Eating out

When you have a child, summer is a special flavour of madness.

There are six weeks between the end of the school year and the start of the next, so it's kind of enforced family holiday time. Even if you don't take a holiday, most of your child's friends will disappear. The side effect of this is that not only do you have to figure where the child can physically be for those extra 6½ hours per weekday, but they need activities as well, or they go crazy. So the lack of the normal playmates just means the entire time is spent following one long map from event to event to event.

A lot of those events for us ended up eating out.

Between my parents visiting for R's birthday, R and L meeting me for my lunchhour at work. Meeting up with visiting friends, and our actual holiday, we found ourselves going to restaurants more often than we had for a some time.

Eating out with a child is risky.

A continual problem is that she doesn't understand that what she asked for when she orders is what she's stuck with for the rest of the meal. We try to mitigate things by ordering for ourselves things she might like. So if R doesn't like what she gets, L or I can share parts of what we get with her.

Best case, she ends up with something she likes and eats all of it.

Next best case, she eats until she's full, then L and I eat the remains. It helps in restaurants with small portions which don't fill up an adult.

The worst case, she refuses to eat anything. Not her meal. Not L's meal. Not my meal. And, of course, when we get home she asks I'm hungry. What's for dinner?

We had dinner. It was at the restaurant. That was it. We told you it was dinner and to eat at the time. It's bedtime now. You can eat in the morning.

It usually ends up with her delaying bedtime for uncomfortably long while eating some hastily prepared rice cake and something sandwich. It's not like we have loads of snacks and easy to prepare foods around the house. Because they are snacks and easy to prepare — they just disappear.

It doesn't end with just food choices. You never know when you make meal plans if the child is going to be in a mood or not. Or, if there are other kids, if one of them moods out, then that will just be contagious, and it's all grumps and I wants.

On the other hand, R does know how to handle herself in a restaurant, even if she forgets sometimes.

Dinner is always when a child is most tired and fragile. No wonder so many parents end up doing dinner at 5pm. It avoids the daily meltdowns. And also avoids family dinners with friends as well. Not at all ideal.

R and I used to play café when she was around 2 and 3. We'd sit on the sofa and pretend to order food from a menu, talk to the waitstaff, eat, and so on. It was fun, and it means she knows how a meal in a restaurant is supposed to go, even if she often gets distracted and forgets. However, when she gets in the moment, she is on it. If she's thirsty she'll hail a waiter and order a sparkling water. If there's no waiter in sight, she'll just walk up to the bar and order.

You'd be surprised how few bars will even talk to six year who is queuing with the rest of the adults

Often, at the end of the meal, when we start talking about getting the bill, she'll just get up and go up to a waiter and ask Can we get the bill please?

So while eating and interacting with us in a restaurant may be a challenge for her, dealing with the staff she seems to have mastered.

The girl's first convention

I've been doing a few Star Wars related posts lately. It's the week after 2017 Star Wars Celebration and the week before May the fourth, so I felt it was a good time to get all these stories out.

Last year, R and I went to the Star Wars Celebration in London. Given how much she enjoys Star Wars and how close it fell to her birthday, L and I decided it would be fun for her to go as her 5th birthday present.

I cannot stress enough how much R loves Ahsoka. So L and she decided that she could go in costume as Ahsoka. And not just any Ahsoka, but a 3-year-old Ahsoka.

For maximum effect, R would go as 3 year old Ahsoka and I would go as Plo. (Plo was the one who recruited her into the Jedi. It's a long, complicated story which was cut down to literally 7 seconds of show.

We spent ages in the weeks beforehand putting together the Ahsoka costume. L found something like a pattern online for a Little Ahsoka. I was never very good at making clothing from patterns. My time in university working in a costume shop was more spent on repairs than building from scratch. So L and I spent ages trying to figure out what all the parts meant and how they went together. The absolute hardest part was adjusting the photos for perspective so we'd have flat patterns of the right size we could work with. After a few paper trials we figured out how it could all work and scaled it so it would fit R's head.

(if there is interest, L can do a guest blog on how she put it together)

In the days before the event, L and I were up late, cutting, sewing, painting and staring at the 4 or 5 reference photos we found online, plus as many of R's toy Ahsokas as we could find. Turns out, those things on Ahsoka's head are called lekku. There are loads of instructions online on how to make lekku (tho that's mostly for twileks). Later, I found out the horn things are called montrals. Though I'm not sure knowing that at the time would have helped.

The finished headpiece

The Accident

A few days before event, on the way to school, R got her foot caught in the spokes of L's bike. A nasty accident which took off several layers of skin and left R unable to walk. No bones were broken, but she was in a lot of pain and couldn't put any weight on that foot. They gave her these tiny 4-year-old size crutches and we borrowed a push chair from the neighbours. With that, we would be ok to go to the event. Unfortunately with all the extra care and attention the injured girl needed, there wasn't time to put together costumes for both of us. So the idea of a Plo costume was lost in favour of giving her the best experience I could.

The day

I'd prepared everything the day before, going as far as going to the venue the day before to pick up our badges early. On the day, I'd prepared enough food and water to get us through the day. We had the push chair and her crutches so she'd be able to move around. I even brought a jumper just in case she got cold in the July weather. And finally, I did some research online on how to do cons with a small child. I felt prepared.

We got there early. It took so long to get through the security queue, we were almost too late for the Ahsoka's Untold Tales session – the one thing we absolutely had to see. As it was, we did get in, but far enough back that it was hard to see, and hard to keep the 4-year-old R at attention. FWIW, I thought it was really good. And twice we've gone back to watch the video on youtube, now that she's less distractable.

Ashley Eckstein, the voice actress who plays Ahsoka did a meet-the-fans thing. It took us ages to find it (silly me, asking a staff member for directions). And by the time we got there it was too late to get R on stage to meet her. And while Ashley did a bit of pose for photos and meet the fans when she got off stage, the fact that R was confined to a pushchair due to her injury, more able-bodied fans felt free to push right past her (the low point of the day).

We didn't get to meet Ashley, but we did have a fun day seeing all kinds of interesting stuff. We spent a while in the kids' entertainment area, but it disappointed R that she couldn't participate in any of the standing-and-moving games.

She liked seeing the toys a lot. Especially the part where she'd tell me which ones she wanted to have. But of the parts she liked, I think it was the Lego stall she liked best. People made small ships out of legos, which the staff put up on display. R did one ship by instructions and another more creatively. When asked by the staff, when handing it over, she told them it was a Zillo Beast. I was proud that she'd chosen such an obscure star wars creature and that said it so matter-of-factly as if everyone should know what she was referring to. In terms for the best stall for a younger person, IMO, the Lego stall won for being so hands-on and so engaging.

Near the end of the she was starting to get a bit tired. I was still a bit disappointed over her not being able to meet the Ahsoka actress. But R made up for it in blagging her way on to the stage so she could get her picture taken on the Millennium Falcon set piece (lesson learnt: it doesn't hurt to ask). I'm even more proud of her for pulling that off than I was for the Zillo Beast thing.

On the Falcon

And finally, we went home. She was tired and got a little cranky, but we got home by 6pm. She immediately sat down, with her fading face paint, and hair poking out from under her headpiece, to play with her Ahsoka toys.

To this day she still wears the headpiece on occasion. Sometimes just when going to the supermarket with me. I suppose, given how much she loves it, eventually we'll have to make her another one when she outgrows this.

Order of convenience

I introduced the daughter to Star Wars around two years ago. I think what first attracted her to it was it just being fun. The fact that it was punctuated with toys she played with at my parents' house helped make it a bit more personal. I've pretty much completely skipped that aspect of our lives, and at this point it's not insignificant. So with Star Wars Day upcoming shortly, it's as good a time as any to fill in the details.
There is so much out there on the web saying what order newcomers and children should see the Star Wars films. I had this dilemma, so I decided to discuss it with L.

Should we show R Star Wars by episode number or by release date?

You have to ask? Release date.

But we could...

Release date.

I pondered this further for about 3 seconds. Do I show R Phantom Menace which is visually nice? Or do I introduce her via Star Wars which is just fun? This is what I decided. (Various spoilers follow)

1. Star Wars

I've described before how we first we sat down and watched Star Wars. I let her see it a few times after that. Sometimes she'd ask questions about stuff answered in other movies, and I'd just give some non-spoiler detail and say she'd see eventually.

2. Clone Wars: 5.10 – 5.13 (The R2-D2 set)

This is a set of 4 episodes of the Clone Wars where R2-D2 is on a mission with a few other droids and small Jedi. It's minimally violent and fun. It only has a few short scenes with clones and Obi Wan and Anakin, so no real spoilers there.

Between this and the movie, she enjoyed the idea enough that she started playing pretend with Star Wars themes.

You drempt about the move last night?

I had my own little save light. Like the one Darth Vader had.

Oh a light sabre. Would you like to have your own little light sabre? A toy light sabre?

Yeah. I had one in my dream.

well, I wanted you to have this pulls inflatable lightsaber out of the bookcase when you old enough but I wasn't sure if your mum would be up for it. inflates it

Your very own light sabre.

YES! I wanted one of these! I'm going to show mamma!

I got an inflatable light sabre on Star Wars Day a month previous and had stashed it in a bookcase in the living room waiting for the day she'd ask for one. I didn't expect ti so soon.

3. The Empire Strikes Back

She enjoyed the movie enough she demanded a Space Robots theme for her birthday. Which we obliged with Cyberman spacehopper Racing and an R2-D2 cake.

We also went to the Secret Cantina, which she loved and still talks about today. She played legos with a cantina band alien (a Bith) and loved playing with the Twilek dancers, who, in turn, seemed to really like playing with her.

4. Return of the Jedi

It took a while before we watched return of the Jedi. Mostly we could pace her. Partly so she'd have a chance to enjoy them more. And partly because I had to wait six years to see the 3rd film, and I didn't think it was quite fair.

We saw this after she'd already played with an Admiral Ackbar doll which said It's a trap when a string was pulled. So when that scene occurred, she said It’s a trap over and over for
quite a while.

At this point I decide to get tickets us to go together to see Star Wars Celebration in London for her 5th birthday present. I explained it to her as like the Secret Cantina but 100 times bigger.

5. Phantom Menace, anti-cheese edit

I did have a really big dilemma, about showing R the first of the prequels. Eventually, I found online a version which replaced all the racist caricature voices with subtitled alien speak. It also edited out some of the dafter parts. While it cut out more than I'd have liked, it seemed the best option out there. So in Feb 2016 I played the movie and within the first minute she'd declared, No! I want to watch real Star Wars! So we watched Return of the Jedi again, and that was that for several months.

Eventually I caught her in a good mood and she sat through it. So, with the goodwill I followed it up quickly with…

6. Attack of the Clones

I'd not really seen it since I saw it in the cinema. It was not as good as I recalled. But R was ok with it. We were on a roll, so I started her on…

7. Clone Wars, seasons 1-2

I started from the feature-length pilot and went on from there. I was careful to avoid creepy or overly violent episodes. Or anything where Jar Jar has more than 2 lines.

She loved Ahsoka. Really. By mid-March she'd stopped calling herself Elsa and started calling herself Ahsoka. She called me Anakin and L was Obi Wan. And she'd constantly tell me that Don't worry. I'll stop you from turning to the dark side!"

At this point she declared she wanted a birthday party with the theme Star Wars underwater and Octonauts in Space. Can you guess what her other favourite TV show is?

We'd watch an episode of two of Clone Wars on the weekends, with the occasional movie. But after a while she refused to watch any more. I think seeing one episode where Grievous kills a young Jedi was too much for her. So we took a pause away from watching Star Wars for a while. (I like it, but I don't like how it makes me feel.).

She still wanted to be Ahsoka and wanted to lightsabre spar with me as Anakin. She just didn't want to watch anything.

8. Rebels, season 1

Her reluctance lasted a month or so. When she was ready to go back, we started on Rebels. She had a Chopper doll, so it made sense to let her see Chopper in action. We watched some of the less scary, lighthearted stories from the start of season 1. She was very excited to find out Ahsoka was in Rebels.

9. Clone Wars, season 2

Watching this after starting Rebels was actually a good idea, since I could point out young Hera in Liberty On Ryloth.

10. The Force Awakens

We got ten minutes in when we first tried, when she said it was too much. So we tried again a month later. We just needed to make sure she saw it before she went to the Celebration in July, so she wouldn't have big reveals ruined for her.

The second time she tried to watch it she was happy to see the whole thing. We just had to skip over the scary roller monster parts, the torture bits, and some of the light sabre fights.I didn't think it made much of an impression on her, but to this day she gets excited when she sees Rey or even Ben.

11. Clone Wars, seasons 3-4

First, she saw 4.01-4.03, the Water War episodes as a birthday present (the only real underwater episodes, so it fit the theme). We skipped a good chunk of these to avoid overly scary things, like the Maul brothers and witches episodes, and the Mortis episodes which are too spoliery for Return of the Sith, and for some reason she didn't want to see the ones where Obi Wan goes undercover.

At this point we get her the I Am a Princess Little Golden Book. I was reluctant at first, but the more I read it, the more I like it. It’s all about the noblesse oblige that is so missing from princess stories. I am a princess. I look after others and keep them safe

The only quibble I have with it is that I feel I have to insert "queen" before Breha every time I read it, because she is and that's the reason she's a princess, not her birth mother's early employment.

12. Rebels, season 2, first half

She loves anything with Ahsoka, so the second season of Rebels made her happy. Initially she'd not watch any episodes with Inquisitors. And especially not the one where they kidnap children. But she really like the one with young Leia (A Princess On Lothal), the one where Hera gets a B-wing (Wings Of The Master), and most of all, The Lost Commanders episodes. The latter she demanded every weekend to the point that we’ve put them on her iPad and she'll watch over and over whenever she wants/can. Even though Ahsoka is only in a couple of scenes, she can't get enough of watching Rex's Moving Castle.

13. Clone Wars, 5-6

It took a couple of months to get through season 5, but season 6 was over in 2 weekends. For some reason she didn't want to see the banking clan episodes, and the Jar Jar ones are still censored by me. When we got to the end we could finally watch…

14. Revenge of the Sith

We had to skip some of the scarier bits, but she'd been wanting to see how it played out, and was sufficiently warned of the scariness. It did give her a chance to put 2 and 2 together on so many things, so it was nicely closureific for her.

15. Rebels, season 2, the rest

After seeing Revenge of the Sith R was much more up for dealing with the scariness of the Inquisitors. So we watched all of season 2 (still skipping The Future Of The Force). She dealt with the last episode better than I expected, despite it being a bit emotionally traumatising for me when I first saw it. But I suspect someone must have spoiled it for her in the year which has passed between it showing and her seeing it.

16. Clone Wars, Mortis episodes

As I said above, the Mortis episodes were a bit too spoilery, so I held off showing them until after she'd seen Revenge of the Sith. We had a nice chat afterwards about how Anakin would always turn dark to save those he cares for, and what that means in terms of the greater good.

17. Rebels, season 3, in progress

We just started season 3, and have seen the first 2 episodes. She's not showed much interest in seeing further – she just wants to see the Rex’s Moving Castle episodes again and again.

She mentions The latest movie occasionally and asks if Ben and Chewbacca are in it. I keep telling her, no, it's essentially Rebels: The Movie, but without any of the characters you know in it. Except Chopper. So I’m putting off her watching it for a while, because it is so very bleak. It's good, but oh so very dark, and R might not be ready for that plus the added lost-little-girl factor. So we'll just wait and see when she seems ready.

Beyond all that, I've been debating over whether I should introduce the Ahsoka novel. I've read it myself, and I think she's ready material-wise, but she is only 5¾, so reading a novel of that level is beyond her. Audio book? Read it to her myself? I'm not sure yet.

So this is my what order to see Star Wars list. I'll just put this out there as another drop in the web’s overflowing bucket of opinions.

Three, a review

The girl is about to hit four so now's as good a time as any to go through the past year. Every child is different so none of this is likely to apply to anyone else. This is more of a general note since I've hardly blogged at all here this past year.

The biggest event was her starting nursery. She really liked all the books and toys and playing with other children. It made me feel less guilty the lack of arts and crafts I did with her at home. On the other hand... It's not the physical viruses that went around at nursery that were a problem, it was the memes. Princesses, fairies, Frozen, gender, bad grammar and cockney accents. I'm hoping once she starts real school the latter two will go away. But I suppose the rest will get worse over time.

The other affect of nursery was having to change her bedtime. Before she was in bed by 2130, but when she dropped her nap plus being at nursery at 8, meant moving bedtime back to 1930. Rather more traumatic since it meant dinner at 1730 or so. It was really hard at first to get dinner so early. It'd mean stopping work at the most productive time and figuring out what to make that she would eat. Which was always changing. Eventually we just had to give up eating together altogether and we'd just do child dinner and parent dinner 3 hours later. At least it meant us adults be able to eat food we liked again. And now the girl could eat fish fingers and sweetcorn.

A couple of weeks before she turned 3 she suddenly became insolent. It was a surprising personality shift where suddenly she'd be argumentative and refuse to listen or do things. Before that everything seemed so exciting to her. I suppose at 3 she realised what she didn't like and had the language to say so. She must have started to notice there were boundaries and that she could push them.

This was the part that drove me the most mad. This all happened before she started nursery so I can't blame this on other kids. I don't know why it started but I hope it ends with 4. Or at least changes to something more manageable. Otherwise I might end up with blog posts all a variation of Today we argued about something she'd never explain what. She'd just say Stop doing the thing I don't want you to do.

Three was also the year she stated asking for a brother and a sister. It's hard to explain to her that were perfectly happy as a trio. And impossible to say out loud that her behaviour is ensuring she'll be an only child. So instead she'll just pretend she's got invisible siblings around her when we go out and about.

The best parts of 3 were all the conversations. She's now eloquent enough to express what she's thinking and has come up with some really witty things. Pretend play was more exciting. We'd pretend to be at cafe (she even picked up the bill once). Or pretend we were fairies with magic wands transmuting things into other things. Or we'd build a Lego spaceship and take her toy animals into outer space and back. She's reconciled fantasy and science fiction in her head and is happy saying fairies are from fairy planet and aliens are from Jupiter.

Even playing Frozen was fun at first... until she literally didn't stop for 8 months. Now she just occasionally plays Rapunzel, but often conflates it with Star Wars. Well sometimes spar with inflatable Light Sabres and she'll say I cut off your head. But it's ok. I've replaced it with Rapunzel's

On that note we get to play Star Wars a lot. My parents gave her some of my old toys. It gives us something we both like to do together. She enjoyed it so much she wanted her 4th birthday party to have a space robots theme (she loved the R2-D2 cake)

She's still reserved in some ways but still rather outgoing at the same time. She's happy being on a stage (real or makeshift) and singing at the top of her lungs or telling a story. But she won't ask another child their name to start taking or playing with them. That said she does still find smaller kids on the playground and take them all over the place.

So that was 3. She'll be 4 in 2 days. I'm looking forward to seeing what it's like and how things will all change all over again. And I'll just try to keep up.

366 days later

Monday, 30 July, 12:30 in the morning. The girl woke up very congested and could not sleep. After trying to settle her with no luck, we took her to sleep in the bed with us. Which she did. In her usual big-arms way – leaving me about 10 inches to sleep in. Eventually she's breathing well enough and L takes her to sleep in her own cot. Around 4ish I fall asleep.

8:30 exactly. The wife and I wake to the sound of her crying. I smile and say to L This better be important.

She laughs and and we get up to the girl's first birthday.

Again, it's a not-very-rushed breakfast of smoothies for everyone. The girl gets her first blueberry smoothie. She drinks a bit, but not very much. We prepare for an afternoon in the park. The weather claims to be an island of no rain in a week of drizzles and thunderstorms. Her party on Sunday was rained out, and we ended up all squeezed into our dining room.

Monday was much better. Though quite chilly for most of the day. We went to the park to try out her new scooter. Ever since she got it she's been trying to play with anything scooter-sized with wheels – most of which belong to other people, so I have to drag her away crying. Not the nicest side-effect.

After much rolling around the park, we went to a birthday picnic hosted by the other child in our NCT group that was born on the same day. There was much frolicking with other babies of her age followed by a tuckered-out trip home.

The first birthday is the last one for the parents. It was our celebration of having kept her alive for a year. She'll never remember this, so all we needed to do was a have a good time and take lots of pictures of her having fun. From here on out, it's her birthdays and it will be all about her. I've got to figure out more baby-flavoured fun by then.

Advice for my daughter on her birthday

Some months before my daughter was born, I started writing down (well, writing in emails to myself) things I've learned over the years that might save her some trouble to know. I've been holding onto this for a while now, so I'm putting this out there now so she can read it when she's able.

The rest of this post is for her.

…

In honour of your first birthday, here's some advice from me to you. It won't make sense to you now, but it will at some point. I could just wait and tell you these in person over the years, but I felt it would help their creditability to you by posting them anonymously on the internet.
All of these have stood the test of time and helped me over the years. All I can hope is that some of this might make your life a little better.

Never get the cheapest of anything unless you know exactly what you're getting into. There's a reason it's cheap, and if they could legally make it cheaper, they would.
That said, if it's cheap and small enough, experiment. Sometimes the cheapest option is the one which leaves out all the crap you don't want.

Start a skin care regime by 20 at the latest. You'll appreciate it when you're 40 and people are constantly shocked to find out how old you are.

Never tell someone when you find something is broken. A fair chunk of the time they'll just not notice and make it work anyways. Thanks for letting me stay at your place. As thanks, I baked you some cookies. – oh, I meant to tell you, that oven has never worked since I moved here.

Rocket science is easy – it's rocket engineering that's hard. Anyone with a pencil and a basic knowledge of maths can figure out the escape velocity to get into the desired orbit. The hard thing is figuring out what chemical reaction will get the rocket up to speed. But without exploding the rocket. Or destroying the ground under it. Or what to make it strong enough to bear the strain, but not too heavy to lift. And make sure it goes in the right direction (up). And with a reasonable acceleration to not destroy the payload. And that doesn't include what to do once it's in orbit. Engineering is like art. You never finish a project – you just declare it good enough it and hope for the best.

Dare to be different is easy. Anyone can be contrary. The hard thing is to dare to be the same. It's okay to like what everyone else likes if you really do like it.

Follow you dreams, but remember, someday you'll actually finish them. And then what? Keep in mind what you want to do next. When playing pool the trick is not to just get the ball in the pocket, but to set yourself up to make the next shot as well.

Don't be too afraid of trying something new. The world can take you to wonderful places if you let it.

Just because someone doesn't like you doesn't mean you shouldn't be nice to them. There's no point in being mean to them, and if they're actually a decent person, they'll eventually come round.
Likewise, just because you don't like someone, doesn't mean you should be mean to them. Actually, not being mean to those you don't like makes them that much more tolerable.

You can do anything if you have enough time or enough money. With enough effort a single dedicated person can produce a world-class creation. Don't be put off trying something because you don't have the materials or aren't qualified. And don't be afraid to ask for help from people you trust.

Not everything you feel makes sense. You're just a bag of meat and hormones that thinks it's a person – just like everyone else. Learn to recognise when there's a good reason for you to feel sad, tired, angry or whatever. And also recognise when it's just because your body is just out of whack.

When you're wrong, admit it. Then try to fix it. Then move on. Rarely are the consequences of screwing up worse than the gaping hole of trust denial leaves.

Patience is not a virtue. You can end up just watching life pass you by. Do it now. And if you fail, there's still time to try again later.

Keep a duplicate of all your essential medicines, toiletries and makeup in a small bag. Spontaneous adventures are much more fun when you feel clean and looking your best.

That which does not kill you only sometimes makes you stronger. But it still really hurts and always takes time to recover.

Time spent clubbing till the wee hours is not wasted. Some of my closest friends to this day were met clubbing. And the dancing is great exercise – I'd never been so fit in my life than when I was going out 5 nights a week. Plus, learning to get by with lots of exertion and minimal sleep is invaluable if you ever have a baby.

I'd say Trust your instincts, but that really does depend on having some quality instincts in the first place. That will come in time. Until then, don't overthink things. Your first guess is usually correct, or close enough.
With enough second guessing you can convince yourself anything is true. The scary thing is, everything you think might be true probably is – to some degree. And the thing you thought of first most likely came to mind because it's the biggest factor.

Most people are wrong. The best admit they don't know. The worst just lie and make something up.

And finally, take advice with a grain of salt. Take this advice with a grain of salt. Don't just learn what people tell you, understand it. Use it, discard it or replace it with something better. And when you have something better, pass it on so someone else can use it or perfect it.

You've been amazing so far and I'm sure you'll get by just fine. It's been a delight just seeing the person you're becoming. And I'm kind of jealous for all the good things you've got ahead of you. Happy birthday sweetie!