Dr. Sara Josephine Baker saves the babies and does other things.
"My baby sick/Your baby is upside down"
How to eat Hot Cross Buns
by Anna, aged 20 months.
Bury your face in the half-bun. Eviscerate the buttery middle with your teeth and jaw. Leave the shell for future nibbling or for handing to mother as a gift.
The postmodern reader
My daughter loves reading, but her rules of how it is done are quite strict. I would describe her method as ingestion followed by deconstruction.
Thus, her love of Emily Gravett's Orange, Pear, Apple, Bear at bedtime has developed to a point where she forbids us to read it to her. Instead, she reads a truncated, multi-directional narrative in which the orange plays a role not much different from Nietzsche's idea of the eternal return, except that it is pronounced "O-wa". "O-wa" now begins other stories, too. The closing tummy rub which we introduced to show that the bear has eaten the fruit now functions as the closing gesture of all stories. It is part of a universal language.
To celebrate Anna's love of postmodern storytelling, her father enacted a live-action version of the story in the living room. The fruit served as props for much of the day's play, and later she ate part of the pear, barely able to hold its unevenly distributed weight in her still-small hands.
(Thank you, Jane, for giving us this wonderful book when Anna was still tiny.)
Four clever things (like a boss)
- Eating baked beans with a fork
- "Up! Down" while standing and sitting
- "One! Two!" while handling her shoes
- Walking - may come with a request for applause
L'anamour en auto
This is one of my favourite songs. This week I have been doing a terrible - terrible! - job trying to sing it to the baby in the car.
Na na na na, de l'anamour
In the jugglatorium
How to manage the nexus of teething, irritable baby, looming academic deadlines and domestic duties on the day I work from home: baby and I rode in the back of the car while my mother drove one of our dogs 30 mins each way to the groomer for a 40 minute-clip. Baby slept, I finally had time to do some reading for research at the same time as keeping up with work emails, Mum read Trollope while we waited. The backwash of workflow, in the rear of a Daihatsu Move.
Christmas gifts for compliant parents
When the baby is in bed, more of the same, after-hours. Via @francesrosey
The new abstract stylist
I know that the novelty of these first drawings will wear off as more and more are compiled, but these are the first of their kind and as such of inestimable value to us. She was offered red but would draw only with purple.
The experienced negotiator, at home
One reason to keep a Posterous narrative is to reduce the number of tweets explicitly about teething.
The client's current preferred teething management strategy is for on-the-knee cuddles from 8am-12pm.
The service provider's counter-offer of ten minutes of cuddles an hour while she is working from home is meeting with client disapproval.
(The client's pacifier is easily found at creche due to the bite marks around the surrounding plastic.)
