I was briefly back in the UK last Sunday, meeting with the project organisers who are commissioning me to do some writing on psychosis. Nothing like a late night flight into Stanstead to make you feel psychotic, it really did the trick in terms of stoking my creative engines. My passport is almost out of date, so the photo is ten years old. I got a very searching look at border control, and had to produce additional proof of identity. It's true, beard growth corresponds to terrorist tendencies.
Being back in London is an increasingly odd experience. Stuff carries on changing after you leave, of course, so new buildings mushroom up from concrete sites and shops get replaced with new shops selling the same thing in different colours. This is usual and to be expected, if jarring all the same. What makes it even odder is when I find myself speaking instinctive Swedish to the people I bump into on the tube.
"Are you queueing for the ticket machine?" asked someone.
-Nej nej nej, I reassured her hurriedly. It sounds pretty medieval to the modern Brit (not that she was one, I think she was an Italian tourist). Coincidentally I'm trying to learn how to pronounce Anglo-Saxon at the moment for a voice over job. Anglo-Saxon isn't totally dissimilar to Modern Swedish, it turns out, same Germanic roots. My Swedish probably sounds a bit medieval at the moment too. If this was one and a half thousand years ago, I'd probably fit right in. Or be executed in both countries as a spy. Either works.
Even weirder is that V has recently started apologising in English to her collidees in the street. And in the proper London idiom, too, a startled 'Sorry' without eye contact before briskly moving away so they can't hear you muttering how it was their fault anyway. She's very annoyed about this, she doesn't want to have English mannerisms. They don't come across well in Swedish, apparently. Her employees asked her to stop being so polite when making stage calls the other week. It seems 'Can Mr. So-and-so come to the stage please, thank-you!' can make you sound patronising, i.e. English, and is to be avoided.
The worst thing about the visit was just how much of a wrench it was being away from F. I'm pathetic. Two hours and I was already in emotional turmoil. What if she walks when I'm gone? Or what if she misses me so much she's upset? Or what if there's, I don't know, a landmine! Sweden is very prone to landmines! I must go home at once.
F did notice I was gone, long enough to look round and ask 'ba pa?' of V once. That was as missed as I got, which is A Good Thing (if somewhat wounding to my pride). She was asleep by the time I got home, so I had to stay awake until three o' clock in order to pick her up, smell her hair and reset my spiralling blood pressure. Keswick is going to be a sore test, I fear.
In Other News
- V took F to the baby group last week. She knew about the same number of children's songs as I did, which was immensely comforting. To me, at least. Not her.
- Spoon Progress: on being offered a filled spoon, F will take it in both hands and stick it firmly into her mouth, then turn it upside down so she can lick it clean. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. It already has porridge on it.
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Friday, October 4, 2013
Mobilis in mobile
Time to move house again.
We've been looking for three or four months. There's only so many times you can tread barefoot on a Smurf at three in the morning before deciding your daughter needs her own room. I can't quite decide which is my favourite. The Pirate Smurf's cutlass is quite bendy, although not quite bendy enough. Not as bad as the drones on the Scottish Smurf's bagpipes. Not, of course, that putting her in her own room will make any difference. Smurfs are probably fairly invasive, like lice.
Sweden has all kinds of helpful laws for people who rent houses, as we do. Veronica has been renting from the same company for seventeen years or so, and it's a first-hand contract. Whatever that means, I'm a little vague about the legal ramifications, but it's clearly a good thing. People arch their eyebrows and emit low whistles when she says we have one.
One of the things it means is that you can swap your existing flat for another one in the same company. The longer you've been with them, the higher up the waiting list you go. V had her heart set on the Haga district, a very calm and family-friendly part of the centre of town. It used to be a warehouse district, and was almost pulled down in the eighties to make room for something with more glass, steel and potential profit for business in it. Luckily forward-thinking hippies occupied it and got the demolitions cancelled. Now it's full of cobbles, antique shops and vegetarian coffee houses.
And, from November, us.
We've got a place at the foot of the hill with Skansen Kronen on it, an old artillery fort. Our balcony looks straight out on its foresty flanks. I can already see F running up and down them, skinning her knees and discovering nettles. And I can already see me struggling to keep up whilst attempting to pluck Smurfs out of my soles.
There's a mild downside, of course, which is that we have to move in under a month. On a day where V is closing one show and opening another the day after. And the day before I go back to the UK for three months, to work on a Christmas play in Keswick. V is already champing at the bit to throw everything into moving boxes immediately. I'm trying to resign myself quietly to not knowing where anything is when I get back, as well as steeling myself for three months of not being at home.
Time to stay changeable within a changing element, to borrow Captain Nemo's motto. Although he generally seemed to find things like moving house and spending time away from family fairly easy to bear. Perhaps I should invest in an incredible submarine, it could solve a lot of problems. Although there's no parking at the new place, so perhaps I shouldn't.
We've been looking for three or four months. There's only so many times you can tread barefoot on a Smurf at three in the morning before deciding your daughter needs her own room. I can't quite decide which is my favourite. The Pirate Smurf's cutlass is quite bendy, although not quite bendy enough. Not as bad as the drones on the Scottish Smurf's bagpipes. Not, of course, that putting her in her own room will make any difference. Smurfs are probably fairly invasive, like lice.
Sweden has all kinds of helpful laws for people who rent houses, as we do. Veronica has been renting from the same company for seventeen years or so, and it's a first-hand contract. Whatever that means, I'm a little vague about the legal ramifications, but it's clearly a good thing. People arch their eyebrows and emit low whistles when she says we have one.
One of the things it means is that you can swap your existing flat for another one in the same company. The longer you've been with them, the higher up the waiting list you go. V had her heart set on the Haga district, a very calm and family-friendly part of the centre of town. It used to be a warehouse district, and was almost pulled down in the eighties to make room for something with more glass, steel and potential profit for business in it. Luckily forward-thinking hippies occupied it and got the demolitions cancelled. Now it's full of cobbles, antique shops and vegetarian coffee houses.
And, from November, us.
We've got a place at the foot of the hill with Skansen Kronen on it, an old artillery fort. Our balcony looks straight out on its foresty flanks. I can already see F running up and down them, skinning her knees and discovering nettles. And I can already see me struggling to keep up whilst attempting to pluck Smurfs out of my soles.
There's a mild downside, of course, which is that we have to move in under a month. On a day where V is closing one show and opening another the day after. And the day before I go back to the UK for three months, to work on a Christmas play in Keswick. V is already champing at the bit to throw everything into moving boxes immediately. I'm trying to resign myself quietly to not knowing where anything is when I get back, as well as steeling myself for three months of not being at home.
Time to stay changeable within a changing element, to borrow Captain Nemo's motto. Although he generally seemed to find things like moving house and spending time away from family fairly easy to bear. Perhaps I should invest in an incredible submarine, it could solve a lot of problems. Although there's no parking at the new place, so perhaps I shouldn't.
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
White Lamb 2: The Reckoning
Lately, I met a crocodile who drives around in a car. He was pretty big and fat, and he blows a trumpet. The car was too short and his tail was too long, so it had to go on a little trailer at the back.
Okay, not really. This is a nursery rhyme. I told you I was going to learn them all before going back to the toddlers' group, and I meant it. All the classics. Krokodilen i Bilen (The Crododile in the Car) - tick. Bockarna Bruse (The Billy Goats Gruff)- tick (although a bit dubious on the last verse). Här Dansar herr Gurka (Mr Cucumber is Dancing Here) - tick plus. Var bor du lilla råtta (Where Do You Live, Little Rat?*) - about eighty percent. That's it for now, sadly, and that's only taken me less than a week because I half knew them already from F's CD. And Lille Katt, obviously, but I can sing that in my sleep now. I probably do.
F decided that my practice was a good idea, so she did some too. She woke up at three in the morning before the group and sang for about two hours. If I thought I might have a better chance at looking like I knew what was happening, I was wrong. I looked like I'd been on a month-long bender instead, right down to the flame-grilled eyes and the head full of hoover fur.
All the same, it was much more positive this week. I found a stroller for F, who whooped with joy and started trying to run over some of the crawling babies with great glee. She must be really frustrated that she can't crawl yet, I had no idea her envy ran so deep.
Ready to show off my newfound prowess in the singing circle, they surprised me by flinging out an English one. Possibly just for me, I'm not sure - I think some of the older kids have been learning it at their dagis as well. But we sang 'I like the Flowers', which I haven't sung since doing drama warm-ups back in my student player days at King's on the Strand. Turns out the Swedish for Boom-de-a-da is something like 'oo-de-lalli'. Probably not a strict translation, but it suffices.
*To which the answer is 'In Your Hat'. Hooray for nursery rhymes.
Okay, not really. This is a nursery rhyme. I told you I was going to learn them all before going back to the toddlers' group, and I meant it. All the classics. Krokodilen i Bilen (The Crododile in the Car) - tick. Bockarna Bruse (The Billy Goats Gruff)- tick (although a bit dubious on the last verse). Här Dansar herr Gurka (Mr Cucumber is Dancing Here) - tick plus. Var bor du lilla råtta (Where Do You Live, Little Rat?*) - about eighty percent. That's it for now, sadly, and that's only taken me less than a week because I half knew them already from F's CD. And Lille Katt, obviously, but I can sing that in my sleep now. I probably do.
F decided that my practice was a good idea, so she did some too. She woke up at three in the morning before the group and sang for about two hours. If I thought I might have a better chance at looking like I knew what was happening, I was wrong. I looked like I'd been on a month-long bender instead, right down to the flame-grilled eyes and the head full of hoover fur.
All the same, it was much more positive this week. I found a stroller for F, who whooped with joy and started trying to run over some of the crawling babies with great glee. She must be really frustrated that she can't crawl yet, I had no idea her envy ran so deep.
Ready to show off my newfound prowess in the singing circle, they surprised me by flinging out an English one. Possibly just for me, I'm not sure - I think some of the older kids have been learning it at their dagis as well. But we sang 'I like the Flowers', which I haven't sung since doing drama warm-ups back in my student player days at King's on the Strand. Turns out the Swedish for Boom-de-a-da is something like 'oo-de-lalli'. Probably not a strict translation, but it suffices.
*To which the answer is 'In Your Hat'. Hooray for nursery rhymes.
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Baby Gym
F makes me feel horrendously unfit. Already, her podgy baby arms and legs are becoming lean and muscular. When she's not asleep, she's always doing crunches, sit-ups, squats and press-ups to better herself. In fact she's recently started including the weight of her high chair to press-ups, pushing herself and it away from the table over and over.
In contrast, I have done no dedicated exercise in the last eight months.
Picking her up and down might count for a bit, I suppose. Because she's always gaining weight, she's always slightly too heavy for me. This is excellent training, I suppose. Keep increasing what you benchpress, that's the way forward, isn't it? If I keep it up, by the time she's thirty five or so I'll look like a young Schwarzenegger. Except I'll be seventy. And still a better actor, even if I'm demented by then.
We walk a lot too, that's healthy. We bought a new baby bjorn, so I can keep carrying her until she's three or so. They're great things - they take all the stress of carrying baby out of your arms and shoulders and concentrate it handily in your lower back instead. F gets tired and shouty after about three-quarters of an hour in it. It takes me about three hours to massage the knots out of my sacrum after that.
She enjoys it, though, she likes being able to see out and grab things, and her patience for being sat in the pram is swiftly decreasing. Not that she has much patience. After the baby group, she's started trying to crawl a bit more. She knows there's something to it, she can see the point. Like the spoon feeding (latest development - use of a loaded spoon as a comb), she can't quite see how to achieve it yet. She's just really really angry that lying on her face and flailing isn't the right answer, although not quite angry enough to call it a day on that particular tactic.
In contrast, I have done no dedicated exercise in the last eight months.
Picking her up and down might count for a bit, I suppose. Because she's always gaining weight, she's always slightly too heavy for me. This is excellent training, I suppose. Keep increasing what you benchpress, that's the way forward, isn't it? If I keep it up, by the time she's thirty five or so I'll look like a young Schwarzenegger. Except I'll be seventy. And still a better actor, even if I'm demented by then.
We walk a lot too, that's healthy. We bought a new baby bjorn, so I can keep carrying her until she's three or so. They're great things - they take all the stress of carrying baby out of your arms and shoulders and concentrate it handily in your lower back instead. F gets tired and shouty after about three-quarters of an hour in it. It takes me about three hours to massage the knots out of my sacrum after that.
She enjoys it, though, she likes being able to see out and grab things, and her patience for being sat in the pram is swiftly decreasing. Not that she has much patience. After the baby group, she's started trying to crawl a bit more. She knows there's something to it, she can see the point. Like the spoon feeding (latest development - use of a loaded spoon as a comb), she can't quite see how to achieve it yet. She's just really really angry that lying on her face and flailing isn't the right answer, although not quite angry enough to call it a day on that particular tactic.
Saturday, September 21, 2013
Baa Baa White Lamb
F had her first taste of day care today. She went for a couple of hours of playing with other toddlers and near-toddlers at a local church hall. Good fun for her, I hoped, plus lots of new ideas for movement and some new toys to bash around. Her smurfs are starting to unionise, I suspect, I felt they needed a day of rest.
Being a parent makes me terribly competitive. From quite a competitive start, as well. It's not a race! I keep telling myself. Nobody is keeping track of how quickly your daughter grows, or when they hit milestones. Well, okay, they are, the midwife does it. But that's just quietly professional, there's not prizes or anything. Are there? There should be, is my basic instinct. And F should win them all.
The reason I mention this is that in a group of about ten children (I lost count very quickly), F was the only one there not actually walking or crawling independently. "Oh, that's fine, Valkyria/Odin* didn't start until he/she was twelve months" people kept telling me reassuringly. Except the proud mum sitting next to me, whose son was two weeks younger and leaping balletically round the mat like a young Nureyev.
The singing circle was kind of an ordeal - I knew slightly less than half of the songs. F has a CD of kids songs, some of which have osmotically embedded themselves into my brain through repetition. Not enough to do anything more than poorly and obviously lip-sync my way through the Swedish equivalent of 'Baa Baa Black Sheep', anyway. Which is 'Bä, bä, vita lamm' and has a totally different tune, just to make it even worse.
Hampered as usual by my dismal Swedish, I felt a bit gloomy by the end. Everyone else sat in the common room having fika whilst their kids romped and cavorted independently round the far end of the room. I sat with the kids, holding F up so she could play with the big plastic activity centre she wanted to grab. Lying next to it wasn't quite good enough, that made her get shouty and impatient, and whilst she's extremely close to crawling or pulling herself upright, she's a shade away from it still. So I'm still her bionic walking machine.
F had a splendid time, which was obviously more important. Other than the bit where she unexpectedly nearly stood up and faceplanted vigorously onto her nose, at least. All the other kids came and stood round me in an accusing circle, staring at F while she howled or checking back with their own parents to see if they'd learnt from my mistake. Perhaps no actual judgement was passed, I don't know, but for a moment there it felt quite Lord of the Flies. My head certainly felt at risk of being left on the handles of the inflatable rocking horse as a warning.
We're going back next week. By then, I will have taught myself the lyrics to all Swedish nursery rhymes and F will be able fly. That'll show 'em.
*Not their real names, sadly
Being a parent makes me terribly competitive. From quite a competitive start, as well. It's not a race! I keep telling myself. Nobody is keeping track of how quickly your daughter grows, or when they hit milestones. Well, okay, they are, the midwife does it. But that's just quietly professional, there's not prizes or anything. Are there? There should be, is my basic instinct. And F should win them all.
The reason I mention this is that in a group of about ten children (I lost count very quickly), F was the only one there not actually walking or crawling independently. "Oh, that's fine, Valkyria/Odin* didn't start until he/she was twelve months" people kept telling me reassuringly. Except the proud mum sitting next to me, whose son was two weeks younger and leaping balletically round the mat like a young Nureyev.
The singing circle was kind of an ordeal - I knew slightly less than half of the songs. F has a CD of kids songs, some of which have osmotically embedded themselves into my brain through repetition. Not enough to do anything more than poorly and obviously lip-sync my way through the Swedish equivalent of 'Baa Baa Black Sheep', anyway. Which is 'Bä, bä, vita lamm' and has a totally different tune, just to make it even worse.
Hampered as usual by my dismal Swedish, I felt a bit gloomy by the end. Everyone else sat in the common room having fika whilst their kids romped and cavorted independently round the far end of the room. I sat with the kids, holding F up so she could play with the big plastic activity centre she wanted to grab. Lying next to it wasn't quite good enough, that made her get shouty and impatient, and whilst she's extremely close to crawling or pulling herself upright, she's a shade away from it still. So I'm still her bionic walking machine.
F had a splendid time, which was obviously more important. Other than the bit where she unexpectedly nearly stood up and faceplanted vigorously onto her nose, at least. All the other kids came and stood round me in an accusing circle, staring at F while she howled or checking back with their own parents to see if they'd learnt from my mistake. Perhaps no actual judgement was passed, I don't know, but for a moment there it felt quite Lord of the Flies. My head certainly felt at risk of being left on the handles of the inflatable rocking horse as a warning.
We're going back next week. By then, I will have taught myself the lyrics to all Swedish nursery rhymes and F will be able fly. That'll show 'em.
*Not their real names, sadly
Friday, September 20, 2013
Swing
Swings are fairly safe for an eight-month-old, right? I mean, as long as you don't go nuts and start trying to get them to orbit the bar or anything. Or leave them to it while you go and get ice cream. And I'm talking the bucket seats here, that's obvious. Not the dangling tyres or the single rubber strap ones. Basically nothing that looks like it should have been on Gladiators. I'm not a monster.
I'd been tempted to give F a go on a swing for ages, but that nagging internal voice that tells you unsupervised fun is the same as bad parenting kept me from it. There was also an external voice that kept reminding me to wait until my wife wasn't at work. It wasn't a nagging voice, can I just make that very clear? She reads this blog, after all. It was a dulcet voice of kindly reason, one that I love very much.
F likes swings now. Creaky ones especially, they make a good noise. Even better than that is a creaky swing with another child in it, that's fascinating. I don't know if F is watching older kids to pick up movement tips or whether she's just trying to work out what they are. She's only recently realised things like birds and animals are at all interesting. Ducks are now hilarious, for example. Only a few weeks ago she was totally indifferent to them because Look! Leaves!
F likes most stuff, to be fair. Novel things especially, which covers pretty much everything. She doesn't generally seem to get scared or apprehensive of new stuff though, she just giggles or guffaws and tries to grab it. Worrying comes later on in development, I vaguely recall.
What bliss not to have to put up with that! As the top of my head begins its long, slow reveal through my increasingly grey-shot hair, I can't help but be a little jealous. About seventy percent of the parenting I feel I do (F does most of the hard work, learning motor functions and how the world works and all that shit. I'm basically a combination butler and pack mule, really) seems to be telling myself not to panic.
Not worrying is, for me, a learnt skill, the kind that I have to concentrate quite hard to maintain. Perhaps it will become automatic over time, the way that anything does with daily practice. Nothing in my experience or the many other parents I know seems to suggest this is the case, however. Fingers crossed for graceful balding, then.
I'd been tempted to give F a go on a swing for ages, but that nagging internal voice that tells you unsupervised fun is the same as bad parenting kept me from it. There was also an external voice that kept reminding me to wait until my wife wasn't at work. It wasn't a nagging voice, can I just make that very clear? She reads this blog, after all. It was a dulcet voice of kindly reason, one that I love very much.
F likes swings now. Creaky ones especially, they make a good noise. Even better than that is a creaky swing with another child in it, that's fascinating. I don't know if F is watching older kids to pick up movement tips or whether she's just trying to work out what they are. She's only recently realised things like birds and animals are at all interesting. Ducks are now hilarious, for example. Only a few weeks ago she was totally indifferent to them because Look! Leaves!
F likes most stuff, to be fair. Novel things especially, which covers pretty much everything. She doesn't generally seem to get scared or apprehensive of new stuff though, she just giggles or guffaws and tries to grab it. Worrying comes later on in development, I vaguely recall.
What bliss not to have to put up with that! As the top of my head begins its long, slow reveal through my increasingly grey-shot hair, I can't help but be a little jealous. About seventy percent of the parenting I feel I do (F does most of the hard work, learning motor functions and how the world works and all that shit. I'm basically a combination butler and pack mule, really) seems to be telling myself not to panic.
Not worrying is, for me, a learnt skill, the kind that I have to concentrate quite hard to maintain. Perhaps it will become automatic over time, the way that anything does with daily practice. Nothing in my experience or the many other parents I know seems to suggest this is the case, however. Fingers crossed for graceful balding, then.
Thursday, September 19, 2013
Spoon Update
It's been well over a month of training now. F can
- Put food onto a spoon with one hand
- Take food off a spoon with one hand
- Eat food with one hand whilst holding a spoon in the other
- Hold an empty spoon and bowl and pretend to eat out of it
- Not actually combine these activities to eat with a spoon yet
The blast radius for her feeding attempts is about a foot smaller, although this merely means it's also about an inch deeper in partially-masticated goo.
This is all quite frustrating for all concerned. This probably also means it's normal.
- Put food onto a spoon with one hand
- Take food off a spoon with one hand
- Eat food with one hand whilst holding a spoon in the other
- Hold an empty spoon and bowl and pretend to eat out of it
- Not actually combine these activities to eat with a spoon yet
The blast radius for her feeding attempts is about a foot smaller, although this merely means it's also about an inch deeper in partially-masticated goo.
This is all quite frustrating for all concerned. This probably also means it's normal.
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