F has started daycare. For the first time in I don't even know how long, I have a morning where I'm at home by myself with no particular tasks in hand.
Bliss! I can sleep in! I can read the internet without being handed toy planes! I lounge in my hammock on the balcony, drinking coffee in the autumn sun! (For it is immediately autumn here, the baking summer has disintegrated like the pony tails I attempt to put F into. Red berries on the trees outside and vast electrical storms have taken over) At last, a few short fragile hours of rest!
I go and hoover the bathroom.
Ah, how the mighty are fallen in the midst of battle. Routine is an inevitable doom, I suppose. Quickly I find that I can't sleep, because I'm too used to getting up and pottering round the house, doing my scattered version of housework. It's a lot easier and faster without F helping, so I can then sit and relax afterwards. Even then, I'm wondering what she's up to at Dagis and rather missing playing the pirate boat game with the kitchen sink from the dolls' house.
(That's where you tip it on its side and pretend it's a pirate boat, if you're wondering. The lookout smurf has to shout 'Look Out!' and point at the dangerous toy cars so you can sail round them. I feel there is a movie spin-off in it.)
Yesterday, V and I took F to see her dagis for the first time. It's a tiny one at the far end of Haga, just fifteen kids or so, but perfectly situated for us. And good for class sizes and adult attention and so on. F got out of the pram and ran enthusiastically away from us, waving bye bye with one hand as she started waving hej hej to the nearest boy.
We didn't see her for half an hour as we sat through the tour and intro talk. She popped her head round the door and smiled at us near the end. That didn't last. She bellowed like a wounded Brian Blessed when we told her it was time to go.
Funny - I'm bone weary at the moment. A few weeks back, I would have given my eyeteeth and thrown my eyes in as a sweetener for a morning off. But after year and a half of parental duty, I'm so inured to it that I can't quite switch off. Nothing that a bit of practice won't cure, I expect. I shall get on to that as soon as the dishwasher is empty and the smurfs are back in their pen.
Tuesday, August 26, 2014
Thursday, August 21, 2014
What Larks
I got a short notice voice job last night and duly warned the guy I might have to bring F along. It's not really ideal for anyone, having her tottering round the studio outside.
Not that the guys at the studio I do most of my work at aren't great with her, on the couple of occasions she's come along. They aren't primarily there to provide childcare, however, and it's not terribly professional of me to ask them to do it. F's happy enough with strangers at the moment, which is horribly alarming for V and me, but she gets cranky and impatient after about fifteen minutes of anything. Which means after fifteen minutes, my takes adopt the higher pitch associated with a forced smile, because I'm trying to ignore my wailing daughter hammering the other side of the glass door to the booth.
Short notice meant I didn't realise I was agreeing to work for a studio I occasionally do stuff for in Stockholm, however.
My contact's name is the same as one of the local sound engineers, so I'm not totally incompetent for getting confused. When he called this morning, though, it was quickly apparent I was in the wrong city. Luckily V's theatre has a studio that wasn't being used, so I managed to arrange using it at lunchtime, so V could keep an eye on F.
Epic failures followed. When I arrived, with half an hour spare to set up and make sure I could manage Skype connections with Stockholm, F was asleep. Ten minutes later, when V got called into an unexpected but unavoidable meeting, she wasn't. I also had
So that was good.
V managed to escape for three frantic minutes, in which she connected me to the internet, suggested putting F in the adjoining music booth so I could watch her through the window, wished me luck, apologised and legged it.
The music room was full of exciting instruments, so looked like a good bet. It had two doors, the outer one of which I couldn't close because only V had a key, and locking F in seemed a bit extreme. One door would probably be fine, and I could keep an eye on her.
Half way through my first take, I kept an eye on her as she opened the door, weeping loudly at the abandonment she'd been put through. Her siren wail moved rapidly down the corridor outside and off into the theatre basement. It wasn't a particularly clean take, all in all.
Once I'd called them back, the clients were very understanding and happy for me to postpone a little. Miserably, I strapped F into her pram and put it in the music room, handing her a recorder and some sleigh bells before leaving her again. I waved and cooed through the window, but she wasn't buying it.
I got the clear after four takes, about ten minutes worth or so, and ran through to console F. Who was very quickly fine and over it, as far as I could see. Especially after parental guilt scored her classy bakery down on the canal. She must have forgiven me, she fed me prawns from her sandwich. After she'd sucked the juice out of them, of course, and I wasn't allowed any chocolate cake. She's probably okay, I figure.
I wasn't, I still feel like a hollow and worthless shell of a man. It's all very well, Larkin making his clear and accurate observations about parenting. He never pointed out the sheer force of fuck-up feedback. I locked my daughter in another room while she was crying! So I could mouth cheerful corporate banalities for money! I am a Monster!
I'll get over it, because, well, I'm over-dramatising it all as usual and anyway, that's what you do. Get on with it and try not to tear too much of the paper from over your cracks in the process. And anyway, F made me read an IKEA catalogue to her yesterday lunchtime, so we're probably about even overall.
Not that the guys at the studio I do most of my work at aren't great with her, on the couple of occasions she's come along. They aren't primarily there to provide childcare, however, and it's not terribly professional of me to ask them to do it. F's happy enough with strangers at the moment, which is horribly alarming for V and me, but she gets cranky and impatient after about fifteen minutes of anything. Which means after fifteen minutes, my takes adopt the higher pitch associated with a forced smile, because I'm trying to ignore my wailing daughter hammering the other side of the glass door to the booth.
Short notice meant I didn't realise I was agreeing to work for a studio I occasionally do stuff for in Stockholm, however.
My contact's name is the same as one of the local sound engineers, so I'm not totally incompetent for getting confused. When he called this morning, though, it was quickly apparent I was in the wrong city. Luckily V's theatre has a studio that wasn't being used, so I managed to arrange using it at lunchtime, so V could keep an eye on F.
Epic failures followed. When I arrived, with half an hour spare to set up and make sure I could manage Skype connections with Stockholm, F was asleep. Ten minutes later, when V got called into an unexpected but unavoidable meeting, she wasn't. I also had
- No script, because the email I'd been sent hadn't turned up for no obvious reason
- No Skype, because there hadn't been time to connect my laptop to the internet and I couldn't work the sound desk to get their Mac speakers playing
- Both arms full of baby
So that was good.
V managed to escape for three frantic minutes, in which she connected me to the internet, suggested putting F in the adjoining music booth so I could watch her through the window, wished me luck, apologised and legged it.
The music room was full of exciting instruments, so looked like a good bet. It had two doors, the outer one of which I couldn't close because only V had a key, and locking F in seemed a bit extreme. One door would probably be fine, and I could keep an eye on her.
Half way through my first take, I kept an eye on her as she opened the door, weeping loudly at the abandonment she'd been put through. Her siren wail moved rapidly down the corridor outside and off into the theatre basement. It wasn't a particularly clean take, all in all.
Once I'd called them back, the clients were very understanding and happy for me to postpone a little. Miserably, I strapped F into her pram and put it in the music room, handing her a recorder and some sleigh bells before leaving her again. I waved and cooed through the window, but she wasn't buying it.
I got the clear after four takes, about ten minutes worth or so, and ran through to console F. Who was very quickly fine and over it, as far as I could see. Especially after parental guilt scored her classy bakery down on the canal. She must have forgiven me, she fed me prawns from her sandwich. After she'd sucked the juice out of them, of course, and I wasn't allowed any chocolate cake. She's probably okay, I figure.
I wasn't, I still feel like a hollow and worthless shell of a man. It's all very well, Larkin making his clear and accurate observations about parenting. He never pointed out the sheer force of fuck-up feedback. I locked my daughter in another room while she was crying! So I could mouth cheerful corporate banalities for money! I am a Monster!
I'll get over it, because, well, I'm over-dramatising it all as usual and anyway, that's what you do. Get on with it and try not to tear too much of the paper from over your cracks in the process. And anyway, F made me read an IKEA catalogue to her yesterday lunchtime, so we're probably about even overall.
Sunday, August 17, 2014
Boxing Match
There is no limit to the amount of excitement one can glean from the humble cardboard box.
A plane, a bed, a boat, some form of car, a postbox, a racetrack. A seesaw, if not entirely deliberately. Less imaginatively (but no less gleefully) a place to explode out of screaming, like a moll in a gangster's cake.
I'd plumb forgotten what fun boxes are. Two years of annual house moves had rather jaded my view of boxes. I could take or leave them. F has thankfully reinvigorated my love affair with their possibilities. A whole hour of this afternoon vanished inside one today. Then we tried finger painting.
Not so successful - too tired to engage, and F is also amazingly fastidious about keeping her hands clean. "Oh no!" she said, holding up a dripping red palm and looking horrified. It's not her first impression of a murderer, either. Tears followed shortly after. I guess we should have stayed in the box.
She says "Oh no!" a lot at the moment. It means something has gone awry and needs fixing. Food falling on the floor, cars rolling over the edge of things, lego farmers not staying upright when rammed with a tractor, F herself toppling over, mummy or daddy not doing as they're told. Crumbs, just crumbs in general, are "Oh no!" when observed. When I hear it, it's usually a summons to action in some form. Now and again it's just narrative for whatever scrapes her tiny plastic Peppa Pig is being put through, but you can't take that on trust.
There is a slight hint of the storm to F at the moment. She's not been well, with a nasty cough for a week or so. It's kept her awake at night and she's not been eating as well as she usually does. The days find her tired and temperamental.
Or is it just the approaching monsoon season of the Terrible Twos? She's point blank refused to have a bath for the last two days, something she's usually a big fan of. Trying to scrape a yelling and paint-spattered infant into the tub, as we did today, is quite the feat of stamina. F beat us. Also a white jumper and two duck-shaped flannels.
Generally, any attempt to balk her increasingly clearly-manifested will result in outright fury now. F will tell me what she wants to eat, and when. If I don't agree that half an hour after breakfast is the right time for a large handful of pretzel sticks, for example, I'd better have a pretty good reason to back it up.
Our current fix-all no-you-can't-eat-that-now excuse is 'We're saving it for later'. F accepts it as tolerable. We had a bag of crisps the other night, and after eating some, we put the rest 'away for later' (i.e. we were going to eat them once she was asleep). Grudgingly, F took this at face value and left to play in her room. Mummy rustled the bag, to pinch a final one, and was immediately confronted by a screaming personification of moral outrage, tears in her eyes, accusing finger pointing at the bag.
Oh good. She can smell our lies. I can feel the next few years getting increasingly complicated, and it feels like migraine.
A plane, a bed, a boat, some form of car, a postbox, a racetrack. A seesaw, if not entirely deliberately. Less imaginatively (but no less gleefully) a place to explode out of screaming, like a moll in a gangster's cake.
I'd plumb forgotten what fun boxes are. Two years of annual house moves had rather jaded my view of boxes. I could take or leave them. F has thankfully reinvigorated my love affair with their possibilities. A whole hour of this afternoon vanished inside one today. Then we tried finger painting.
Not so successful - too tired to engage, and F is also amazingly fastidious about keeping her hands clean. "Oh no!" she said, holding up a dripping red palm and looking horrified. It's not her first impression of a murderer, either. Tears followed shortly after. I guess we should have stayed in the box.
She says "Oh no!" a lot at the moment. It means something has gone awry and needs fixing. Food falling on the floor, cars rolling over the edge of things, lego farmers not staying upright when rammed with a tractor, F herself toppling over, mummy or daddy not doing as they're told. Crumbs, just crumbs in general, are "Oh no!" when observed. When I hear it, it's usually a summons to action in some form. Now and again it's just narrative for whatever scrapes her tiny plastic Peppa Pig is being put through, but you can't take that on trust.
There is a slight hint of the storm to F at the moment. She's not been well, with a nasty cough for a week or so. It's kept her awake at night and she's not been eating as well as she usually does. The days find her tired and temperamental.
Or is it just the approaching monsoon season of the Terrible Twos? She's point blank refused to have a bath for the last two days, something she's usually a big fan of. Trying to scrape a yelling and paint-spattered infant into the tub, as we did today, is quite the feat of stamina. F beat us. Also a white jumper and two duck-shaped flannels.
Generally, any attempt to balk her increasingly clearly-manifested will result in outright fury now. F will tell me what she wants to eat, and when. If I don't agree that half an hour after breakfast is the right time for a large handful of pretzel sticks, for example, I'd better have a pretty good reason to back it up.
Our current fix-all no-you-can't-eat-that-now excuse is 'We're saving it for later'. F accepts it as tolerable. We had a bag of crisps the other night, and after eating some, we put the rest 'away for later' (i.e. we were going to eat them once she was asleep). Grudgingly, F took this at face value and left to play in her room. Mummy rustled the bag, to pinch a final one, and was immediately confronted by a screaming personification of moral outrage, tears in her eyes, accusing finger pointing at the bag.
Oh good. She can smell our lies. I can feel the next few years getting increasingly complicated, and it feels like migraine.
Sunday, August 10, 2014
Poop Poop
Hot summer, this one. Sweden has been basking in temperatures of thirty plus, if by basking you mean 'having massive forest fires'. We had sweaty nappy rashes instead.
The best cure for a big red bottom is to let the owner run about airing it. This meant a certain amount of involuntary potty training. F has an idea about potties. She knows you sit on one. Sometimes she tries to scootch it along as if it has wheels, sometimes she pulls it apart to investigate the subtle inner workings. Sometimes she takes Bunbun (now the settled name for her beloved plushy bunny), shoves her face first into the bowl and then sits on top. So we have a way to go.
Much of this way seems paved with poop. Parenthood generally seems to be.
I haven't written much about poop lately. Sadly, this isn't because my life is no longer saturated in it. It's just since F started doing adult-flavour ones, it's harder to sit and write about them with the same level of insouciant bonhomie I like to promolgate in this blog. Wit fails me, all I can think of it fatuous comparisons to chemical spills.
'Gong farmer' came low on my teenage list of dream jobs. Low it remains.
I have scraped handfuls of nutty slack off my parents' conservatory floor. Even with a nappy on, muddy algal sludge still managed to ooze round a loose corner to be smeared over my trouser legs during what I thought was an unusually affectionate hug. There was something that looked like a chocolate-coated pear under our balcony table. It wasn't.
The nappy rash is much better. I suppose that means having to hunt for landmines round our flat every so often was worth it. I don't know what produces more heartsink, the conversation that goes
J - Do you need a nappy change?
F - (reeking) Nuh.
or this one
F - (proudly pointing to her tummy and running up to me) Poop poop poop poop poop!
So far, she only runs to me with this diagnostic. Both of us are proud that we've at least taught our daughter this much on potty matters. Some of us may be prouder than others.
The best cure for a big red bottom is to let the owner run about airing it. This meant a certain amount of involuntary potty training. F has an idea about potties. She knows you sit on one. Sometimes she tries to scootch it along as if it has wheels, sometimes she pulls it apart to investigate the subtle inner workings. Sometimes she takes Bunbun (now the settled name for her beloved plushy bunny), shoves her face first into the bowl and then sits on top. So we have a way to go.
Much of this way seems paved with poop. Parenthood generally seems to be.
I haven't written much about poop lately. Sadly, this isn't because my life is no longer saturated in it. It's just since F started doing adult-flavour ones, it's harder to sit and write about them with the same level of insouciant bonhomie I like to promolgate in this blog. Wit fails me, all I can think of it fatuous comparisons to chemical spills.
'Gong farmer' came low on my teenage list of dream jobs. Low it remains.
I have scraped handfuls of nutty slack off my parents' conservatory floor. Even with a nappy on, muddy algal sludge still managed to ooze round a loose corner to be smeared over my trouser legs during what I thought was an unusually affectionate hug. There was something that looked like a chocolate-coated pear under our balcony table. It wasn't.
The nappy rash is much better. I suppose that means having to hunt for landmines round our flat every so often was worth it. I don't know what produces more heartsink, the conversation that goes
J - Do you need a nappy change?
F - (reeking) Nuh.
or this one
F - (proudly pointing to her tummy and running up to me) Poop poop poop poop poop!
So far, she only runs to me with this diagnostic. Both of us are proud that we've at least taught our daughter this much on potty matters. Some of us may be prouder than others.
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