I come Face to Face with my Ignorance of Science.

"Woss Dat?"

"That's a light, darling"

"ight?"

"Yes, a light. Uh. It makes… light."

First rumblings of the avalanche

I hazily toyed with giving Conrad to my friend D the other day. I had been out for a night on the town, and was deeply, drunkenly, asleep when Conrad's waking wail wrenched me out of slumber. It was not yet five a.m. Unimpressed, my darling boy: mama's still boozy.

But later that morning he miraculously found my lost phone charger, and was generally insanely cute, and came out with three more new words over the course of the day, pretty awesome ones - 'tea', 'hat' and 'fruit' - so I decided to keep him. 

These latest additions to Conrad's vocabulary met withe the gleeful affirmation, applause, hugs all round etc, as his other words. The list so far: Hi (Haiii), Bye Bye (Bah Bye), Dog (Doh), Bird (Bir), Duck (Duh), Fish (Fih), Bee (BEE! BEEBEEBEEEE!), Star (Dar), Baby (Babay), Hat (Hah), Shoes (Sue), Socks (Soh), Mama, Daddy, Nanna, Kitty (Kitta), More!, NO!!!! (Noh!!!), Bath (Bah), Door (Door Door), Book (Booh), Nose (Noe), Mouth (Mou), Eye, Wee Wee (Weh weh - unfortunately not yet in association with his own), Car (Tah), Truck (Tuh), Bike (Byh), Plane (Mayn), Nah nah (Food or drink), Bread (Beh), Cheese (Tzeeh), Puffballs (Puhboh), Fruit (Fooh) and Tea. 

I've been waiting for these words for months, ever since, one wondrous morning, he suddenly pointed out into the backyard and exclaimed, "Birds! Out there!"  But this gorgeous phrase turned out to be a one-off, and it is only now that I think the 'avalanche' of words that I've read about is beginning.

I am absolutely elated with every new word, to think it has been brewing in that little head for so many months and finally has been coordinated by his brain and mouth to come out into the spoken world. Welcome, dear words! You're here!

Rat vs Model Mother

Waaah, there's an enormous dead rat over there in the corner of the yard! Waahh, its head is several inches away from its body and there is blood all around. Waaah, I'm only noticing it AFTER I've finished putting out the washing, and Conrad has been roaming freely around me for 15 minutes. Waaah, I thought that was just innocent dirt all over Conrad's hands, and now I have to worry that he's been playing with, and therefore eating, rat entrails…..

"I'm going inside now!" I say brightly. Conrad makes no response, absorbed in the sight of leaves floating in rainwater. "Come on, darling," I entreat, holding out my hand and ignoring all the parenting rules not to break babies' concentration. And then, with a tone of panic: "Would you like some breakfast? Breakfast? BREAKFAST?!!??" completely throwing the parenting rulebook out the window by bribing him with food. Just get him away from that fucking rat! 

There is a time and place for perfect, conscious, respectful, politically correct, gender neutral, lahdidah parenting. And there is a time to just get that baby inside, lather up those hands, soap that mouth (yes, i really did!), lock the back door and wait for the man of the house to wake up and deal with decapitated rodents.