The magic happens at home

What makes a good parent? The typical society answer is something about Love. But pretty much everyone loves their children, even if they abandon them and abuse them, they will often still love them. sorry, this wasn't supposed to be depressing. I have been trying to conceptualise what it is that makes some mums (a more available subject to study than dad's -rarely seen Mon-Fri) impress me. One part of this answer is creativity. Parents who continually think of ways to challenge, inspire and create memories with their children through the activities they think up.

One mum today made play-doh with cinnamon and mixed spice in, there was then a bowl of star anise, and other seeds and spices i don't know, to stick into it. It was incredible. She also got a lump of clay, and a bunch of twigs, leaves and bracken and then encouraged the children to make a clay island which they 'planted' the winter leaves. It was brilliant. (oh how my the concept of what is brilliant has changed since having a baby!)

That's not the best though. A mummy friend found a blog by some brilliant parents (creative parents), who have created DINOVEMBER> whats dinovember you ask? Obviously, it is a month of nights when toy dinosaurs everywhere come to life and cause carnage in the house while the kids are asleep. There is plenty of photographic evidence on their blog/facebook page. Its amazing.

Starbucks is a little young at the moment, and we don't have any dinosaurs yet. I don't think the plastic baby walker would lend itself to such expression. But when we have something similar we will for sure.

check it out.

24/52 Happy? Admiring creativity.

Love affair with a ....safe?

23/52 Happy? That a safe can be such a great toy.

Amsterdamn

This man was taking this small person for a walk in Amsterdam, what he doesn't know is the pavement ends soon, there is a canal with no fence the other side of the road, and she will repeatly say 'ushchair' until you want to shout, 'WHAT ABOUT the bloody ushcahir?!'

Xss, Starbucks and I visited Amsterdam last week. Whilst it was great to be together as a family, it was disappointing how un-family friendly it was, in fact at times it was family hostile. This started on the train from the airport into town when two young single individuals took the fold down seats near the doors and left myself and Xss (and a random old lady) struggling the whole journey with a small baby, push chair and 2 backpacks unable to get down the train stairs to where the rest of the seating was.

Amsterdam was pretty but there is not much pavement for a young child, or pushchair to chundle along, the narrow picturesque warehouse style houses seem to all contain steep staircases with no way to bring a pushchair up, and who stole all the highchairs? we only found one all week. Also there are swings, but no baby swings, the longest Starbucks managed to stay on a normal swing was 40 seconds before she fell off. We tried a few times for our amusment.

I think ultimately i was upset as they had all these little independent coffee shops (there are two types there 'coffeeshops' - which sell weed, and coffee shops which sell coffee- hard to determine when you dont speak dutch.) We hoped to come to Amsterdam to laze around, go to the park and drink coffee in nice places. However, due to everyone having such large un-covered windows open to the street you're never sure when you step into a shop if you are walking into a clothes shop, a bar, or just someones living room.

I don't like coffee, so i'm loath to admit it, but by association, i dont like independent coffee shops. Lazing around was limited to parks and Ann Frank house.

22/52 Happy? i don't live in Amsterdam

Weird baby stuff....

i thought i'd share this, as i personally thought i was going mad:

Two Christmas's ago, Xss and I went to see Arthur Christmas the movie. It was great, I love a good Christmas themed animation, during this film I felt Starbucks move for the first time. It was a little underwhelming, but undoubtedly I had felt an unborn person pushing me around from the inside.

Although I have all the outward signals that I am not pregnant (periods, no bump (well a small chocolate eating bump) I was half certain that I must be pregnant, and at least 4 months along, as I would often feel a baby moving inside of me again. Interestingly this is a common phenomenon! Luckily, I am not secretly pregnant despite being able to feel another human being in my abdomen!

Theories about why this might be include- being more aware of this sensation of your womb moving and recognising this now despite it having happened pre-pregnancy as well, wombs taking longer to contract than previously thought and these movements being my womb still shrinking down to its pre-stretched size... whatever the reason, it was so good to read that I was not going mad, nor permanently 4 months pregnant, although having such s small bump so far along would be brilliant.

Another joy of pregnancy, feeling an imaginary baby pushing you around for years after the actual event!

21/52 Happy? Not being pregnant and having another human being stuffed into my belly.