Sandals And Raincoat

I took G to the playground at Parr Fold Park this lunchtime. It was sunny and G wanted to wear her new sandals. It was a good job I brought her raincoat too, because by the time we got there it had clouded over, and soon after it started to spot with rain.

So she played on the climbing frame with an outfit that wasn't really wholly suitable for any weather. Once she'd have got a bit upset about getting wet, but she's a bit more rough-and-tumble these days, and didn't mind getting her bum soaked as she went down the slide.

And as the video shows, G also enjoyed the swing.

"Higher!" https://t.co/Jp86iI9PPC
— Richard Jones (@rlwjones) June 20, 2013

Making Up Stories

We had a babysitter for G on Thursday night so the two of us could go for a night out in town. When we got back the babysitter said that after G had got out of bed, she told her a made-up story about "Princess G" in order to get her to drift back off to sleep.

The law of unintended consequences became apparent by Friday night. Books are now very last week, and every story has to involve some kind of made-up thing about our heroine (Princess G, Fairy Queen G, always G) doing something exciting. It's clear we're going to have to seriously improve our powers of creativity in order to make bedtime as stress-free as it, thankfully, usually is.

The picture was taken earlier on Friday, when we headed back to Saddleworth to take in a bit of the Whit Friday brass band contest in Dobcross. This was G's fourth Whit Friday, so I was supposed we were due a really rainy one.

Soft Play Area

It was raining this morning. So I finally caved in and took G to the local soft play area, something I'd been saving for, well, a rainy day.

I'd actually taken her once before, when she was still a baby, just to check the place out. I'd seen soft play areas from the outside, usually in unappealing settings such as windswept industrial estates. Ours is in an old mill complex, which makes it slightly less bleak. But only slightly.

On our previous visit G was only really able to crawl around the babies' bit, and I thought I'd bring her back for another go when she was old enough for the trampolines, bouncy castle and the rest. Needing something to use up her morning energy, I decided that today would be the day.

Inside, soft play areas are a weird combination of the happiest place on Earth and the seventh circle of Hell. The excited laughter of youngsters bouncing around is only disturbed by bitter crying whenever one falls off something, and is carried away in tears by a harassed-looking parent.

G loved it. Really, really loved it. It being the holidays, there were a few rather bored looking older kids around, but G managed to avoid being trampled on while struggling to keep her balance on the various bouncy things, which was an even bigger bonus. In the end, possibly a bit put off by all the noise, she toddled back to the tots' area and kept herself quietly entertained there, as shown in the picture. She's still young enough to be a baby when it suits her.

All Kinds Of Trouble

The ways in which G can get into mischief increased significantly during a wet Saturday. It was the sort of day when it rained and rained, meaning we couldn't really leave the house.

Instead of allowing boredom to set in, G set about conquering one or two home-based challenges I imagine she's had her eye on for a while. One of these was climbing onto one of the dining chairs all by herself. The first inkling I had that she had learned this new skill was when I turned round to find her standing up on said chair, leaning forwards over the back of it, and grinning at me all proud of herself.

The danger of this was emphasised by her next trick. Having left the laptop closed on the desk in the corner of the living room, not only did G manage to scramble onto the chair, but she then worked out how to open the laptop and start bashing the keys. Thankfully she hadn't done anything really serious, like send an obscene e-mail to the taxman, or, even worse, her granny. But at her current rate of progress, I don't want to take too many chances.

Hopefully we'll get a warm summer. Playing out is much safer all round.

Half Term Week Is Boring

It's half-term. Not only does that mean that the schools are out, but it also means that the usual array of parent-and-baby activities aren't taking place. Which has kind of left me and G at a bit of a loose end.

It's not that I make an extra special effort to get along to the baby and toddler groups in the area. But I usually go to one in the local church on a Wednesday, and then a baby singing group on a Friday. Sometimes I make it to the Sure Start centre for the Tuesday playgroup too. It's not a big deal if we miss one, but I've realised this week quite how important these occasions are in giving me a reason to get up and out of the house of a morning.

Yesterday it was dry so I took G to the swings. But today the weather's been dreadful and by lunchtime, even though G was contentendly playing with her toys on the living room floor, I had got bored with hanging around the house, and decided we were going to walk into Uppermill. Even though it was chucking it down.

After picking up a few groceries which probably weren't all that essential, I decided to treat us to a trip to the cake shop. The picture shows G struggling to hide her disappointment at the realisation she was having to make do with a banana while I tackled a strawberry cake. She did dutifully finish the banana, so I rewarded her with a bit of mine in the end. G turned her nose up at the actual strawberry that came with it though. Even well-behaved toddlers have their limits.

Stuck Indoors

Me and G have been stuck inside for the last couple of days. It's been miserable and wet outdoors, and I've been struggling to shake off another cold. Coughing and spluttering generally goes down badly with the other parents at mums-and-toddlers groups, so we've been hanging around the house instead.

I'm a bit bored, but G is dealing with this a bit better. She's developed a game which involves taking all of her large lego blocks out of their container one by one, then putting them all back in again. She's getting quite literally hours of fun out of it. Watching her do this, I realised she's now perfectly capable of keeping herself entertained without me having to do anything. This is probably a good thing, but if she grows up to have OCD, I'll know exactly when it started.

Nosey

Here's G during a walk along our local canal earlier. As the cover on the pushchair suggests, it was raining, and typically G had managed to poke her feet out of the bottom. Even though G doesn't seem to mind getting her feet a bit damp, I should really work out a better way of making sure the cover actually stays where it's supposed to.

Yesterday I took her to interview the manager of the new local supermarket for one of my other websites, Saddleworth News. I left one of the manager's colleagues looking after G in the next room while I started the interview. During the first question I could see the door move slightly out of the corner of my eye, and then I heard the familiar and unsubtle noise of G of crawling gradually towards where I was sitting. By the end of the first answer, G had managed to stand herself up against my chair, and was listening intently to what the manager was saying.

Although it was sweet that she wanted to see what I was doing, I picked her up and put her back outside with the door shut for the rest of the interview. Sometimes that's all that will keep my nosey little girl in check.

Long Wet Summer

Today was the last day of the school term. G isn't nearly old enough to be bothered by that, but it means that the parent and baby groups I take her to most weeks won't be running until September. So today was the last day of baby singing for the time being, and despite the heavy rain I pushed G along the canal to the place, getting pretty drenched in the process. It was worth it though, because as always G had a great time, gurgling along to all the nursery rhymes and stealing the other babies' toys.

Mrs J asked if I could get a CD of all the baby songs so I could play them to G over the summer, but I vetoed that. I've got a strict policy of quality music only in the house to help educate G, and besides, I'm not sure I fancy listening to nursery rhymes more than once a week. With the weather as grotty as it is, the combination of not being able to leave the house and having to repeatedly sing Hickory Dickory Dock to keep G entertained would be too much to take.

If G gets bored, I'd rather stick to my unashamedly trendy iTunes library and G's new activity cube. As the photo shows, that's doing the job for now.

Half Term

G is as miserable as a wet day in, well, Saddleworth. Her first couple of teeth are now poking through the gum at the bottom of her mouth. I'd show you a picture, but she spends most of her time running her tongue over the area in a mixture of confusion and distress. Last night's crying was pretty bad, but it's probably no worse than the kind of whingeing I produce whenever I've got toothache. And her little mouth does look very sore.

It's half term this week, which means a lot of the parent-and-baby activities I've been taking her to aren't running. By lunchtime, and already fed up of being in the house, I pushed G into Uppermill during a break in the almost relentless drizzle (an essential part of half-term just like when I was young, it's good to see things remaining the same in such a fast-changing world). The village was full of miserable and bored looking kids getting soaked and wondering what to do with themselves. As I started to walk back home the rain returned, but at least G didn't get wet, as the picture above shows. But no matter how snug she looked, I wouldn't swap places with her if it meant inheriting her toothache.

On The Radio

I was on the radio today talking about G. My friend Sam is covering the lunchtime show on BBC Radio Manchester this week (Andy Crane who usually does the programme is away somewhere, presumably with Edd the Duck), and was doing a phone-in about paternity leave. Apparently lots of new dads are too worried about losing their jobs to even take the two weeks off that they're entitled to. So I talked a bit about deciding to stay at home and suchlike. You can hear it all again here for the next week (I'm on about 21 minutes in).

I took G down to university this afternoon to meet some friends from the MA course I finished last month. They've all begun PhDs so were happy to take the opportunity for a break so they could have a coffee and coo over the little one. I suppose if we hadn't had G, I'd probably be doing the same as them now, spending my days reading journal articles and hanging around the mustier parts of the library. G certainly gave them the impression that my life is easier than theirs, as she snoozed happily the whole time I was there.

I took the picture on the walk back to the flat, as I briefly sheltered from the rain on Sackville Street. It was one of those typically dark and drizzly Manchester days, but G was warm and sleepy under her rain cover. One of my uni friends was impressed by the cocoon-like pram, and reckoned it would be good to have one for adults, complete with a giant person (possibly Brian Blessed) to put you in there and wake you up again later. I think it's brilliant. In fact the only flaw I can see in the plan would be what would happen if the machines rose up and seized power. Being run by an army of 15-foot Brian Blesseds is an alarming thought, to say the least.