I’m a bit blog-prolific, this week, aren’t I?

See? Idyllic pace of life,
immaculately well-organised living
space, and no room for anything
that?s not totally necessary?

Some days, I drive past developments of two bedroomed apartments in the city centre, and desperately want one. Especially the sort that are converted Victorian warehouses, by the river. I’ve always been this way. Tiny cottages in picturesque village locations also draw me, as do canal boats, and I’ve only just worked out what the appeal is.

I want to run away from my stuff.

I want to maintain my four bedroomed house full of things I don’t quite want to throw away, but actually live in tidiness and minimalist simplicity somewhere else. It’s not that I’m seeking to leave my husband and/or children behind. It’s just all the toys and computers and bits and bobs that I’d rather not look at all day. So I’d sit in peacefully uncluttered serenity, but come home whenever I wanted something.

I really need to address my lifestyle, don’t I?

I promise, Daisy and Henry, here and now, in front of the entire internet, not to teach you to read a minute before you’re ready. I will stop the minute it stops being fun, because reading is fun, and I would much rather back off for a week, a month, or a year, than put you off for life by taking the fun out of it. For as long as I am taking personal responsibility for your education, I will make the effort to provide you with information sources that don’t require reading, rather than requiring you to learn to read, for as long as is necessary. And if I ever do decide to send you to school, I promise not to buy in to the culture of excessive academic pressure that is spoiling the childhood of children up and down the country.

But learn to read, coz it’s great.

That’s all.

The chap to whom I was referring was Ben Goldacre, at the Grauniad.? The chap who said,

… the whole field of biometrics and ID is rather like medical quackery: as usual, on the one hand we have snake oil salesmen promising the earth, and on the other a bunch of humanities graduates who don’t understand technology, science or even human behaviour. Buying it. Bigging it up. Thinking it’s a magic wand.

It’s absolutely true, as well.? I really don’t consider understanding technology to be that complicated, but I spent eight years working in the IT industry, and Kevin still works in the IT industry, and it’s riddled with people making management decisions like this, with no understanding of the implications, no sense to ask the people who would understand, and utterly carried away by the empty promises of a few unscupulous sales people, who probably don’t understand it properly, either.? But they came with free tickets to a big game at Anfield, so they must be right…

The bit that alarms me about this, is that I can’t just opt out.? I can refuse to engage in biometric data, refuse to get a passport and therefore stay here, use cash if/when my bank decide to jump on the band wagon, but that doesn’t actually protect me.? I also need a t-shirt saying “I refuse to engage with biometric data, so please don’t chop my finger off.”? And a mugger who can read.

I’ve always reckoned that Daisy and I didn’t need a toddler group every day of the week. Some people seem to need that. In the last few months, I’ve become aware that Daisy needed something new to do - Musical Minis by itself wasn’t really enough, any more, and so we’ve recently started going to Sticky Fingers, for variety. However, with one thing and another, we seem to have had a frantically busy week, and today it’s been a relief to spend an entire afternoon at home.

It’s not all been Organised Activity. We’ve been to the dentist, and a birthday party, amongst other things. However, with the implementation of my new No Telly Between 10am and 5pm rule, and Henry deciding to sleep for a solid three hours this afternoon, Daisy and I were left to have a very lovely time. No background noise, no distractions, just rather a lot of glue and glitter.

Turning the telly off is starting to look like a really significant decision. I have as many good intentions as the next person, but we’d slipped and slipped until it was on all day every day, again. This week, she’s been playing properly again - by herself, as well as with me - and having to think of things to do, which is much better for her. And today, we’ve both really benefitted from winding down a little, and being able to relax.

Next week, we’re going to the Lakes, so there’s been a bit of a party atmosphere around here, since Kevin came home. I do hope it’s nice. Going away with the kids can go either way, really - either it’s great to spend some time together, or it’s not much of a holiday, because you’re doing all the same things as you have to do at home. I’ll let you know which way it goes…

Well, maybe a little. You see, I worked out this weekend why Henry isn’t on solids yet. Daisy was barely sixteen weeks when she started, and it was in response to a sudden and frantic growth spurt. There are lots of reasons why Henry has been different - he had the growth spurt, but about three weeks earlier, when it was far too soon to consider it, so I just rode it out, and he settled down. I know a little more about breastfeeding now, and am much more chilled about the occasions when he does need to feed more often, and/or in the night, this time around. I am in the reassuring position of having the medical types all insisting that he shouldn’t get anything else until he’s six months old, too, though with Daisy I just ignored them. All those things are reasons, but none of them is actually why.

I don’t want him to grow up. With Daisy, every stage was wildly exciting, and I was constantly pushing to see what she could do next. I still am, in fact, because she’s doing things that we’ve never seen before - she’d the oldest, so presumably always will. Henry, though, is my baby, and I just don’t want to move past this stage. I don’t want to - I’m not ready. He will never be as totally, 100% dependent on me as he is now, ever again. And once it’s gone, you can’t get it back. Breastfeeding has been so hard. The first three months or so were punctuated by more or less constant pain, which was incredibly frustrating. The six weeks following that were all about his weight gain, and it was impossible to enjoy the relationship properly, because I was forever trying to make him feed more, and worrying about it all. Suddenly, in the last week, I’ve found myself in a place where I can feed on demand, without the constant counting of hours, and fretting over it, plus about three weeks ago my nipple finally healed. This is the way breastfeeding is supposed to be - relaxed, intimate, unencumbered. I want it to last a little longer before I start to throw it all away for pureed parsnip and mashed potato. I want time to enjoy it. He’ll never be a baby again.

Is that terribly selfish?

Don’t answer that.