Women in piggy tails – why it can be so right.
Last week I watched a grown woman in a blond piggy tail wig and pinafore dancing around and running away from a grown man in a bearskin. No, much to my disappointment I was not at a new avant garde club night. What I do after hours is on my other blog, www.fetishtastic.com.au (shame on you for clicking).
No, I was at an under 4s performance of Goldilocks. I did spend the entire 45 minutes wondering what led these two people to be performing in this show — I am presuming they were wannabe Eastenders stars or perhaps more serious Shakespearean types. Or maybe I am doing them a gross disservice, maybe there is a whole children’s acting career path – starts with a being a giant sandwich in a mall, next stop the dizzying heights of Disneyland? I am NOT dissing the acting which was nothing short of superb. Let’s face it, anyone who can keep a group of about thirty under 4s mostly spellbound for the better part of 45 minutes is a shoo-in to win the X-Factor.
Child attacked by face eating bear
This is my son. Not, as it may appear to an alarmed parent in the middle of the night, being suffocated by a wild brown animal, but voluntarily, softly rubbing his face up against his FLATOUTbear.
Apparently FLATOUTbears are already pretty well known to many parents, but there may be a few of you still unfamiliar with these teddy bears, or, like me before, were aware but not especially enamored with them — at least not with any more affection than for your average cuddly bear. Now, however, I totally get why flat is good.
You can’t rub a normal bear on your face like that. Nor, most likely, would you want to — the snout and belly and all those other curves would make it not quite as pleasant. There’s nothing wrong with curvy bears, I’m sure they’re good for lots of things, but being plastered against baby’s head, well, that’s where FLATOUTbears really come into their own.
Giving up breastfeeding, filling void with guilt and a fruitless search for answers
I gave up breastfeeding this week and, unexpectantly, I have been feeling kind of awful and weird about it. It seemed so counter-intuitive and wrong. Also, I’m not sure whether this is medically correct but I’m pretty sure there were some hormone changes as a result of the end to milk production, and hormone changes generally don’t go well. According to the fabulous Robin Barker (if you haven’t noticed, I’m a fan), feelings of sadness and depression when giving up breastfeeding are normal. She says go ahead and have a good cry. Well thanks Robin. I DID. More than once. Yay for me. And you. High Five.
Where was I? Oh yes, GUILT. In my defence, stopping as I have at six and a half months, in Spain I seem to be very much in the minority having breastfed beyond three months. The nurse at my paediatricians office actually scoffed at me (one might even have called it a snort) when I inquired as to the benefits of continuing beyond six months, impatiently advising that the infant would receive all its dietary needs with formula and food once solids were introduced. My paediatrician diplomatically neither recommended nor advised against stopping at six months, instead asking whether I’d like to give up breastfeeding at six months, and when I gave a doubtful yes, then let me know that was absolutely fine and she would do the same. I took this as a recommendation but now that I look back I’m not so sure it was.
Party on Parents, the Babyphone iphone application is your portable baby sensor
Hold on to your hats iphone fans, I may have found the most useful iphone application ever. Well, let’s not forget about Total Baby, which is still going strong for me, but let’s just say I’m at least as excited as I was when I discovered that trusty application. My latest discovery is the BabyPhone iphone app, which, in the briefest of explanations, let’s you monitor your baby with your iphone – calling or emailing another designated phone number (or email) when it senses your baby crying or moving. It works; I’ve already tested it on the Christmas, New Year party circuit. Quite simply, it’s genius.

Koolistov BabyPhone iphone application, Activiation Screen
No more popping in and out of the party/dining room every five seconds to see if your precious one is still sleeping peacefully in the room where you’ve left him or her, as opposed to the hysterical crying you’re constantly imagining could be going on unnoticed and unattended. No more pretending to listen to conversations and appear relaxed when you’re actually wound up like a rubber band trying to separate the sounds of voices from what could possibly be a cry from the distant room. No more ducking in and out of the party to plaster your ear against the door or opening the door only to find the baby was sleeping… until you opened the door.
Baby Carriers – are you a hippy or a trendy?
I know very little about baby carriers and slings. But I am nothing if not helpful, and someone asked me the other day about which one was the best, so Alex – this one’s for you. Oh, and anyone else pondering the great unknown of the carrying/wearing world. Just writing to Alex would be weird. Although she is already probably slightly uncomfortable at having a whole post dedicated to her. Quite selfish the rest of you are thinking? I know – Alex is like that. Anyway, poor Alex, don’t be mean to her if you meet her, she can’t help being like that.
So slings, carriers and pack thingies – they are your big three segments. Slings are for babywearing hippies, carriers for trendy inner-city types and packs for healthy ruddy-faced outdoorsy types. Who carry hiking sticks. Got that? I love a good generalisation. Now this is not supposed to be the pinnacle of research, just a point in the right direction for beginners, to start you off even better than my ramblings, you might want to read this Which column.
“Three Kings” parade Madrid
Spain celebrated the arrival of the Three Kings yesterday, on January 6. Well actually they celebrate their very imminent arrival the night before, on January 5, in spectacular parades and street festivals across the country.
Next year, if you’re trying to think of somewhere to spend the colder months, think about making a visit to Madrid over the Christmas and New Year season. You’ll see Madrid at its best (winter days are characterised by bright, crisp blue skies) and the kids can be won over by the fantastic Christmas shows and displays and the distribution from floats of literally tones of sweets in the city’s major Three Kings parade. Write it down because you probably won’t read about it. Madrid is appalling at promoting its traditional events. The city’s own special Christmas guide this year makes a one line mention of the Three King’s Parade — hardly an indication of the scale or importance of the event which thousands of spectators attend and for which the entire centre of the city is blocked off.
The dad’s role in pregnancy.

a pathetic attempt to appeal to the males
I wrote a whole post about Christmas traditions. Then the Captain told me he was over Christmas. And my traditions. Hmm, thought maybe the rest of the world was too (yes, I am aware that not EVERYONE in the world is reading our blog – more fool them) and I am all about pleasing the readers. One of his friends had some helpful suggestions about how I could improve the male readership of this blog. The key one was introducing sports coverage – specifically, blow by blow accounts of any event where England is playing Australia. Probably not going to happen today, but you’ll know when I start cutting and pasting the BBC sports coverage that things have got dire.
In the meantime – how about some thoughts on the male role in pregnancy? There are any number of books on the topic and hundreds of articles written every year. Most of them focus on loving support. It’s true, loving supportiveness is good, but there are some more specific steps you can take to ensure you remain the father of your unborn child. So here are Kate’s top tips on how you can be the best pregnancy person ever:
Things I have wasted money on

If you ask my husband — most of my wardrobe, half the bathroom cabinet, all of my top drawer, the spice cupboard, the bottom three shelves of the bookshelf and everything in my half of the CD rack — falls into this category. But for the purposes of this post I will keep it to Items I Have Bought for Children or Childbearing Purposes. Also known as Things Kate’s Friends Should Have Told Her.
The Very Talented Anneka Tran

"Single Tree" 3D Illustration by Anneka Tran. Visit her blog at http://annekatran.blogspot.com/
Many of you I am sure have been admiring the illustrations on our site. We’ve put them there to distract you from the writing. All of them were done by illustrator Anneka Tran, a young, energetic and very talented lady from Staffordshire, England. Anneka has her own blog and website which shows her amazing selection of illustrations and work.
The blog also gives an indication of her impressive work ethic, with something new and gorgeous posted almost every week. When we brief Anneka for an illustration it takes longer for us to pick up her response email and approve the drafts than it does for Anneka to whip the illustration itself. Sometimes it’s actually scary.
The artist’s latest, self-assigned large scale project was an illustration (well more like a series of illustrations) of The Table Of Elements. How’s THAT for self-motivation? I don’t think I have ever given myself an assignment. If I hadn’t partnered with Kate on this blog and given myself some outside pressure I wouldn’t get anything done. You can check out Anneka’s Table Of Elements here. Art meets geek, and the result is amazing. Be sure to scroll down on the article to see the larger images.









OK, here’s my situation. My mummy has had me for almost seven months. The first few months were great — I cried, she picked me up and fed me, anytime, day or night. Then something happened. Over the last few weeks, she has been trying to STTN (sleep through the night). At first, I thought it was just a phase, but it is only getting worse. I’ve talked to other babies, and it seems like it’s pretty common after mummies have had us for around six months. Here’s the thing: these mummies don’t really NEED to sleep. It’s just a habit. Many of them have had over 30 years to sleep — they just don’t need it anymore. So I am implementing a plan. I call it the Crybaby Shuffle. It goes like this:


I was going to do a long post on Christmas present ideas. Then I started getting them come in thick and fast from my favourite blogs and I decided that:




