Try try again

We've been talking about having a second child. It's a surprisingly hard decision. So many factors to weigh up, but in the end it's more an emotional decision than a rational one. After all, it's hard to beat the logical argument of staying childfree, getting all the sleep you'd ever need and spend your massive cash savings on doing every fun thing ever.

Which, of course, is not entirely true. There are plenty of logical reasons to have children. I'm pretty sure I've discussed it before.

So I think it's a given that I love my daughter. She's wonderful . So why ruin that by throwing a huge unknown into the equation? On the other hand, loving another wonderful person would be… well… wonderful.

Then again, it would be nice to sleep in 2017. I've mostly gotten sleep back. I don't want to lose it again.

But I remember how much I just drank up every second of time with my daughter when she was a wee baby. Of course, a wee baby grows into a person, so having a baby because you love babies is just not a good idea. But seeing the world through fresh eyes exposes you to things you never considered. It's like having a Narnia in every closet.

I hated being a younger sibling. It's fine now. I get along quite well with my brother who is only 18 months older than me. But the first 12 or so years were nothing I'd wish on anyone. I don't want to turn my lovely daughter into someone who can be so unpleasant. I just hope that with a larger age gap there will be less trouble between them, and they'll have more ability to get along. I hope.

And all the injuries, both sudden and chronic. Sciatica. Herniated disk. Upper back pain. Lower back pain. Shoulder pain. Pretty much all the chronic ones stem from carrying the child and working at a desk. But new babies are small and light, and maybe I'll know my limits better this time. And I know a good masseuse. But, I thought I was old when I had R. I'm five years older now. I can see 50 from where I'm standing. Am I mad?

And I think of all the arguments I have with my daughter. How stubborn and out of control she gets. But there's also seeing her do things I never could have done at her age. She's already more comfortable bugging the waitstaff for the bill at a restaurant than I've ever been.

And there's all squicky unpleasantness that comes out of a newborn. But, once you've been rather graphically defecated on, a whole world of eew gross just no longer matters anymore. Well, I guess I've got to clean that up and get on with it.

The weirdest thing is how different sex is when trying for a child. Recreational sex always has that undertone and fear of If something goes wrong this will change my life forever. It's so different when trying for child, especially a second one when you know more of what you're getting in to. It's not about the fear, it's If this goes well this will change the whole world forever. It's the butterfly effect in human form. This person will impact everyone they meet, who will impact everyone they meet, and then there's their descendants and their impact. Every single drop in the gene pool ripples out for the rest of history.

Sexism begins at school

Since about halfway through her first year in school the daughter has been bringing up only wanting to be around girls or only wanting to be friends with girls. I try as much as I can to accept when she likes things I don't, but ...

It usually starts with something like:

I only want to invite girls to my birthday party

Why?

All my friends are girls.

Really, what about A and B? Also the twins C and D, you're always talking about thing you do together. Plus E and F, you've been playing with them since you were born…

I like them. They're my friends. But I don't like boys.

That's just sexist and offensive. I know you don't really understand how those words are hurtful, but you need to know that saying things like that is going to make people more upset than you'd think. It makes me upset.

What bothers you so much about boys that you say you don't like them?

…They play football …

They don't all do that. Your friends who are boys don't. I have no problem if you say I don't like people who do something. It's just when you say you don't like any boys at all because some people you don't like are boys is just wrong. It just means that if we met when I was five, you'd refuse to be my friend just because I'm a boy. And that would make me sad because I would have really liked to be your friend.

At this point she'd seem to understand and agree with me. But she'd still bring it up again a few weeks later, so the point really hasn't sunk in. We've had a few variations of this conversation. Sometimes it starts with a friend who's only friends with girls, but more recently it's just been her outright saying she does not like boys.

The worst time was after she went to a football themed birthday party for a boy in her class. The parents brought someone in to teach the kids football tricks and things. Literally all the girls in the room (and some of the boys) went off to play with the toys, while exclusively boys did the football games. That really cemented the not-friends-with-boy thing for her. Plus it was the first time I'd really seen the division in action. It was actually quite scary. I was really hoping we'd moved on from when I was a kid, but it's dawning on me there's still a fight ahead.

None of that was there in nursery, or in the playparks, or in the games with the kids on the street. Yet somehow it's all crept in now that they're in school full time.

Is it the school that's to blame? Is it the parents deciding you're five, it's now time to take up your assigned gender role? Is it emergent behaviour that only comes out when boys play in groups? I can easily see the subtle sexism in clothes and interactions with adults and the insidious sexism in toys and TV and books building up and spreading like cholera on Broad Street. It's not that sexism really begins at school, it's just that's where it sinks it's claws into the kids, and I just want to see more effort it quashing it before it takes hold.

Her teacher has certainly noticed that at playtime most boys split off to play football, and that it's causing divisions between the children. She's told that that she tries to get more mingling between the groups. I personally would put more a fight into this, but the teacher has so much to juggle already, it's hard to blame her for not taking on the Big Fight.

I suppose most people don't see it as bad as I do. But I so clearly remember as a child seeing the girls are bad attitude of the boys around me turn, over the years, to full blown sexism and rape culture. How do people not see this?

This is where it all begins. This is where the monolithic gender roles start that causes so much damage... I tried to make a list, but it was longer than I was willing to type¹. Ultimately, this is why I started this blog in the first place – because men aren't supposed to play a significant part in raising children. And I am going to do my damnedest to make sure my daughter gets to be the person she wants to be.

Can cook, won't eat

The other day I was chatting with someone who said My mum is a terrible cook. Before my politeness brain filter could kick in I found myself saying Perhaps it wasn't her. Maybe she was a great cook before you were born. Maybe she loved cooking. And once you were born you refused to eat anything she liked or knew how to cook. And all she was left with was throwing together some ingredients you hadn't turned up your nose to lately and hoping for the best, which just left everyone with a general sense of disappointment.

So that conversation ended with a terse maybe and a quick change of topic. But it did get me thinking about how my daughter is going to look back at dinners when she's older. For most of her life so far, she won't eat anything I like or know how to cook. The things she consistently likes is pretty much limited to chocolate, nuts, chips and pasta. Plus her new discovery: cheddar (aka, the thing she couldn't stand 6 months ago). I can't eat the first two and won't cook chips, and since she won't eat pasta sauce all I can cook that I know she'll eat is pasta with some kind of cheese – I'm now spending too much of my time manually putting tuna or peas inside the gaps in conchiglie just in hopes she gets some greens and protein

At this point I'm making dinner once or twice a week. Which is a radical change from the days of getting antsy when I skipped cooking for a night or two. I keep experimenting without any luck.

It always goes like this: You like x, I've made a tasty dish with x. Give it a try

…

Oh well. I guess that's the last time I cook x.

Repeat until all foods are gone.

About a decade ago I developed a number of food allergies which decimated what I can eat. After removing foods L doesn't like or want to eat I'm left with a restricted set, but something I can make nice things out of. Once I drop the girl's preferences out of it, I'm pretty much left with sautéed nothing with salt to taste.

I'm not going to make two dinners a night – one of her and one for us, because, damnit we're a family and we are going to eat dinner together. So that's what I'm not going to do. I have no idea what I am going to do.

No idea how to solve this one beyond wait and hope. I know her tastes will change, but waiting solves nothing.

TV time

We stayed in a cottage on holiday recently. The girl got bored so we put on the TV to give her something to do while we settled in the place.

Now we don't own a TV. We don't bother. Between DVDs and streaming services we've more than enough to keep us all occupied. So, in 2002, when L and I did the bit move to London we decided to just not bother getting a TV. We'd just see how long we could get by without one. Turns out, it's been 14 years and, judging from this trip, that's not going to change anytime soon.

The TV at the cottage had Freeview (I think it's called). When I last had a TV there were 5 channels, so I can't really tell the difference between cable and satellite and whatever the other options are. It's like sexing a pigeon – I'm sure I could figure it out if I really had to, but there's not much to gain by doing so.
Anyway, There were a few dozen channels with the 3 or 4 free kids stations. So searching for something to watch was essentially switching between these stations.

We finally found something the girl likes, Nina and the Neurons, a short little educational science show where a scientist (well, really an actress dressed in a white lab coat, because having a conventionally dressed woman and calling it "Katrina and the Neurons" would just raise unnecessary comparisons) answers a question involving the five senses. Plus there's kids to read scripted questions and be dragged around to prove points¹.

The show is 10 or 15 min long. When it came to an end, and the girl exclaimed Another!

We needed to have The Talk. The talk about how TV works. I was expecting to have to do this at some point, but I'd not realised it be so soon.

We can't. It's over. There's no more.

But I want to watch another. I don't like this. (she didn't like the show that was on next)

It's not like I don't want you to see another. It's just there is no more. It's just not on now.

Why can't I see another?

It's not us. It's the TV. This is called television. It looks a lot like watching a video, but it's not. There are people out there who schedule a show. That means they decide when a show is going to be on. And when that show is over. They don't let you see another. It's not us. We're happy for you to see another. It's the people at the TV station who do the scheduling.
After a show is over, if you're lucky they don't let you see another only for a whole day. In most cases they don't let you see another one for a whole week. Or longer. That one Nina and the Neurones is all you get. That is it. No more.
That's why we don't have a TV. It's just madness.

She tried watching another show for a few minutes. And after that we turned off the TV and she never showed any interest in it again.

Singing something new

Bedtime has always been trouble. Ever since day zero it’s been hard for me to get the girl to sleep. She just has such a hard time letting go and relaxing. So much fidgeting and distractions.

When she was very young bouncing up and down helped a lot. I’d hold her in my arms and bounce with my knees, about a hundred or so times while either counting or singing. It wouldn't always work, but at least it helped my horrible horrible knees improve, at least a little. Of course I can’t do that now. She weighs too much to hold until she falls asleep.

The other trick which works to a degree was our Bowie bedtime playlist. Life on Mars was the first song she ever fell asleep to own her own volition. So we made a set of that and 5 other early Bowie songs to help her get to sleep. We've been using that with minor variations for 4 years now. The only notable change is I dropped I'm Afraid of Americans once the girl started paying attention to the lyrics. I use the playlist to measure how long it takes her to fall asleep. The worst bedtimes the playlist loops 4 or 5 times.

1. Life on Mars
2. I'm afraid of Americans
3. The Man who Sold the World
4. Space Oddity
5. Changes
6. Starman
7. Ashes to Ashes

She also likes being sung to. I've tried a number of songs over the years. There are 3 staples plus another few backup songs I use. But she's refused all of them at bedtime for several months now.

A couple of weeks ago she asked for me to sing her something I've never sung her before. I reached into my lyric-poor memory and pulled out one of the backup songs I'd not sung her since she was two, This Corrosion. She stopped me once I got to the chorus saying No. Something you've never sung to me.

So, my hindbrain just pulls out of some dark corner of my memory The Ballad of Gilligan’s Island. Which was weird, but it went down well. Sort of, her reaction was straight of Galaxy Quest - those poor people. I had to explain it was just a sea shanty and it's purely fictional.

Were you there?

No. It's just a story from before I was born.

How did they live? Did they build huts?

Yes. Huts. They lived on the Island for a number of years, but they got rescued and returned to California where they all were from. But it had all changed, and they had trouble adjusting.

Oh. Sing me another song you’ve never sung me before.

My brain was a bit more cooperative this time, and provided me a song I'd not sung her sing she was 6 months old, Enjoy the Silence. She loved it. She hugged me every time I sang All I ever wanted, all I ever needed is here in my arms. And she was out like a lamp by the time I was done.

She’s asked for it again every night I’ve put her to bed since.

Though she did call it Enjoy the Patience the first time she asked for it.

And I've never had to sing it to her more than twice to get her to sleep. I've not had to put on the normal bedtime playlist once. It's scary that it works. I'm now having an easier time getting her to bed than L does, which is freaky weird. Really freaky weird. So at this point, every night I'm terrified that this time it'll fail. But I also love the fact that she loves the song so much, and squeezes me when singing along to … here in my arms… It's delightful.

I've also introduced The Sun and the Rainfall and will probably pull in other Depeche Mode songs from A Broken Frame if this starts to fail. Which it might, since I've probably jinxed it by talking about it. Still – the surprising power of Depeche Mode.

Are clowns just people dressed as clowns?

We were in a car recently with the girl, her aunt and her 2 year old cousin. At the side of the road there were two clowns showing off for tourists. I thought it was amusing, so I pointed out to the girl.

Look. Clowns. Over there,.

What? Where?

The two people with the funny hair by the side of the road.

Oh... I didn't think clowns existed.

Um… Yeah. Clowns exist. They're real. It's not like Sa—I look at her cousin and rethink my approach err, something that people make up, like ummmm. Mythological things. Fairies. Yokai.
People dress like clowns. It happens.

Ok.

Turns out that, when given the opportunity, I wouldn't give away spoilers on Santa Claus to her cousin make up for her aunt giving away the Skywalker family spoilers in
Star Wars.

First day of school

Big first: R started reception today (that's kindergarten for the non-Brits out there). She's in school now. For the next who-knows-how-many years. Somewhere between 14 and 22 (if she's anything like me). So that's going to take a bit of time.

I walked her to her new school today. We did the obligatory stuff. A special breakfast (R2-D2 shaped porridge)). A whole bunch of pictures at home both before we left and then getting on the scooter and getting our adventure on.

We live in Stoke Newington, which is a home to organic free range children. So you can imagine the number of people doing the same thing as me. I passed a family taking pictures of their kids in front of their house. I passed 3 neighbours on the way to the school and saw at least 3 more inside. It felt like being a part of a community, not at all like the middle of a megacity. Weird. Nice, though.

One of the neighbours I passed on the way asked So who is her teacher?

Um... not sure. R, do you remember your teacher's name?

Errrrrr. No.

I should probably find that out, shouldn't I?

Yeah.

A quick SMS back and forth to the wife gave us the name of the teacher, but that didn't help the confusion I faced next.

We got the school and entered into the playground. It was full. Hundreds of children, parents, maybe teachers too. It was a bit chaotic. All I knew is that I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. I deduced from the scooter lock-up by the gate I should probably get R off her scooter. But beyond that, no clue.

I remembered the confusion I had as a kid for things like this — big masses of people and I was supposed to be somewhere specific in it, doing something. Well, turns out it's just as bad for the parent. I found the line-ups for the years 1-7, but not reception. I eventually found a neighbour and asked, and she told me where to find the reception classrooms. So I just had to dodge the queues and masses of children to make my way to the other side of the school. I picked up the girl and said, hold on tight, and swooshed through to relative calm of the other side.

I didn't need the teacher's name after all. I kind of recognised her from her home visit. So at least I was spared the embarrassment of dropping her off in the wrong class. Just an uncomfortable Am I in the right place? was enough.

They stagger the start day for the reception classes, so each day 6 new people start. Which means today there was R and 5 others. Not overwhelming at all, which is good. I stood around with her, helping her adjust and commiserating with the parents of another child from our street.

Her day was a bit marred by having slept on her neck funny. She woke up in the middle of the night with neck pain. By morning her neck hurt so much she was only comfortable tilting it to one side. So she was far less enthusiastic about the whole thing than I expect she normally would have been. Still, she braved her way through it. And I explained to the teacher to bear with her and she'd be more excited in time.

Her teacher dropped the hint that I should be heading out, so I and the two other remaining parents took off, leaving the kids sitting on a rug about to be addressed together for the first time.

She just turned 4 a month ago. I was 5½ when I started school. So I've no feeling at all for what she must think of all this. She's as ready as anyone else there, but that doesn't change that's it's a lot to take in.

L picked her up after school. By then her neck was ok and she was in a better mood. She spoke of the other children she met and what they played with. So that went well.

Another 3000 or so more days to go.