experience. You might want to try moving him to our bed, as that may smell enough of us to be comforting, but I don’t know for sure.

Snacks

Daniel is allowed the following at any time: bananas, apples, bread, biscuits, cucumber slices, orange juice, orange squash. Bread is by the toaster and he can show you where each of the others are kept. He likes his apples peeled, though as he doesn’t always eat a whole one, I will only peel about 1/3 of it, and then peel more as required. Peeler is in the second drawer down in the kitchen, or may be in the draining rack.

Between about 4pm and 6:30pm he is allowed sweeter snacks up to: 1 square of Poulain chocolate (on shelf behind Alpen) plus 1 fun-size Milky Way or Mars bar (on lower shelf) plus 1 slice of fruit cake (from Tupperware container above washing machine). If he asks for these earlier in the day (generally by climbing the stepladder & pointing) I just say ‘no, not now. Would you like [something from allowed list]’, but as mentioned earlier, I don’t mind a bit of flexibility on this point.

Nappies/Potty

We’ve introduced the potty but it’s currently very low key – the only fixed time he sits on it is as part of his bedtime routine, though I will sometimes suggest it after breakfast or lunch or if he gets that concentrated look that suggests he is about to poo (I keep a particular eye out around 9am as that’s when he’s most likely to go, but it doesn’t happen every day). Sometimes he will ask for it himself but if he says ‘potty’ while pointing at the television, that means he wants to watch the potty training DVD rather than use the potty himself.

While sitting on the potty, he may want you to read him books (there is a selection on the windowsill of the nursery) or play with toys from the shelves in the nursery. ‘a-mal’ means the box labelled ‘pretend play’ on the shelf to the left of the nursery window, which contains some farm animals; ‘naw-naw’ or ‘brm-brm’ means the box labelled ‘vehicles’ on the same shelf. ‘sape’ means the wooden shape-sorter and ‘a-bet’ means the ‘Alphabet Pal’ purple caterpillar. Once he is settled he will usually sit happily for between 5 and 15 minutes, but I don’t force anything.

If he wants his nappy changed he will usually say ‘poo’ (if that’s what he’s done) or ‘emmo’ (i.e. Elmo who is printed on the daytime nappies (Pampers Active Fit)). Aside from that, he’s not a very heavy wetter so changing every 5-6 hours is sufficient, typically after lunch and then again around 5pm.

Signs

Daniel is now mostly speaking rather than signing, but some that it’s useful to be aware of are

‘Home’ – hands held out palms facing forward, like a ‘stop’ gesture

‘Finished/Gone’ – hands held out at sides, palms facing backwards

‘Sleep’ – hand to side of face (also used to request dummy)

‘Drink’ – finger to lips

‘Fly’ – flat hand on top of clenched fist. This is important as he intensely dislikes big buzzy bluebottley flies, so if one gets in the house, he won’t relax until it’s been shooed out of a door or window. He may also want to go inside if one gets too close to him in the garden.

ixwin @ 2008-06-13T21:57:00

2008-06-13T21:02:47Z

Eee - I am now an auntie! :)

My sister-in-law, Emma (who a few of you met at our wedding along with her now-husband Chris) gave birth to her first this evening. He is called Benjamin & mum and baby are both doing well, and expect to be going home tomorrow. Not sure when we'll get to see them all but hopefully not too long - we will be seeing vectorious's parents on Sunday and I expect they'll have photos at least.

Haven't quite got used to the sound of 'Auntie Liz' yet, or the fact that Daniel now has a cousin, but yay for more lovely small things in the world!

London Mayoral Elections

2008-04-02T11:15:04Z

So, now that I'm officially a Londoner again, I'm eligible to vote in the London Mayoral Elections on May 1st.

Thing is, at the moment I haven't got much of an idea who to vote for (either as Mayor or for the London Assembly). Care to share your opinions or point me at any useful resources you know of?

Songs of the tribe

2008-02-22T21:46:38Z

Randomly browsing friends-of-friends ljs I came across a post about someone's elderly relative and how, even though suffering from dementia, she could still enjoy and remember the words of familiar hymns. The poster then went on to muse about how our more secular society seems to be missing anything equivalent - we have pop songs, nursery rhymes, songs that are sung for special occasions (carols, Happy Birthday etc.) but nothing that we sing regularly throughout our entire lifetime, so as to ingrain its way that deeply into our consciousness[1].

This struck me particularly because Daniel is currently fascinated by music and singing, and is regularly asking me to sing his favourite songs. As this coincides with an increasingly sophisticated understanding of other people, and how the world works in general I kind of have this sense that this is the point at which I should be teaching him the Great Songs of our Tribe; except that - as described in the first paragraph - our 'tribe' doesn't really seem to have any. He certainly enjoys "The Wheels on the Bus", "Sing a Song of Sixpence" etc. but I do feel a little sad that I don't have anything more significant to pass on.

[1] Obviously, this won't necessarily be true of those readers who are regular churchgoers (or folk-music participants?), but even they won't necessarily find themselves at the end of their lives surrounded by others who know the same songs.

Announcement

2008-01-29T16:51:51Z

Some of you already know this, but it occurs to me that I haven't actually made an official announcement anywhere:

I'm pregnant again :) 18 weeks today - had the first scan at 15 weeks, and heard the heartbeat last week so touch wood everything's going fine.

Due date is 1 July, which means Daniel will be 21 months i.e. one-and-three-quarters. We've already embarked on a propaganda campaign "Look! baby!" so he's at least aware of what they are: helped by the fact that two couples we know have recently become parents for the first time, so he's had the chance to look at them up close, and seems to be at least moderately interested in them.

LJ blocks interest searches

2007-12-07T22:41:33Z

Worth passing on, as lj don't seem to be telling anyone about it.

LJ removes the ability to search for interests they deem questionable
(moreover using really shoddy algorithms that block completely unrelated words like 'spice' because it contains 'spic', which is a derogatory term for a Hispanic person)

(thanks to pseudomonas for the heads-up)

ixwin @ 2007-11-22T21:51:00

2007-11-22T21:53:42Z

Long but interesting (and very readable) essay on intelligence, and the rise in average IQ over the last hundred years. Link courtesy of midnightmelody