The bucket list

Say what you will about Louise Mensch and her politics, and much of the criticism of her smacks of misogyny to me (who cares about her roots being on show during Select Committee meetings?), I still think of her mostly as wildly successful chick lit author Louise Bagshawe. So I was thrilled when I tweeted last year about my summer holiday to have a response from her praising my tweet for its depiction of our holiday. 

My oldest child is still only two but we have an impressive collection of buckets, spades and other beach toys. My favourites are a castle shaped bucket with wall attached so you can build a sand fort (castles are so last millennium) bought that holiday from a beachside stall, and an amazing builders set from Great Little Trading Company which includes a brick mould and spirit level (£17).

Our sand sculptures are ephemeral of course, the first wall or brick usually being kicked down before the second has been built, but I hope the memories they create last forever. Many of my memories of childhood are of our holidays. Many others however are based on food. In fact I remember day trips by what sweets we were bought (Highland toffee on the Isle of Wight, strawberry Fruitellas by the river at Broxbourne etc). I thought of these sweetie memories when pregnant with my son as I had a near constant craving for the first five months for Tooty Fruity sweets which it turns out are remarkably hard to find in north London (though Skittles scratched the itch temporarily when necessary). Sweets and beaches, that is how I remember my second pregnancy, and my childhood.

All of which is a very long way of getting to the main point which is never mind my holidays, never mind the sweets I crave, never mind my tweets, but look look look at these amazing, memory forming, castle and sweet treat combining, sandcastle ice cream buckets available from The Handpicked Collection (£5.95). I want some.

The outfit to begin all outfits

As a second born child myself, I am keen to make sure baby number two doesn't always get the bum deal. It's why I eschew those buggies where the baby is tucked away underneath the main seat, with no view and the smell of toddler fart hanging over it. The baby is not here yet and already I feel awful telling my daughter she is my favourite person in the whole world, even though she is, and presumably will be until this one gets here at which point I'll have two favourites.

It's already posing issues though. We have huge amounts of baby clothes. In truth, we don't need anything for the new baby, with vests and babygros and cardigans bursting out of every drawer, cupboard, suitcase and box under the bed. But, but, but.... my baby should at least get to feel what it is like to wear something new out of the packet, I told myself as I bought just one cute pack of newborn vests. A bit unfair really - it'll only get its hopes up before being forced into a lifetime of hand-me-downs.

I wasn't going to buy the new baby a coming home from hospital outfit, even though this is something I expended huge amounts of energy on before the arrival of baby number one. I wanted something bright, unisex and, dare I say it, funky. I got what a wanted, a posh funky Toby Tiger number costing an arm and a leg yet despite this, having no feet. A friend with a baby already pointed this out to me as a potential problem, what with us having a winter baby, so wintry in fact that as we looked out of the hospital window on night one of her life the snow began to fall, as it also threatens to do this time. Still, the lack of feet wasn't the problem, more that it was aged 0-6 months and, as I now know, there's a big difference in the size of a six month old to that of a newborn. In fact it fit our daughter when she was about four months, and I put her in it for a photoshoot at Snappy Snaps that I'd won in a draw, the kind where you get your shoot for free and they then try to sell you prints for hundreds of pounds. I bought the two cheapest prints, just 7"x5", but I don't like them and they are not on display. The cheesy nature of the shots and the removal of my husband's glasses so he doesn't look like himself is bad enough, but the main thing is that babygro, bought for a newborn and therefore, to me, looking all wrong.

But others have been a little disapproving when I have said I wasn't intending to get this baby something chosen with equal care. So I went to John Lewis and bought a very cute penguin number. It's ultra cute, and I do like it, and yes perhaps I did also buy our toddler matching pyjamas. But will they wear them? Who knows. Because much as I try to remember what my daughter did wear when we bought her home from hospital, so desperate to escape after our several nights inside, I just can't summon up a picture of it at all.

Baby eating shark

It's been exactly a year since this post so I thought it was time for another cute baby being eaten by a shark picture. Available here.

I took her to a supermarket

The baby and I popped to Tesco this morning for a picnic lunch and other essentials (hairbands, Easter eggs, crumpets) and, parking the car, I saw the above notice, saying "It's so much easier when you shop from home."

Now never mind that shopping online with Tesco is not easy, not if you factor in my last order having so many substitutions I sent back more than I kept and the two orders before that being cancelled on the day by the store leaving me with no food or nappies and, on one of those, no money, having taken the cash from my account despite not delivering the goods. Never mind that. Because even if the service had been at an acceptable level, it's sad if people are encouraged not to take their kids to the supermarket.

In my constant patter of chatter as we meander round the aisles, my daughter seated in the trolley, she is introduced to several basic concepts that she needs to know in life. She learns that she can't have everything she wants, that sometimes persistent nagging will get her some of what she wants, that things have a cost and budgets must be kept to, the difference between luxuries and essentials, that lists can be ignored but should always be made, and much more.

Once, when I was a a teenager, my mum played a game. Everything I asked for in the supermarket she said yes to and we came home laden with shampoos and hair mousses. It was a bit overwhelming, getting everything I asked for, but a wonderful memory. I may do the same to my daughter one day, a one off special treat. But how would it be a special treat if she hasn't first had years of having to keep more or less to a list, browse shelves for bargains, evaluate quality and not have every single thing that catches her eye as we go up and down the aisles?

Creating vintage memories

They can't have come out that many times in the 18 years I lived at home - 18 at most it is fair to assume - but my family's Christmas cake decorations hold a special place in my heart. They are the plastic tress and reindeer and huskies and robins familiar to many of us 1970s or 1980s children.

The Christmas just gone, my mum and I invented a new tradition. She made two Christmas cakes and covered them with marzipan and my daughter and I turned up for the fun bit - to decorate them. And in a supreme act of generosity my mum went for a minimalist snowflake and penguin look and I was allowed to borrow the family decorations. Modern day snowflakes, Santa and penguins - check. Huskies - check. Reindeer - check. Trees - check. Robin - check. Metallic edible balls - check.

I hope we can repeat this every year - the three generations of us enjoying a flurry or royal icing and cheeky licks of the palette knife - but next year I won't need to borrow the decorations. I have found a wonderful website selling vintage style decorations and have just put in my order for reindeer, trees and holly.

There is something a bit silly about buying new decorations to look old. I wonder whether my daughter should be allowed to have the chubbier faced santas and cartoony model penguins that are popular in the shops now in order to create her own memories of a 21st century Christmas cake, rather than be forced to replicate my memories as her own. But any concerns I have about this disappear quickly when I think of the wonderful magical Christmas forest complete with herd of reindeer that I intend to create next year. And if she's very good then when I am making the cakes and she and her children come over to decorate them, she may just be allowed to borrow them herself.

www.cakecraftshop.co.uk

Is it a girl or a boy?

Above is a picture of one of my favourite of my daughter's outfits. True, the patterns are somewhat contrasting, but the flowery trousers captured summer beautifully, and, well, what's not to like about construction vehicles? (For those who are interested in such things, the trousers are from Tu at Sainsbury's, and the top is from Mothercare.)

Buying clothes that are not all pink or all blue is, as anyone who has tried to buy for a baby in recent years will know, very difficult. Where other colours creep in to girl's ranges, nice reds for example or bright yellows, they are girlified with bows or glitter or hearts (because as everyone knows, boys don't have hearts).

I started my maternity leave ten weeks before my baby was due, and used nearly every day of that leave online searching for baby clothes in primary colours. There are some out there, but they are nearly always expensive. I allowed myself one - a beautiful striped ensemble from Toby Tiger. It was the outfit I dreamed of bringing my baby home in. Alas it was too big and footless, no good for a teeny baby in the middle of winter. She wore it eventually, including for one of those cringey photoshoots we 'won' at Snappysnaps (if winning is the word when what it is is winning the opportunity to have a photoshoot and then be offered the chance to buy the results on massive canvases costing several hundred each. We declined of course, opting for two small prints, also extortionate, and I don't even like them. My husband had taken his glasses off to avoid glare and doesn't look like him and the Toby Tiger outfit - it just looks a bit odd.)

Anyway, I work very hard at making sure not all the clothes my daughter wears are pink. She's had t-shirts with lions on and brown corduroy trousers and owls and stripes and coats that look like they belong on a football manager circa 1984. They are all from the boys' sections of shops. And of course she's worn her fair share of dresses and bows and pinks too - I don't disallow them, I just want her to grow up knowing there is a choice. (Even Marks & Spencer, who did a lovely five pack of brightly coloured vests last year, branded them for boys, with the girls' version being, well, girlier, turquoise not blue, pink not red, etc).

The thing is, if she's wasn't wearing pink, strangers on buses and in queues and in shops would ask me all about my little boy. (This happens less so now her hair is longer). And much as gender doesn't matter, this riled me a little. It hasn't changed how we dress her, but it does explain why this was one of my favourite outfits of last year - it baffles strangers at first but they usually rightly concluded that while a girl would be dressed in construction vehicles, a boy would probably not be in flowery trousers.

A dress to give birth in - wtf!

I like to look through the catalogues of child related things I get sent and play a game with myself where I look for the most ridiculous purchases.

For a while I thought it was the sock-ons, sold at £4 a pop by Jojo Maman Bebe but I do at least concede that it's hard to keep socks on the feet of your baby and this product would do just that, though I personally am of the school of thought that thinks if your baby wants to pull their socks off they should be allowed to do so.

Yesterday though I received the Great LIttle Trading Company catalogue, full of mostly superfluous but really rather expensive items. Two in particular caught my eye for the ridiculous purchase game. The duvet grippers to stop your child's duvet falling off, and the inflatable bath spout cover. Yes, really.

Still, nothing has yet beat the NCT shop's Birthing and Maternity Dress so that you can feel feminine whilst giving birth. As if giving birth wasn't feminine enough. It's one of the many reasons why I have become ever so anti the NCT.