Updates

OK there are lots of things I've mentioned, I thought I'd do a bit of a round up.

• Midget is loving solids, she has had carrot, cauliflower and apple. I don't think she's actually swallowed anything, but she has a good old chew and suck on them.


• She's six months (eek!) and pretty much crawling. Not the full on action, but she's mobile in a forward direction.


• She's just gone through a stage of not sleeping unless she's attached, but fingers crossed seems to be coming out of it.

• Widget has lost the imaginary friends and has picked up monsters :( She spends the day saying she can't go to the toilet because it's dark in my bedroom (???)and asking what sounds are.


• We cook just about every day, she loves making banana biscuits and apricot slice.


• I have put her on the waiting list for daycare one afternoon a week. Because she is on the list we are allowed to go in any time for 'orientation,' which is perfect. We are going in once a week or so and she gets to play with the other kids and get used to it with me there.

• I'm being quite positive at the moment and seem to be coping well.


• We've rearranged the living room to give me a place to work, somewhere Widget can do craft and a big space for Midget to crawl around in. This has had an impact on the amount of TV.


• I finally made the water sling that's been on the to-do list for about 2 years and it was fantastic! I could go swimming with both girls and Midget had a ball.

OK, I know this is twee,

but look at my two gorgeous girls! The fabric came already shirred and I just had to put a seam in the back, hem it and add straps.

Widget thinks it's just wonderful having the same dress as Midget!

There, but for the grace of God, go I

All for want of a horseshoe nail.

A butterfly flaps its wings in China.

Sliding doors.

We have all sorts of images to express contingency - if it weren't for this tiny little thing, something completely different would have happened.

I was brought face to face with it yesterday at playgroup. There is another 6 month old baby there, in fact she was born two hours earlier than Midget in the next birth suite. It's fun seeing her, but yesterday it was such a shock to see her hoeing in to apple puree and eating more than half the jar, it obviously wasn't her first time, and apparently she is on formula full time as well. Midget is currently sitting on my lap enjoying her first food, a large carrot stick she's been gumming and sucking on and off all afternoon. She's having a ball but won't actually eat any of it - it's too hard for her to get any off. We will move on to softer food, this was just something for her to play with today.

Is one way better or worse? No, I don't think so. But the point is, if I hadn't found the ABA website, that would probably have been us. If I hadn't lived in the middle of nowhere, I wouldn't have gone looking for company on the internet. If I hadn't had problems getting Widget to open her mouth, I wouldn't have gone looking for the ABA. A large number of tiny things led to that search, and that search has had huge implications for my life.

If it weren't for the ABA forum I doubt I would have heard of baby led solids. I would not have fed to sleep. I seriously doubt I would still be feeding Widget at 3 years old. I quite possibly wouldn't have found the cloth nappy forum, in which case I wouldn't be running a cloth nappy business. I wouldn't have started sewing clothes for myself and the girls, I don't know what I would be doing for a hobby. I probably wouldn't have had the idea for the science educational business which is my long-term plan.

My life would be completely different.

And contingency is fractal - it happens at all scales. It happens in individual lives. It happens to communities - I've just voted in a local council election. It happens to nations - what would the global economic situation be if 9/11 hadn't occurred? It happens to species - what would life for the last few million years have been like without the icecaps?

My all-time favourite writer, Stephen Jay Gould, wrote a book about contingency in evolution called "Wonderful Life," using the movie as a modern example and the Burgess Shale pre-Cambrian fossils (seriously old, seriously important) to help demonstrate the hypothesis that we are here in this form by accident. Many, many years ago I studied human evolution and worked with contingency on a professional basis. Then I moved on, changed careers and had kids. Now here I am looking at my 6 month old baby and realising contingency is still with me.

I'm definitely not talking about fate - in fact contingency is the opposite, saying that we can be blown around by tiny, unpredictable events. And I find that rather refreshing. It gives us the space, the freedom to exercise our own judgement, make our own decisions. It creates a paradox, that we can be influenced by tiny things, but still take charge and be responsible for our own lives.

For better or worse?

There's been a thread running on a forum about 'feminine hygiene products' that's been a bit of an eye opener.

An amazing number of women have admitted to hating them.

I always did myself, to the extent of free bleeding as much as I could. That means using nothing, just going to the toilet often and washing. I'm lucky I have a very light flow and could do that. It was a major factor in my choosing cloth nappies - if I hate them so much, I wasn't putting that on my baby. And that led to me discovering menstrual cups and cloth pads, which are fantastic. They are so much more comfortable than icky, creased, dry, cotton and paper.

But rather than talking about the products themselves, what about the marketing? What a colossal con job has been pulled on us! This is a product that a large percentage of its customers hate, loathe and despise, yet we are still buying them (At least until you try a cup! Go on!). Somehow we have been tricked into thinking there is no choice, that this is the way things have to be. If we stop and think about it for a moment it is obvious that there were once alternatives, we know the surfboards haven't been around all that long. But there is an unconscious assumption that they must have been worse. Part of that is logical - I mean why would you give up something that works for an inferior product? - but you have to wonder what other social factors were part of it.

Was there an assumption that modern is better? Technology forging onward and upward? Was it more a social thing, that menstruation should be hidden, folded into neat little packages and thrown away rather than soaked, washed and hung on the line for all to see? Was it part of moving into a 'man's world,' symbolically giving up domestic duties such as laundry? Were they genuinely more convenient for women who were spending more time outside the home? Because of course the non-disposable pads of 50 years ago wouldn't have been like modern pads, maybe the surfboards were better at the time.

Menstrual products are largely (and literally!) invisible in our society, so it is easy to see how women would never realise how many of us are unhappy with them. But I wonder how many other products we have accepted and put up with that we don't have to. The marketing of breast milk substitutes is an obvious example, but I bet technology is full of them - have a look at your typewriter keyboard.

They're very yummy darling, but not for you.

When Widget was much younger she had a very distressing reaction to tomato, actually screaming as she wee'd because it burnt her. She was still in nappies and I would race to get it off her and get her into a trough or bath and run water over her. I wasn't too worried, (although obviously we cut out tomato!) because I know that fresh tomato reactions are relatively common. Plus we have geographic tongues running in my family and I noticed Widget had it too, and for most of us (including me) fresh tomato is a trigger.

As she got older we gradually re-introduced it in small amounts, and there seemed to be no more problems.

Now she toilets independently, and occasionally complains of being sore and is a bit red. We assumed it was because she doesn't wipe very well yet, and have been making an effort to help her and wash everything well. Then the other day she was extremely sore and red, crying when we tried to wash her.

That night I was flicking through a forum and read someone talking about their child reacting to salicylates with disturbed sleep.

The next day DH realised she had had a lot of strawberries lately, another common trigger, and I remembered the cherry tomatoes that she adores. That was when I realised that maybe the shocking sleep she'd had lately could also be connected. She often wakes up at night but generally goes back to sleep easily. This last week she's been staying awake literally for hours.

We cut out the strawberries and tomatoes, and lo and behold her bottom is better and that night she slept through. So it appears we still have a sensitivity, hopefully if she has any other triggers we will be aware and pick them up quicker. It's so difficult, who would guess that eating strawberries would stop her sleeping? She didn't complain of any pains or discomfort, and she's 3 - you expect little kids to have sleeping and toileting problems. It's also not immediate, but happens later that day or the next day as it works it's way through her system. I suppose we're lucky that it's so minor, although maybe if it was spectacular it would be easier to pick up.

At the same time it's important not to go too far the other way. The next day she was absolutely revolting after lunch, but when I checked what she'd eaten there was nothing she could possibly have reacted too. Darn it, sometimes they just behave like that. (And sometimes Mummy wishes she would have a nap.)

Breaking the rules

Well, I'm a naughty Mummy. I've broken so many rules.

• I have no idea how many times a night Midget feeds. When she first wakes up she comes into bed with us. When my legs get stiff I wake up and roll over a bit, when I realise she's been on one side a long time I roll her over.
• I have no idea how many times a day Midget feeds. When she gets grizzly?
• Her naps are all over the place. Poor little thing fits in with whatever is happening. The first one tends to be very early - she only makes it about 1 1/2 hours after getting up, which usually means we've just finished breakfast - but the second one happens whenever.
• Mummy's magic sleeping potion is the only way to get her to sleep, except occasionally in the car if she's exhausted.

• Widget seems to be terrified of monsters. I'm not really sure how scared she is - she says she is and sort of looks like she is, but it also looks like she's playing.
• She gets a drink whenever we go shopping. It may be bribery, but I figure a drink a couple of times a week is ok in the larger scheme of things.
• She's still breastfeeding, and in fact is at the point where she will organise Daddy to look after Midget before she even asks me.
• She loves 'writing' both on the computer and paper, but doesn't know any letters. She loves counting for games like hide and seek and likes numbers, but she doesn't actually count things. This is an interesting one - I have a strong educational belief in kids learning these things when they are ready and teaching all the pre-reading and numeracy behaviours and concepts, rather than letters and numbers. But when everyone else's kid knows their letters and numbers ... Plus I get to the point of wondering if she wants to know them and am I holding her back.

Sensitive little sponges - very scary

DH and I had a massive fight last night. No yelling or shouting, just lots of tension and avoiding each other until after the girls were in bed, then crying.

Widget woke up in the middle of the night and wouldn't go back to sleep for hours, she kept calling for both of us and asking me if I was there. I ended up putting her in the bed with DH because Midget woke up, so she and I spent the night in Widget's bed (which was really uncomfortable amongst the menagerie of stuffed animals).

Then today both of them have been disturbed. Midget grizzled every time she was put down and Widget re-discovered every annoying habit she's ever had, from climbing over the lounge to screaming, whinging and even hitting Midget. We had lots of good times too, but they were on edge.

DH came home at lunchtime to talk and Widget insisted on sitting on both of us. Luckily we did manage to sort things out so we're OK, but she wouldn't eat lunch and continued the behaviour. Luckily it was cool in the evening and we took them outside and had a good play and run around and they went to bed fairly easily and happily.

It's really scary how it affected them. We did our best not to show them and I would have said we acted normally with them, but they picked it up anyway. And of course I was exhausted and upset today, so I wasn't up to dealing with them the best. It makes me really sad for kids who come from tense homes long term - we've had maybe 2 fights in 3 years and work really hard to keep communication open and look what it did to them. Imagine poor little kids who are around that all the time.