When I first moved to London from the States – childless at this stage – I thought the word loo was far better than the word bathroom.  There aren’t always baths in bathrooms, so the misnomer didn’t sit well with me, especially when I was now being given the option of asking for the monosyllabic and more affable-sounding loo when my bladder needed relieving.

In those first few months after jumping the pond, I often thought of the late William Safire, wondering whether he wrote about lift versus elevator, rubbish bin versus trash can, or hob versus stove in his “On Language” column in the New York Times Magazine.  I considered writing to him to ask for some navigation techniques in this vernacular valley.  Dear William, could a California girl really get away with saying words like knickers, wellies and telly without sounding like a complete nincompoop?

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Photo courtesy of Storme Sabine Photography

Call ‘em what you will:  buggies, pushchairs, strollers, prams, baby carriages, perambulators or carrycots.   Although we’re aware of the function they serve, some of us seem to be unaware of the imprint these means of transport will leave on our bodies and minds.

I had no idea what was in store for me when at eight months pregnant I smiled blissfully for a photo in which I stood alongside the buggy we just bought for our soon-to-arrive bundle of joy.  A few weeks prior to taking this photo, I was living in a buggy bubble, surrounded by objects referred to as Bugaboos, McLarens, and Gracos.  And once this bubble popped, I was transplanted to an accessories orb and encircled by cup holders, parasols, sun shades, footmuffs, bag clips, insect nets, and buggy boards.

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During the adventurous and oh-so-entertaining period which shall henceforth be referred to as The Epoch of Weaning, I used to pretend the carrot and mango purée stains on my son’s bibs were Rorschach tests.  You wouldn’t believe what I saw.  Once, I spotted Mary Poppins doing a handstand on top of her umbrella.  Another time I made out a smack of jellyfish making its way up one side of the Eiffel Tower.  You see, entertaining myself was required at such a madcap stretch.  After all, at what other point in my life would I find myself squeezing my breasts into a bowl on the table so as to add the essential milk to the baby rice cereal?

Somewhere along the line, somebody (read: Annabel Karmel) convinced me that making all of my son’s food was the best way to ensure he received organic, nutrient-rich meals without any artificial ingredients, preservatives or disguised sugar.  In preparation of W-Day, I lined up the army of accoutrement on the kitchen counter: a hand blender, colourful suction bowls, heat-sensitive baby spoons, bendy ice-trays, plastic baggies and markers to label and date them.  Go Team Introducing Solids!

How exciting for my little guy; he was taking his first step on the path to pulverized pieces of pleasure, of macerated delights.  And, after taking said step, he made it known that he did not care for baby rice cereal.  That’s okay, it happens.  He didn’t care for smashed bananas.  That’s okay, it happens.  He didn’t care for puréed pears, apples or sweet potatoes.  Like I said, it happens.  Take a deep breath and remember that the first stage of weaning is all about acquainting my son with new tastes and textures, helping him learn to take food from a spoon, and familiarising him with the process of moving food from the front of his mouth to the back and then swallowing.  New day, new efforts.  He didn’t care for porridge or parsnips or yogurt.  He didn’t care for the first formula we tried, or the second, third or fourth.  Time to consult the weaning experts again.

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Happy New Year!  While I am generally of the mindset that resolutions can be masochistic, I think that when you become a parent, you automatically subscribe to a form of masochism, so why not make resolutions of the attainable variety.  I once read that if one shares his or her resolutions with others, he or she is more likely to follow through with them.  For the past two decades, I’ve resolved to learn the lyrics to Auld Lang Syne and haven’t followed through.  Here’s to trying to follow through on these resolutions:

1.  Embed in the deepest trenches of my memory banks images of my son Enlai at this age, such as the one of him running down the hall on Christmas day with nothing but a pajama top, bare bottom and a chocolate chip cookie in one hand, singing his version of The Wiggles’ “Shaky, Shaky”.

2.  Learn how to properly pronounce dinosaur names.

3.  Be fascinated when we watch The Tale of Desperaux, The Jungle Book or Winnie the Pooh for the 100^th time.

4.  Learn dance moves from Enlai.

5.  Resist the temptation to open the flaps in Enlai’s flap books while reading them to him.  Practice self control in this regard as I know he is on the road to joining the uppermost echelon of flap lifters, and I cannot get in the way of such an achievement.

6.   Learn the sounds the following animals make: armadillos, narwhals, and pygmy marmosets.   I have entertained myself long enough by making up supposed sounds.

7.  Learn the foods the following animals eat:  kudus, aye-ayes and solenodons.  It is not fair to keep answering “bananas” or “spaghetti” to the question “What do they eat?”

8.  Start my own Alison Jay, Oliver Jeffers and Joëlle Jolivet fan clubs.

9.  Allow more splashing in wellies.  There’s such a thing as drying off.

10.  Add more bubble bath when the request arises.

11.  Read more Yeats, Auden, and Komunyakaa poems to Enlai.

12.  Keep serving peas, green beans, and peaches even if they’re rejected every time.

13.  Let Enlai thumb through my Basquiat, Twombly and Bacon books when he takes them off the shelf, even if he does crease the pages.

14.  Wear Enlai’s Groucho Marx glasses more often.

15.  Write that letter to Enlai that I’ve been meaning to write to him since his first birthday, the one about what an amazing human being he is and how happy he makes me and how there is nothing like looking back into his big eyes looking at me.

My son was almost named Balzac.  My husband and I discussed several names and constructed our shortlist as a lot of parents do, and Balzac somehow made the cut.  It wasn’t necessarily that my husband cherished Monsieur Honoré de Balzac’s writing but rather liked the sound of his surname.  Ultimately I couldn’t live with my son being nicknamed “balls” or “ball sack”.  My husband thought it would be character-building; I thought it would cost us a lot in therapy sessions.

Names are funny things.  While one psychologist says we have strong perceptions about first names and associate them with success, luck and attractiveness, thus producing self-fulfilling prophecies such as a teacher giving higher marks to little ones with attractive names, another psychologist argues that the consequences of a particular name for self-image are not devastating and that a child’s name is unlikely to be a significant factor in his or her development.  So what side of the fence are the children named Please Cope, Lotta Beers or Nice Deal on?  Do I hear accusations that I’m making these names up?

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There it was right before me: a two-foot long, about a quarter-inch wide, impenetrable dribble from a babe’s mouth.  I was completely mesmerised.  As the babe moved, the elastic dribble followed.  It never broke.  At one point, another little one entered the dribble zone, only to be ricocheted backwards when his arm touched the impervious, springy saliva.

I recognised it, the look of wanting to gum something to mere mash in order to ease the pain of a surfacing entity made of pulp, dentin and enamel, most commonly referred to as the tooth.  My son had this look, and I’ve seen it countless times on the faces of other little ones. 

In one of my son’s music classes, come instrument time, the teething tots were more interested in gnawing on the maracas, tambourines and drumsticks than in singing about an incy wincy spider or a twinkling little star.  I witnessed intricate webs of drool as one baby would have a go at the drumstick, completely saturate it and then pass it on to his pal next to him to have a nibble, who would then pass it to the little princess across from him.  By the time the fifth munchkin had a chance to chomp on it, not only were babies getting caught in the web, but the stick seemed to be sheltered in its own slobber cocoon.It’s a serious matter for parents and carers, this teething stuff, consisting of shrieks of the heart-stopping variety during the night, moodiness and clinginess throughout the day (or weeks or months), rashes, and an increase in laundry due to soaked bibs, shirts and blankets and spilled pink and purple medicines.

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A friend told me last week that she thought the rite of passage must be having your little one have a temper tantrum while walking down Oxford Street and having everyone stare at you in disdain.

Another friend said that the rite of passage is the inaugural supermarket tantrum.  Did you see The Exorcist, she asks me.  She goes on to describe a scene where her little cherub starts throwing apples, oranges and lemons at passers-by while screaming at the top of her lungs.  Said cherub then runs away to what my friend describes as “a section of glass things” and gives her a look that says if her mum comes anywhere near her, she’ll pick up a piece of glass and throw it.  She then runs to another aisle, throws herself on the floor and starts flailing her arms as if she’s doing some sort of 360-degree snow angels interpretive dance.  My friend said it wasn’t the cherub’s head that was spinning around in the manner of one Linda Blair, but rather her own.

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Say it ain’t so.  Or, maybe, say it is so.  I read in the paper today that a third of parents have never sung nursery rhymes to their children.  Apparently, because parents are choosing to sing pop songs to their little ones rather than traditional rhymes which they deem boring and dated, said rhymes are in danger of dying out.

As with all things evolutionary, only the strong will survive.  Most of the nursery rhymes still sung today are only sung because of their patterns and rhythms – their “catchiness”, if you will – not their content.  I can’t imagine that half the parents and carers singing Baa, Baa, Black Sheep to their little ones are aiming to teach them about taxation, the real meaning behind the ditty.  I sure as heck am not trying to teach my two-year-old about losing his virginity when I recite Jack and Jill.  It seems that going up the hill to fetch a pail of water is a euphemism for having sex.

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So there I was at 3am with my son, trying to wean him off the wee hours feed so I could return to the concept known as a night of uninterrupted sleep.  I was informed by somebody – I can’t remember who, but it was somebody who at the time seemed to be the supreme advice-giver of all things weaning as I read his or her book with heavy eyelids – that your little bundle of joy may cry a little.  A little?  I immediately turned to the glossary to see if there was a definition for “a little”.  No such luck.  I turned back to the weaning page, which stated that with cries, said bundle is only responding to a change in routine and isn’t really hungry.

Unbearable as it was trying to sleep with my son crying next to me for what seemed like a few lifetimes, I started imagining he’d wake up in a few hours looking completely emaciated.  I convinced myself that he was starving.  After all, I’ve been known to wake up at 3am, in desperate need of chocolate or craving a stone-baked pizza.  Who’s to say he wasn’t ravenous. 

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I must’ve inherited it from my mom – this thing for orderliness.  She arranged cans in the cupboard so that all the fronts of the labels faced you as you opened it a la Sleeping with the Enemy.  And on the spectrum of calm to fanatical, she was probably at about over-the-top zealous when it came to preventing glass rings.  If there was a box labelled “Christmas” or “Halloween”, you’d better believe that there would never mistakenly be a snowman or stocking in the Halloween box or a pumpkin or bat in the Christmas box.  This would be total anarchy in her world.

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