Eating out

Very odd experience eating out tonight. We ate out at a restaurant tonight, and the girl behaved exquisitely. It was the best she'd behaved at a restaurant in essentially two years. Last time she did this she wasn't walking yet or eating solid food, and was spent the whole time attached to one of us in a sling.

We sat down, and she patiently put up with L and I talking adult things (business, childcare, etc) while she did a little bit of drawing. She happily ate all of her appetiser while we waited like 20 minutes for the mains to come out. Every moment I got more and more nervous she'd break down and run away. But she just sat there, occasionally asking for more water or help with the pen. When the mains finally arrived, she ate it. With a fork. A real full-sized fork. Admittedly she needed help with about 40% of the meal, and the first half of the meal I had to blow on the stuff to cool it down enough (surprisingly hot for a children's meal). But she sat there patiently thought the entire meal. Only when we left the place and were safely in the tube station on the way home did I turn to her and tell her proud of her I was for behaving so well. I felt if I even alluded to it in passing, even to L when the girl wasn't looking, I'd ruin it and she'd cause a ruckus.

I'm still a bit shocked. I have two theories as to how this happened. The first one is that we went to a museum beforehand to see Club to Catwalk at the V&A before it closed down. The girl enjoyed running about the place, climbing stairs, watching the video installations, and (outside the exhibit) pointing out the bottoms and crotches on all the statues. It's one of the very few times we've had an opportunity to get her a bit of activity in after her nap and before dinner. If this is what happens when she gets some exercise after her nap, I am damn well going to find some way to get her some bloody exercise before dinner more regularly. Even if that is my most exhausted and useless time of the day.

My other theory is more pessimistic. Every time she starts behaving well for me she gets a fever 3 or 4 days later. The only time I ever got her to fall asleep while reading to her (what I thought was a great triumph at the time) turns out to be just before she came down with a cold. Likewise the time I thought she finally got the rules of walking on city streets in her head and started to hold my hand when we were walking together, she again got sick a few days later. Dashing my hopes we'd won the behaviour battle. I really hope an incoming illness was not the cause of the good behaviour at dinner and that it was something that can be cured with a decent application of running around.

I've seen the future

One possible future. A future in which having a family doesn't mean giving up a career.

L and I recently met with a client. We have friends that work at the site, and a couple of them were willing to look after the girl while we did a demo session on our software. After we were done, we picked up the girl, had lunch and got on with the day.

This got me thinking, what if it were always like this?

Imagine childcare being ubiquitous and available on demand. You work from home and need to visit a client? Bring the child with and drop her off at the on-site day care. You need someone to look after your little ones while you're at work? Bring them in with you, leave them in day care and visit them during lunch and breaks. Spend your coffee break with your kid and your coworkers' kids in a little play and chat session.

Imagine if daycare spots weren't precious, closely-guarded resources only available to a select few at a great cost. But if they were cheap and plentiful enough you could just take advantage of it like a cloakroom. (Obviously not treating the children like coats, but the comfort you feel when you hand over a coat knowing full well it will be well looked after and safe and happy when you come back for it). Your child would be around when you were able to look after her and, when you need help, it's there for as short or long periods as you need. It's just there, easy and reliable.

I'm not going to even try to conceive of how this world could come about, let alone how the mechanics would work. It's just now I can picture what childcare in an enlightened world could look like.

And I'm jealous.

Now we are drawing

So the other day I decided to draw with the girl. She surprised me by suddenly being able to write letters. I drew a simple shape on paper and handed her the pencil. She drew an A. Then a B, then a C. And so on, with prompting, up to N. Barring some mishaps with N and J and K, they were all surprisingly recognisable. The later half of the alphabet wasn't as good. She managed reasonable attempts at O, P and Q without trouble, but the rest were mostly squiggles.

She's been tracing out letters on her blocks. I think that's been helping her on this. She has a set of tiles with a letter on one side and a picture on the other. For the past few days she's been playing with them in a new way. She'll say A is fooooooor, while tracing out the letter. Then she turns it over and says Apple. Repeat for all 20ish tiles she can find at the time.

The sad man

Three days ago she started drawing people. Recognisable as such, too. On a long bus ride home on Thursday she was was drawing people in the condensation on the window. After we got home I gave her some paper to draw on. She spent a few moments drawing and handed me sheet saying she drew a sad man. And it clearly is a sad man. At this point she'll draw better than me in a year (admittedly, I'm terrible).

Yesterday she was all about drawing faces. She's got all the parts in the right place, though she sometimes has trouble with positioning noses. We started with drawing letters and numbers, but she turned almost everything she drew into face.