Friday 30 December 2011

Driving around for Christmas - by Theo

I had had the silly idea that, since we'd moved back to the UK, spending holidays driving round the South West visiting family were a thing of the past. What a foolish notion.

Deciding that GKK (our clio) wasn't up to it, my parents kindly lent us their BMW (after we'd driven to their house for the Yuletide festivities) for our visit to Cornwall. Rosie had a splendid time on Christmas Day, with many of her favourite people (and cat) being there.

Despite all the driving and the disturbed nights (even when Rosie doesn't wake up, she's such a fidgety sleeper that we invariably do), it was wonderful to see everyone. We'd spent the night with my parents - Cathy, Kate's mum had joined us too - then headed back to Bristol on Boxing Day for a party at Pete and Ems' place. Rosie spent much of it delightedly spinning round in their office chair or falling backwards off their sofa onto a pile of cushions. Then, on the 27th, we dropped Cathy off at the airport and headed down to Penwith to stay with Becky (Kate's sister), her husband Dan and their tribe of four children - or, as Rosie calls them, 'the cousins'!


Rosie was in her element - a house full of books and toys, a big garden to run around in, and four doting older playmates. I even got to relax a bit and read a few books!
Day trips out to Kate's dad and grandparents in Falmouth, and to friends in St. Ives (Jon and Sarah) were also on the itinerary, and on the way back, through fog and rain, a stop with the Presswells in Devon. Again Rosie was having a fab time with her cousins there, but the presence of a puppy (Mylo) made her a bit nervous and was why we weren't staying for too long.

It was, as usual, a lovely trip, especially for Rosie who revelled in seeing everyone. But goodness did it feel good to get home!

Thursday 29 December 2011

A heartfelt thank you to Laura Veirs by Kate

One of the things I had been dreading when it came to parenting was that music category known as Children's Songs. Even before Rosie's advent, I had already heard too many brittle ditties with sickly, high-pitched vocals laid over the kind of artificial synthesiser arrangements a self-respecting Kraftwerk-lover would rightly eschew with contempt. Or indeed any self-respecting music-lover. Some of the tunes from Disney cartoon musicals pass muster (I will happily listen to The Jungle Book OST on repeat) but otherwise there are far too many that I believe are given second-class musical treatment simply because the songs are aimed at children. It's both cynical and patronising, in my view. Not to mention exquisite torture to long-suffering parents who are forced to listen to the horrible things over and over every time they get in the car with their pint-sized offspring.

So when I heard Laura Veirs' arrangement of Jump Down Spin Around played on BBC 6Music, I was immediately interested to hear that it came from an entire collection by Veirs aimed at children (inspired by her own experience of new motherhood).

I'm not ashamed to say there was a high degree of self-interest in our decision to buy the CD for Rosie as a Christmas present. Anyone with small children knows if they like something, they will want it repeated ad nauseam. And ad infinitum. I was determined to find something Theo and I could bear to listen to on repeat as well.

And I'm pleased to say Tumble Bee by Laura Veirs absolutely fits the bill. Theo and I are totally charmed by the folksy arrangements of (largely) American traditional children's songs. But what would Rosie think?

She was immediately intrigued by the cover art and the little booklet that came inside the CD, so that was a good start. Then we put the CD on and held our breath as Rosie listened to the first track. There was a infinitesimal pause after it ended, then Rosie shouted; "Again! Again!"

We breathed out.

In fact, Rosie called for an encore on every track played and happily danced to Tumble Bee and bounced in time on her new trampoline (another Christmas present) for the rest of the afternoon.

She has since settled on Why, Oh Why? as her favourite track from Tumble Bee, but that's okay. Because we like it too. A lot.

Saturday 24 December 2011

Christmas come early - by Theo

Tomorrow we're heading to Cirencester for Christmas Day with my parents - Kate's mum is also joining us - and we're hoping to get away reasonably early. Realising that presenting Rosie with a full stocking from Santa, then demanding she abandon her new (or newish - Santa's big on second hand) possessions to get into the car for an hour was just begging for a tantrum. So we decided to go all European and arrange for Saint Nick to come a day early, after Rosie's nap.

Rosie woke up from her nap a good 40 minutes earlier than usual, catching us a bit unawares (Santa hadn't even begun putting Daddy's stocking out), and the sight of a big pile of brown paper parcels outside her door freaked her out a bit.

When she finally calmed down, she became engrossed by the first present she unwrapped - a squeezed ball-globe - to the extent that she didn't unwrap another for a good half-hour and barely went on her new (£3.20 on eBay) trampoline except to retrieve said ball.

That soon changed when she discovered the joy of chocolate money, and then the hunt was on to find more. Luckily, as there wasn't any, she was soon engrossed by some new books. Predictably, and rather depressingly, the four Spanish books weren't as popular as the single English one - a 'Little Princess' title.

As Mummy's mango bodycream threatened to become a point of contention (Rosie wanted to open it and, probably, eat it - "I like mango!"), we wheeled in the big package which grabbed her attention. "It's Thomas!"

I think she's going to be hugely disappointed when she discovers that it's merely "a" Thomas. Still, plenty of fun to be had in the meantime.

Friday 23 December 2011

The return of Club Choke - by Theo

Club Choke holds a special place in our hearts for, although it had ceased to exist as a monthly event by the time we met, it was through the club's message boards that we commenced our friendship and flirtation. So when we heard that Club Choke would be resurrected for its 10th anniversary we immediately signed up before we'd even seen the line up - but what a line up!

Thanks to my sister Hermione and her husband Richard agreeing to babysit (despite a triple booking) we made it to The Croft on time, where we ran into a veritable who's who in the Bristol music scene from the past 10 years. Many of them were old friends who we hadn't seen since we'd got back from Spain, so we almost wanted there to be more time between bands to chat and catch up. As it was, in order to fit an incredible 8 bands into the evening, there were two stages running in synch, meaning no break between bands.
Anta kicked off the evening with one long, almost seamless piece of tight-to-the-groove prog. Awesome, even if the gong was (intentionally?) hilarious.


Then it was a dash back through the Croft to the (relatively) new front room for the ultimate Choke band - Big Joan - who were as brilliant as ever with fat, scratchy bass and a captivating front woman. Playing mostly tracks from their ace new album, they did wheel out one old favourite, Tiger, which was great to hear.

The one non-local band, Actionbeat, followed back in the main room. We stuck it for a bit, but the pretentious vocals were bugging Kate and the squally guitars were irritating me: after two bands who had had such emphatic rhythms, I wanted something with a groove, and despite having two drummers Actionbeat didn't.

The very enjoyable Glis Glis were next, but by then we were starting to flag - sometimes you need a break between bands - and we're not used to standing up so much these days!

We got our wind back for the main event though, the legendary Madnomad. They'd stopped playing just as I got into the local scene, so had never seen them (despite knowing all the members), though their reputation had set the bar high. They cleared it. Despite nearly a decade away from the stage (as Madnomad) they'd lost none of their stage presence and had us all bouncing along merrily, though the general lack of participation in the masked mosh pit at the end perhaps showed everyone's age - ours included.


Sadly, we didn't have enough stamina to make it through the following three acts - SJ Esau, War Against Sleep and Geisha - all bands we've seen and enjoyed many a time, and we had babysitters to relieve, so we called it a night there. But what a great way to finish...

Monday 19 December 2011

Our Little Princess? by Theo

The other day somebody commented on our blog that we shouldn't think too hard about parenting and just let things happen naturally. We kind of agreed and disagreed at the same time: parenting is hugely important and we think it is worth thinking about how you go about being a parent. But, in case we come across as manic 'must-stick-to-a-prescriptive-parenting-style' dictators, here's a little example of how our darling daughter constantly derails us....

Neither Kate nor I are big fans of Princesses. There are lots of reasons for this. While neither of us have exactly the same views, collectively we're not fond of:
  • the association of girls (and boys) with certain colours and clothing styles which the whole Princess syndrome helps disseminate and reinforce;
  • the Princesses in traditional fairytales are all ridiculously meek and mild characters, constantly waiting to be rescued, whose stories always end when they get married (as if a woman ceased to be of interest on becoming a wife). We'd rather a daughter who was more self-reliant and independent thanks very much*;
  • the idea of owing your status in society to your parents and/or husband, rather than your own merits, isn't really the message we'd like our little girl to grow up with.
So we'd resolved not to get Rosie books and clothes that gave out the idea that little girls should be pretty, quiet, well dressed and delicate in order to be valued. Frankly I'd be happy if Rosie never saw a Disney film in her life, but that's practically impossible. But at least we thought we'd be able to put it off until Rosie had the language skills for us to discuss the ideas with her.

Then a very kind friend of ours donated some of her daughter's old books to us. The collection include three books from Tony Ross's 'The Little Princess' series. Despite our initial intention to take them along to the charity shop they swiftly became firm favourites with Rosie.

We relented. And despite us still not being fans of Princess books, there's a fourth 'The Little Princess' book wrapped up and waiting for Rosie under our Christmas Tree.

*Sure the Paper-bag Princess is a good example of a self-reliant Princess. But I think the story would be even better if she wasn't a Princess at all.

Sunday 18 December 2011

M-Shed - by Theo

After a rather disastrous park trip this morning - Rosie wanted to be carried the whole way and didn't want to go on anything when she got there - we decided some indoor exercise for our tiny toddler was in order. So we bundled ourselves into Granny's Go Kart, picked up Aunty Hermione in Clifton, and headed to the M-shed on Princess Wharf.The huge ex-warehouse, which used to house the Industrial Museum, is now a free Museum of Bristol past and present (in fact several of the exhibits are left over from the Industrial Museum days). We've been there with Rosie before, with varying degrees of success - Rosie can become quite fixated on an object and will refuse to be torn away from it for ages. That's fine when the object in question is an old Anderson shelter that she can just walk into, but when it's one of the many keyboard/screen interactive activities around the museum it's a different question. They just aren't quite at Rosie height, meaning one of her devoted slaves... sorry, parents, has to hold her up, which gets tiring pretty quickly.

Much more entertaining for us was the dress up section, where visitors could try on police and fire fighter outfits. Rosie kept putting the helmets on back to front, and often ended up looking like an extra from Stars Wars. With only one minor tantrum (after we stopped her from scratching at a Beryl Cook original) we managed to extricate Rosie from keyboards, through the 'magic' doors and home for tea.
M-shed: highly recommended, especially if you have a toddler to exercise.

Saturday 17 December 2011

End of Term - by Theo

Yesterday was our last day of term at the university, with many schools in the Bristol LEA having already finished for the Christmas holidays. We had tea and cake and a fairly relaxed program of feedback on the course so far, tips on behaviour management and advice on job applications. Yep, we may still have 6 months of the course to go, but we're already thinking about, and being advised on, job hunting.

Thinking back over the course, as we had to do yesterday, made me realise how much I've been enjoying being a student again. Yes, I've enjoyed the actual teaching too, and I'm really looking forward to my placement in the spring term when I'll have a 2/3rds timetable and only two days at university. But the lectures and the learning has been absolutely fascinating, while the reading we've been asked to do as research for assignments has (in most cases) been a pleasure rather than a chore, even if at times I've wondered when exactly I'd find time to fit it all in. The pace has been unrelenting - there has always been something I should be doing - even over the Christmas break we've an assignment to finish off and lessons to plan for the first week back. Yet it's been a great experience so far, and I'm going to miss the university side of things while on placement in the spring term. At the back of my mind I'm already wondering whether at some point down the line I may want to return to Bristol Uni once more...

Thursday 15 December 2011

Missing Madrid - by Theo

For the first time since we moved back from Madrid at the very end of June I find myself missing the city itself. Our friends there and the free-time we had have long been missed, but as Christmas nears I'm missing some of the great things about winter in Spain's capital.

Some things I miss are quite boringly mundane - like the cheap, regular and heated buses that I used to take to work. There's nothing like getting caught in a storm of hail while cycling to make you yearn for the days when we had a decent and affordable public transport system on our doorstep. I also miss living in a flat and benefiting from the heating of the surrounding flats, especially now we're in an end of terrace house and seem to be fighting an endless battle against mould. Other things are more romantic.

I miss the mornings. Crisp and cold, with temperatures often well below freezing, but usually dry and sunny, they were times to enjoy a frosty stroll through the park with Rosie wrapped up in her pram. It did snow mind you the three winters we were there, but the city was kitted out for it - it functioned, rather than ground to a halt.


I miss the street-corner kiosks selling roasted chestnuts. I never bought any, but they smelt good and I liked the fact they were there!

I miss the Christmas lights, both the big bold ones along Gran Via and Calle Alcala, and the more parochial efforts on Jose del Hierro in our barrio. Oh sure, there's Christmas lights in the UK, but none near us it seems.

I miss the little markets that would spring up in random squares, selling tacky Christmas decorations, beautiful wooden toys and warm woolies.

I miss the Christmas sweets. Spaniards as a rule have a special pastry for every conceivable occasion and Navidad was no exception - roscon, polverones - with fabulous traditions surrounding their consummation.

Mostly though, I miss the fact that all though it was usually very cold in Madrid during winter, at least it was dry. Unlike this windy, soggy city we're in now. When I got to lectures on Tuesday I had to change my clothes completely and hang them up at the back of the lecture hall to dry.

Friday 9 December 2011

Christmas Tree - by Theo

Our Christmas Tree (£10 from Sainsburies) is up; I like the fact that it's a Serbian Spruce, but grown in Germany. We had wanted to get a really big one, but some posh prat in London pipped us to it. Decorated with some tinsel and baubles (£2.00 from a charity shop), some lights we brought back from Spain and some recycled wrapping paper.

That's our Christmas decorations budget spent.

Monday 5 December 2011

What am I learning, what am I teaching...? By Kate

When you make a cock up, ask yourself, "What did I learn from that?"

Somebody far wiser than I suggests this as a more constructive way to deal with own-goals than guilt-ridden self-flagellation. It makes a lot of sense. It's a way of accepting that we all make mistakes and those mistakes can actually be useful opportunities to grow as a human being.

As first time parents, we make a lot of mistakes. After all, it's a huge, new, intricate area of human relationships we're navigating. No one gets it right first time. Which is bad luck for Rosie. A friend of mine put it this way: "Your first child is the practice one."

It's just as well Rosie doesn't require us to be perfect. Good enough will do fine for her, luckily. Although I expect we'll come in for a bit of a hammering for certain things she reckons we did or didn't do when she hits her teenage years and early adulthood. That seems to be par for the course.

So we're learning all the time. And so is Rosie. How to use and understand her body, how to talk, how to socialise with other people, how she fits in with the world....and that's before she starts on things like reading, writing, arithmetic, sport, music etc. etc.
The sobering thought is that as her parents, we are Rosie's Number One teachers. She learns the nuances of handling human relationships by observing and mimicking Theo and I primarily. There's nothing like that knowledge for putting your own behaviour in the spotlight.

Every day I find I'm asking myself, "What are we teaching Rosie in this situation?" For example, if Rosie refuses to touch the food we have given her and instead insists on something different, our acquiescence to that request would teach her that she doesn't need to make an effort with unfamiliar or less-favoured foods as she can rely on getting an alternative.

If Rosie throws a wobbler about something we regard as important (having her teeth brushed, for example) if we were to give up on what we were doing, we would be teaching Rosie that tantrums are a good tool for getting what she wants (or stopping something she doesn't). A recipe for more tantrums, in other words.

That doesn't mean we should ride roughshod over all Rosie's personal preferences. She might be tiny, but she's still a human being and deserves to have her opinion heard. So we try and offer her choices - okay, the choices are limited to outcomes we find acceptable, but at least she's being offered some toddler-sized autonomy. "Rosie climb in the buggy, or Mummy put you in the buggy?" is one we often have just before she settles into her pushchair for her lunchtime nap. (The answer is almost always, "Rosie do it!")


And one more piece of sage parenting advice I'm coming to fully appreciate: "Pick your battles." Some things just aren't worth a fight. Whether or not Rosie wears her slippers indoors really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. If she doesn't, her feet may be a bit colder than otherwise, but it's no big deal. On the other hand, if she doesn't allow us to help her clean her teeth, there's a very real risk of tooth decay, so that one is non-negotiable.

Navigating life with a feisty toddler is a huge learning experience, that's for sure. For all of us.

Sunday 4 December 2011

the most collectible book in the world? by Theo

Searching for suitable Christmas presents for Rosie I found several version of Maisy Mouse in Spanish, including Los Mejores Amigos de Maisy.

A bargain at a mere £243.33.

Yep, you read that right. £243.33 (I love how it's so precise!) for a translation of a children's book. It wasn't the only one; Juan y Tolola (that's Charlie and Lola) for £200.52. What's going on? Either some computer's algorithms have gone haywire, or these are clearly the most collectible works of fiction in the world: forget first editions of Tolstoy, these are the real deal!

Wednesday 30 November 2011

Nice day for a strike - by Theo

Despite the fact that I don't yet have a pension, nor a job to go on strike from, I figured I should show solidarity with my future colleagues and join in the Bristol demo. I am in fact a member of all three main teaching unions (NUT, ATL, NASUWT - PGCE students join free), so even more reason to turn up.

Today was, conveniently, a study day, so I was in the library anyway having taken my QTS numeracy test that morning (more of that later), and only had to wander down Park Street. I managed to time my exit from Berkley Square perfectly so I could tag onto the UCU members as they marched down from Senate House to join the swelling ranks of protesting public sector workers gathering near the Occupy Bristol tent city on College Green.

It was perfect weather: clear blue skies, little breeze and warm sunshine. Loads of kids (well, the schools were on strike!) and lots of colour, with various flags and banners waving back and forth. The Ambling Band, dressed in resplendent pink, had turned up to provide a welcome jaunty accompaniment and there was also a samba band further down the procession. I bumped into a couple of old pals (Richie, Tom) as well as most members of the English Department at my first placement school. The school where I'll be next was also closed today, so I guess some of my future colleagues may well have been there too.

Honestly it is such a shame that the so-called progressive parties in the UK seem to be terrified of fighting the corner of the public sector, for fear of affronting all-powerful private interests presumably. There was meant to be 2 million-odd people on strike across the country today; that's a sizeable chunk of the electorate. If only somebody at Westminster was brave enough to say "Yep. We're with you."

Saturday 26 November 2011

look who's talking NOW - by Theo

"All gone! Finished! NOW."
"Mama viene. NOW."
"Mas leche. NOW."
"Carry cuddle! NOW."
"Daddy up! NOW."
"Mas pan! NOW."



Rosie is rather imperative. It's unsurprising as regardless of the language most of the sentences we model for her are imperatives - "come here", "pon lo aqui", "hold my hand". So naturally as she begins to string sentences together from individual words, they are often orders, made with a sense of impatience and awareness that others may not have the same priorities that she clearly gets from her father.

She does descriptions as well, often related to clothing ("slippers off", "lleva gafas", "Rosie tired/cansada") and even has a few anecdotes that, with prompting from Kate, she can recount. One goes like this:

Kate: Rudy (a fellow toddler) tried to cuddle you.
Rosie: Mummy say "No kick!"

It's all astoundingly endearing (she had the museum attendant enraptured by her ability to say "cardie on" at the M Shed) and totally fascinating the way Rosie is acquiring and structuring language. Naturally her English is far more developed than her Spanish; though I suspect this is in part due to the fact she is trying to use verb phrases which is far easier in English ("he/she" form aside, the present tense and imperative are the same) than in Spanish, with its multiple endings and irregularities. For example she has been experimenting with the verb "ser" (to be): sometimes she gets it right by saying (to Kate) "es Papa!" ("it's Dad!"). But when she tells me "soy Papa", that's the wrong form - it's what I would say to her: Rosie needs to say "eres Papa". OK, the English version of this (am/are/is) wouldn't be much easier, but most English verbs don't change so dramatically.

Tuesday 22 November 2011

Time warp - by Theo

"It's just like being at a gig from 4 years ago" said Suzy as we filed out of the Croft's backroom after an ear-drumming splitting set from Big Joan. With Kate and I not the only Bristol emigres returning to the gig-going fold, and many familiar faces on stage, last Saturday's line up of Bravo Brave Bats, Big Joan and Glis Glis really did make us feel like we were partying like it was 2007.

With my parents kindly staying over to babysit Rosie, Kate and I managed to get out for the weekend and see some live music at one of our early flirting grounds: The Croft. Arriving early, we hung out with Obaro and Suzy from Glis Glis before they sound-checked. My old promoting partner Anna arrived with Lou in tow, Annette from Big Joan joined us, and over the course of the evenings we managed to see more old pals than we had time to properly catch up with. Must. Get. Out. More.

The bands were all ace, as usual. I say that as, although we had only seen Big Joan before (many, many times), between Glis Glis and Bravo Brave Bats there were 3/4 of the sadly missed You & the Atom Bomb on stage. So it felt a bit "as usual". I really should write a gig review.... but I've got two lessons to plan for tomorrow, so I guess I'd better stop procrastinating and write those instead.

Wednesday 16 November 2011

first observation - by Theo

Today I had my first observation by my University Tutor, a man who has trained at least one person in every English Department west of Reading (or so it seems - he's been at the University's Education Department for 25 years). This was a formal observation which would count towards my final grade. So no pressure then.

Actually I wasn't feeling too much pressure. I'd been observed by somebody in the 15 or so classes I had taught prior to today (plus loads as an EFL teacher), so wasn't feeling too unnerved at the prospect of having somebody commenting on my every utterance. Plus I always try to keep in mind that it is through being observed and reflecting on the comments you get back that you learn. So, bring it on.

I was teaching a Year 10 class that I had taught twice before. Their aim at the end of the unit is to write a review of the film, Jaws, and after two classes looking at how film makers use camera angles and sound to create tension, we were now looking at effective language use in reviews. The class went well. Not brilliantly, but a bit more than OK. It wasn't inaccessibly hard, but it wasn't a stroll in the park for them either. They behaved. They learned (something). We finished on time. It was alright.

I've still got loads to do. Both my Associate Tutor (who was quite nervous as it's her first year as an AT and she had to give her feedback first - so essentially she was being observed too!) and University Tutor were complimentary and thought I was doing better than they might expect at this point in the PGCE course. They were really pleased with my planning and consideration of the needs of individual students; I've my EFL experience to thank for that I guess. But there is plenty of room for me to improve, with a few of the things being:
  • I need to think about how to get the students to reflect on their work, to realise what they have learned.
  • I need to cut down the amount of Teacher Talk and build in more steps to the tasks so the students can guide themselves through with minimum input from me.
  • Leaving space for individual work and only doing group work if there is a real point to it.
It's that last point where my EFL background isn't helping. "Discuss with your partner" is such a CELTA staple - language is communicative, and when teaching English as a Foreign Language, just getting students to talk to each other and convey meaning can be a learning objective and outcome all on its own. In contrast, times when EFL students write in silence for 15 minutes or more are rare. So changing what my view of what learning looks like is going to be crucial.

Friday 11 November 2011

What a difference a year makes... by Theo

In mid-February this year the TDA announced that English PGCE students would no longer receive a bursary. This week the Government has announced that next year's English PGCE students will receive a bursary of up to £9,000.

We should have spent another year in Madrid.

Sunday 6 November 2011

Teaching as Parenting - by Theo

On the Bristol PGCE course many demands are made of us as trainee English teachers. We have to have a wide-ranging knowledge and understanding of the literary canon (and alternative canons). Our knowledge of English grammar and morphology must be sufficiently strong to teach English Language A level. We may be called upon to teach Media Studies and Drama classes, and so must be well grounded in both the theory and practice of those subjects. We need to keep up to date with the latest strategies, guidelines and statutory requirements issued by the Government, LEAs and exam boards. On top of all this, we have to understand how children learn to speak, read and write from a baby's earliest days through to adulthood. It's this last aspect that, as a parent to 21 month-old Rosie, I find most fascinating.

Most parents teach their children to speak more or less unconsciously: they talk to their child, and the child learns. Kate and I have of course made the conscious decision to teach Rosie to speak Spanish - neither of us are native speakers yet I speak to her in Spanish and we try to expose her to the language through books and a playgroup. So, having researched bilingualism, we were already slightly more aware of the processes by which children acquire language, but we are even more so now. I feel that as a parent I've got a huge advantage over my peers as I can see, day by day, the theory being put into practice as Rosie's vocabulary and syntax expands. As a parent it's amazing understanding (more or less) what is going on, and it'll be even more amazing once she starts to read (the alphabet: she already 'reads' images), to be able to understand how she is doing it and why she makes the mistakes she will inevitably make.

However, in other ways being a student teacher and also a parent are not so great. This week my lesson planning and marking workload suddenly exploded, so this weekend has been mostly spent in front of the computer writing lesson plans. Indeed I haven't left the house since I got back at 5pm on Friday. Poor Rosie has been at a loss as to why Daddy hasn't been able to take her to the park, as he usually does at weekends, or why he hasn't been keen to let her bang the keys on the laptop. For the first time on the PGCE (and sadly I suspect not the last) I've felt that being a teacher and a parent don't mix, as trying to do both simultaneously simply meant I did neither as well as I would like.

On the last point though I may well be wrong. One of the many essays (Teaching as assisted performance) I've read for my PGCE assignments concludes that in order to be better teachers, we must be more like parents. The authors (Tharp & Gallimore) make the point that the vast majority of parents are extremely successful teachers, instructing their children, usually unconsciously, in language, social skills, spatial awareness, movement and many other things. While acknowledging that behaving like a parent is rarely, if ever, possible within an educational system that crams 30 students into a single classroom, there is definitely something to be said for this approach.

So perhaps I should walk into my new Year 10 class on Wednesday wielding a couple of snooker balls stuffed inside a sock yelling "Who's your daddy now!?"

Maybe not.

Monday 31 October 2011

Clocking On by Theo

Changing the clocks is a nightmare for parents. When, like us, you've got a toddler that habitually wakes at 6.15am putting the clocks forward by an hour has obvious disadvantages.

I'd been having to get up at 6.15am for my school placement anyway, but with half-term upon us and my University seminars not starting until 9.30, it seemed like a good plan to start trying to move Rosie's timetable back a bit later. A steady delaying of her meal, bath and bedtimes over the course of the week resulted in her going to bed at 9pm (and hour and a half later than normal) on Saturday night and Kate and I getting, joy of joys, a lie-in until 8.20 the next morning. Rock and roll!

Of course this does have a downside: we changed Rosie's timetable so effectively that she was still asleep when I left for work this morning at 7.30, so I didn't get to see her until 5pm. For all that her contrary ways usually slow me down in the mornings, I really missed giving her a morning cuddle.

Saturday 29 October 2011

Illuminate by Kate

Before I lived here, the Redfield area of Bristol barely touched my personal radar. Apart from unwittingly driving through it several times on route to the office in Bath and visiting friends in the area once or twice, I scarcely knew it existed. The M32 is hardly an insurmountable barrier (although it sometimes feels that way during rush hour) but I lived on the opposite side of the traffic flow for more than ten years and rarely did I venture into the uncharted (by me) territory beyond.

It's just possible I also had a bit of North Bristol sniffiness about the Eastern hinterland beyond, er, Easton. Nothing much happened there, did it?

Which just goes to show how wrong you can be about a place. Redfield may be unassuming in some ways, but it's a friendly neighbourhood with useful transport links, houses that are almost affordable and a rather splendid park. St George's Park is remarkably well kitted out. Not only does it have a thoughtfully designed play area, tennis courts, a small cafe and a popular skate park, it also has a generous expanse of duckpond complete with an array of bread-begging wildfowl. Rosie and I go there almost every day and only the most inclement weather will keep us away.

Arguably, St George's Park is the jewel in Redfield's modest crown and the community makes good use of the facility. Since we arrived here at the beginning of July there have been three decent-sized events held in the park: Redfest, the Relax Up Jam and tonight's Illuminate Festival.

Pheonix52 is the collective responsible for organising the festival, which combines an appreciation of Hallowe'en, the Mexican Dia de los Muertos (Day Of The Dead) and Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights.Thus, we arrived to find an array of lanterns in trees, projections of fantasy skeletons, a flower-bedecked archway and homemade pumpkin soup (which was free and very tasty). Workshops in rangoli (Indian folk art) and lantern-making had taken place during the afternoon and the products of these were on display near the play park when we arrived to watch the lantern parade at 6pm.
We took Rosie along to the spectacle and although she showed a passing interest in the various cultural diversions, I think it's fair to say her main highlight was the novelty of being allowed a go on the swings in the dark. Theo and I enjoyed it all, though.

Thursday 20 October 2011

First classes - by Theo

While not quite as swift as the CELTA, which had us teaching on the very first day, the Bristol PGCE course does whip us into classrooms pretty quickly, and today I taught my first full lessons to a Year 7 class & a Year 8 one.

Rosie obviously knew something was up. She must have caught the general buzz of excitement and anticipation, and was clearly thrilled for me. So much so that she felt she had to wake up at 1 am to let me know just how excited she was. And then again at 2 am. And again at 4.30 am. So, thanks to my darling daughter's enthusiasm for my fledgling secondary school career, I went into school on about 3 hours sleep.

Great.

The first class, the Year 7s, were third period after break. Having been in the school for nearly three weeks now they've got to know me a bit. I've been observing in their classes across the curriculum and had helped out in their class earlier in the week delivering sections of the lesson. So I figured it would go OK. And I guess it did. It was no shining triumph, but no disaster either. The class looked at the construction of character through dialogue in Skellig, particularly through the use of types of questions. The problem was that I was too ambitious in what I was trying to teach them and, being a mixed ability class, this meant that some of them were very confused by the end. I hope this won't have put them off - classroom management is a lot about the students trusting you and the activities you set. Too many activities which they just don't get and I'll lose that trust.

Year 8. Period 5. The tiredness was starting to bite. We were looking at Holes by Louis Sachar, and I had another ambitious lesson planned involving identifying literary devices (alliteration, onomatopoeia, etc), creative writing and textual comparisons. All in an hour during the last lesson of the day with a class who had become convinced I was stalking them. I threw myself at it. It felt great. We whizzed along taking nearly everyone with us, and many of the students going way beyond what I'd hoped for. We were flying, ahead of time. A couple of students, who through laziness rather than lack of comprehension had barely written a word, could have perhaps done with more time, but with ten minutes to go we'd basically finished what I'd planned. So we quickly whipped out the book and read through another chapter before the bell went and the adrenaline faded. Phew. What a high.

Afterwards my tutor commented that she felt the ending lacked a little something. It needed a chance for the students to talk about what they'd learned. That's when I turned over my four-page long lesson plan to realise I'd left out half of my final activity, which would have done exactly that.

Bugger.

You live, you learn. At least that's what I hope my students will do.

Tuesday 11 October 2011

30 years - by Theo

I am, of course, a smug married, and a very proud parent to boot. If I wasn't I doubt I would have faced getting up at 6am on the day of my 30th birthday to cycle through driving wind and rain to my school placement with such equanimity.


As it was, there was no way I couldn't have a big smile on my face when I arrived home to find both my girls dressed up to the nines, a modest pile of cards and presents, and a table laid with homemade cupcakes decorated by my daughter. It was very touching and made me feel even more smug than usual!

Rosie got me a water bottle to take into class, my sister Hermione got me a cookbook and some posh new cake tins, while my parents splashed out on a scanner/printer combo to replace our old Spanish one which broke. There were also lovely home-made cards from Kate and Rosie, plus biscuits and an "In the Thick of it" box set from my darling wife. Plus, not forgetting my birthday bike, which my lovely mother-in-law Cathy had contributed to. So, all in all an impressive haul.

However, it was a work night, so there was no way I couldn't do some work. So, after Rosie had gone to bed, Kate and I snuggled down to watch the DVD of Skellig, one of the set texts from school. It was pretty good and I even managed at times to NOT think about how it might be used in class.

Sunday 9 October 2011

Birthday Bike - by Theo

After months of dithering and changing my mind, I finally decided to buy a new bike. This wouldn't be cheap, as I would need all the gear as well - helmet, pump, lock, pannier, pannier bags, lights and so on. As it's my 3oth in a few days Kate suggested it should be my birthday present.
Buying a new bike wasn't quite so simple as I imagined. There was no waltzing in and just grabbing one off the rack. I had to get one in my size. It shows my ignorance about cycling that I didn't realise adult bikes came in sizes. In the end it took about 10 days to get a Barrosa Monaco made up at the Bristol Bike Workshop, which ended up being the cheapest option. Worth the wait though as it's very comfortable and leaves me no longer at the mercies of Bristol's public transport system. Well the trains anyway - I'm sure the buses will intimidate the hell out of me as I pedal laboriously along Bristol's streets.

Thanks to all those that contributed to my lovely present!

Saturday 8 October 2011

NO! - by Theo

"No! No! NOOOOOO!"

Yes, Rosie has finally learnt the word "No!" She could of course express a negative opinion beforehand, but up until Friday this was usually done by shaking her head and arms and saying "da da da", which was, frankly, endearingly cute.

There is nothing cute about "No". In fact it is a hideous word. Sadly, of course, it's a very important one, in both English and Spanish. In fact it's probably more important in Spanish, as it's just put in front of the verb for a negative (whereas English puts "not" after) and is used as a general, often affirmative, question (E.g. "Te gusta el parque, no?" - you like the park, don't you?) So, we definitely brought this one on our own heads.

We are now both thinking of as many ways as possible to get "yes" into our sentences.

Sunday 25 September 2011

Student again - by Theo

As I took my seat on Monday it was impossible not to feel both a sense of nostalgia and of time standing still; after all, nearly 11 years previously I had sat down in the very same room (Chemistry Lecture Theatre 1) for my Undergraduate Philosophy lectures. Where did that decade go?!?! There I was again, a Bristol University student, for the third time, this time to begin a PGCE in Secondary English.

It's been a great first week; challenging, but not too intense. I seem to be in a reasonably privileged position of having a background in literature, a very solid grounding in English grammar and also teaching experience; few of my 29 course mates can say the same, it seems. I've been surprised at the range of backgrounds - some did degrees in Drama, others in Linguistics. They are a lovely bunch, though the demographics would surprise nobody - 1 male student to every 5 female ones, with only one student being obviously of a BME background. Across the wider PGCE course - 200-odd students studying to be teachers in Science, History, MFL, Geography, Maths, RE and Citizenship - this seems to be the case too. I've met a couple of other parents, though there are none doing English. However I did run into an old classmate, Susa, who is studying to be a German and Spanish Teacher - she only got a place on the course recently and it came as a complete, but very pleasant, surprise to met her at the lecture.

So far most of the lectures have just dealt with the 'admin' side of the course, plus getting to know you style activities within our subject groups. The real work begins next week I suspect, and already we've got piles of reading to get through. What work we have done - lesson planning, grammar analysis - hasn't seemed all that far away from techniques I'm used to in a TEFL context, all guided discovery and CELTA style planning proformas. We'll be in schools though from the first week of October and that will be a huge difference. I can't wait actually!

Saturday 24 September 2011

Starving the little tykes into submission... By Kate

My mum tells me that at the age of two, I ate everything and anything put in front of me. By the age of five, I was Little Miss Picky. Not to an unmanageable or unhealthy extent, but my fussiness was exasperating for my mum, who was - and is - a wonderful and imaginative cook. In time, my food foibles also cast a blight over my own enjoyment of social eating and I suspect it's partly for this reason that by adulthood I had pretty much trained myself out of it.

Not surprisingly then, I am keen that Rosie will not be a finicky and unadventurous eater. I want mealtimes to be enjoyable, family occasions rather than battlegrounds and I want her to grow up appreciating good food. Nor do I want to have to faff around giving Rosie separate meals from mine and Theo's. Life's too short.

So I felt a tad dismayed when it became clear that Rosie, after a promising start, had become a vegetable refusenik and developed a deeply suspicious view of any unfamiliar ingredients. And what's more, her repertoire was shrinking rapidly. Something Had To Be Done.

With a bit of analysis, it occurred to me I was making it a piece of cake for Rosie to refuse her main course by always offering plain Greek yoghurt and fresh fruit (which she adores) as a follow-up. My reasoning had been that it wasn't a major disaster if she didn't eat much of her first course because she would at least have had something nutritious to follow it. But in fact, it was an own goal. Why bother making the effort with a strange new concoction if there's a Sure Thing on the horizon?

So I changed strategy. If Rosie refused to more than play with her main course, there was no alternative option on the menu. My reasoning being that if she was truly hungry, she would eat whatever was put in front of her - or at least some of it. If she's not really hungry, then she clearly doesn't need more food.

We also started making an effort to have family meals every day - bringing our own suppertime forward to accommodate the change - in the name of "monkey see, monkey do". And if Rosie is fiddling with her food, we try not to draw attention to her and likewise try not to make a meal of it when she does deign to put something new into her mouth. Furthermore, if Rosie decides she doesn't want what's on offer, we try to curtail the meal with the minimum of fuss - no scolding or cajoling (although she gets re-offered the food if she indicates she wants it back again) - we just clean her up and get her down from the table . Oh, and we've also cut down on snacks between meals. Apart from occasional treats, she's only allowed a bit of fresh fruit, and nothing too close to mealtimes.

Rosie hasn't become The Incredible Scoffing Toddler overnight, but the good news is that the Get Tough Starvation Strategy is getting results. Rosie is now usually willing to at least try the things in her bowl and her repertoire is widening again. She's also surprised us (and probably herself) on several occasions by doing a last-minute volte-face and suddenly stuffing her face with a previously despised food and asking for seconds. I'm hopeful that in time we'll even get her on friendly terms with undisguised vegetable matter, but I'm not kidding myself that will happen any time soon.

"You won't actually let her starve, will you?" one concerned relative asked me after I'd outlined my new eating plan for Rosie. Of course not. And I'm even more confident that Rosie won't let herself starve. The only real drawback is that a supper refusal will tend to result in a horribly early start the following day. Rosie wakes up, can't get herself back to sleep because she's ravenous and in a neat piece of toddler revenge, ensures that Theo and I eventually give up our warm bed for a bleary family breakfast on the wrong side of 07.00.
You can't win them all. Still, at least Rosie retains a sense of style during her meals. After all, it's far easier to tackle a potentially threatening foodstuff while wearing the appropriate accessories.

Wednesday 21 September 2011

The Battle of Sleepy Corner IV By Kate

Rosie hit that golden milestone of "sleeping through" the night at the age of thirteen months. Hoorah, I thought, we're there at last and I don't have to bother with control crying or anything upsetting like that to transform my formerly wakeful baby into a Good Sleeper.

Wrong. Of course.
Rosie continued to sleep through the night from that moment on....but only intermittently. Theo and I would have four or five uninterrupted nights followed by two or three night wakings then a quiet night then a fragmented one....and so it went. Rosie seldom woke more than once when she did wake in the night, but those wakings could last a gruelling two and half hours if we were really unlucky.

Eventually it got to the point when my resolve hardened. In Madrid, I'd been able to keep Theo relatively insulated from the night time shenanigans, but back in the UK, Rosie's bedroom is opposite ours and there's no escape. Now, a wakeful Rosie and a sleep-deprived me was something to which I had become accustomed, but living with a sleep-deprived Theo is insupportable. Something had to be done.

By eighteen months, both Theo and myself, while not enjoying the sound of our small daughter howling her eyes out about something or other, had also become reasonably inured to it. So we were ready to toughen up our stance on overnight waking.

Our plan was simple: I would offer no more comfort breast feeds (in any case, they had lost their effectiveness at getting Rosie back to sleep) or early morning snuggly breast feeds in our bed to buy us more time before having to get up. In fact, I would no longer tend to Rosie's overnight needs at all - Theo would take charge of resettling her until she had got the message that parental attention would be kindly but fleeting during the night. Rosie had to learn to roll over and get herself back to sleep.

So that's what we did. The first night involved about an hour and a half of on/off protesting on Rosie's part, with Theo making frequent trips into her room to soothe her, but at lengthening intervals. The next night she slept through. Since then, we've had maybe two or three other occasions when Rosie's needed attention overnight (including when she was in the throes of a cold) but otherwise, I'm happy to report - and with the minimum of angst - she is now generally sleeping through. And waking up later in the morning too, which is an unexpected bonus.

As a former post outlines, I have now ceased to offer the bedtime breastfeed as well and that change has also been accepted by Rosie without too much complaint. The need for subterfuge has thankfully passed and instead of pretending to leave the house at bedtime, I simply give Rosie a kiss good night and leave Theo to put her in her cot.

It all seems so simple and a non-parent would be forgiven for asking why it's such a big deal. All I can say in reply is after more than a year and a half of interrupted and foreshortened sleep the feeling of freshness and good humour that accompanies a half-decent bit of snooze cannot be understated. It really can't. Amen.

Monday 19 September 2011

Round the sun again - By Kate

After all the excitement of having not one, but two 40th birthday celebrations (the party was held a year early for reasons of pregnancy), it's only fair and reasonable that my 41st would be a much quieter affair with no official celebration as such. Plus, neither Theo nor I are actually earning any money at the moment, so cheap and cheerful is the way to go.

So my modest requests for marking my birthday included takeaway pizza, some heart-attack ice-cream, a DVD rental of The King's Speech and a pair of slippers. Well, I am in my fifth decade, after all.

I'm happy to report that all my requests were granted with bonuses of a homemade cake (sister-in-law Hermione made a delicious jam and cream sponge), not-too-early awakening (from Rosie) and a card with a photograph of a cat (also from Rosie - she chose it personally).
The cake, pizza and ice-cream provided suitably artery-clogging deliciousness; the film was a delight (and even managed to pass the Bechdel Test); the slippers are very comfy; the morning calm and cuddly and the card with the cat rather cute.

That'll do nicely, thanks. It might not have been the most spectacular of birthdays, but I enjoyed it very much. In any case, at my age, it's about all the excitement I can handle.

Saturday 17 September 2011

the lies we tell our children - by Theo

As the Spanish author Elvira Lindo says in the book I've just finished reading: "Todos los hijos mentimos, pero todos los padres queremos que los hijos nos cuenten la verdad." We all lie to our children, but all parents want their children to tell us the truth.
We're just the same, telling deliberate lies to our daughter; we're hardly setting a good example.

For instance, Rosie really enjoys her bath but hates having her hair washed, which happens every three days. So if I want Rosie to get out of the bath on the other nights because ice is forming on the surface and her fingers resemble raisins, all I have to say is "Vale, voy a limpiar tu pelo ahora" ("Right, I'm going to wash your hair now") and she immediately stands up with arms outstretched crying "Out! Fuera!"

That's quite a simple one, but our deceptions get even more complex. We're weaning her off her last breastfeed, the one before bed, so it's easier if I'm the one to put her down to sleep. Now, at first this resulted in Rosie screaming for Mama at length, so we hatched a plan. About 10 minutes before Rosie's cot-time, we make a big show of saying "adios" to Kate, waving to her from the top of the stairs as Kate goes out the front door. After a small protest Rosie realises that there's no point in screaming for Mama, as Mama has left the building and the rest is relatively straightforward. Except Mama hasn't really left, she's just come in through the back garden gate and slipped into the kitchen.

Still, it's all good practice for when we have to swiftly replace a deceased hamster with a near-duplicate.

Friday 16 September 2011

Why I don't want to be a Primary School teacher - by Theo

I have had the privilege to have spent the past two weeks observing in Elmlea Junior School up in Westbury-on-Trym. As part of my PGCE I was obliged to do this, but it didn't feel like an obligation. I really enjoyed it, in no small part thanks to the staff and students at Elmlea, especially my friend Stu, a Year 6 Teacher there who arranged it all and whose classes I was mostly observing.

However, no matter how nice a time I had there, it made me realise I had definitely made the right decision to choose secondary education over primary. I had been having doubts as, after all, primary is so much more important; if students don't get off to a good start, the gap between them and their peers has widened to such an extent by the time they reach secondary school that it is very hard to narrow it and help them catch up. In a class of 30 students, all demanding your attention, it's probably nigh on impossible. But it's not for me.

For starters I'm rubbish at Art. Stu really likes the fact that he gets to teach all the subjects - Literacy, Maths, History, PE, Geography, Music, PSHE and Science - but I would have never managed to get a class to produce masks like these.


I'd be pretty rubbish in singing class too!

Plus, as nice as Stu's Year 6 class were, it would drive me crazy to have the same class all the time. I don't mind teaching the same material, but I like changing students every hour or so, shifting the dynamic and allowing me to go more in depth into the topic.

So, big thanks everyone at Elmlea, but it's secondary for me. The PGCE starts Monday - here we go!

Monday 12 September 2011

Friends and family - by Theo

After lots of dashing around the past few weekends, it was a relief to spend Saturday and Sunday relaxing in the company of friends, family and friends' families.

Rosie obliged us both with a lie-in on both days.... she woke up at 7.25am. Hey, anything after 6.30am counts as a lie-in in this house. The weather didn't look very promising, but it brightened up enough for us to head out en famille to St George's Park for Redfest. A very local event, there were live bands, stalls, the Bristol playbus and graffiti artists among the attractions. It was very pleasant and although Rosie was mostly interested in eating plums and running after her ball, we did spend some time hanging out with Kate's new mum-chum, Claire, her daughter Selma and husband Mark.

Later that evening Kate and I benefited from some outstanding generosity from some former gig-going buddies, Steve and Ruth, who babysat for us so we could enjoy a meal out with my sister, her husband and my parents, who were celebrating their birthdays.

When went to Bordeaux Quay on the Harbourside, touted for its use of organic ingredients. It was a lovely evening and, although Kate and I both found the food a bit too salty (couldn't really taste anything else) the desserts more than made up for it. Nice to have a treat every now and then.

On Sunday Obaro and his lovely daughter Nola joined us in the morning for lunch - both the girls and us. It was a fun, if messy affair. Nola was a bit shy to begin with, but she relaxed soon enough and joined in with Rosie's gabbling.


Ah, the joys of play dates! Makes me wonder what we've been missing all these years. ..

Monday 5 September 2011

Forty Years - by Theo

Yesterday my parents celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary. An epic achievement that is just one of the many reasons why we're all really proud of them.They had a lovely garden party for friends and family in Cirencester. The sun shone, the bubbly flowed, and the cake (made by my talented sister) was cut. Friends arrived from nearly all the stages of their lives - school, their early married life in Cheltenham, their time in Kenya and Tanzania, and the nursery school my mother now runs in Cirencester. A testament to the affection that so many people have for them. Kate and I can only hope to do so well.

Sunday 4 September 2011

Reflections of us - by Theo

It's often one of the first things people do upon meeting our daughter - decide which of us (Kate and I) she most resembles. Thankfully, most people agree that there is more of Kate reflected in Rosie than me. A relief I think you'll all agree, but here's some baby photos so you can decide for yourself.

Theo:

Kate (with her little sister Becky) :
Rosie:
As you can see, there is definitely more of Kate in Rosie than me.

It's not just in looks that Rosie reflects her mother; in language too. Naturally enough, as Rosie spends more time with Kate than she does with me, her emerging speech patterns reflect her mother's more than they do mine. Hence in recent days the phrases "Come on then" ("cumonden") and "Shall we?" ("shallee") have regularly rung out around the house, while the previously contracted "stad!" has finally lengthened out to the full "it's Dad!" These aren't full sentences, or at least Rosie doesn't conceive them as such; it's too early in her linguistic development for that. Rather they are simply phrases and collocations that Kate regularly uses and sound to Rosie like polysyllabic words. So, just as she reflects her mother in looks, so she echoes her in speech.

Sadly this has meant that common Spanish phrases - vamos, venga, muy bien, que quieres?, donde estas? - have yet to be uttered, as it's mostly me that uses them. However recently Rosie has been using toma ("take") and gracias ("thank you") more or less correctly. Mas o menos.

Saturday 3 September 2011

The Cornwall Tour, Summer 2011 By Kate

Holidays with babies and small toddlers can often be anything but relaxing. Even the most angelic sleeper/eater/socialiser still has to be monitored to stop them getting themselves into some kind of perilous situation, which tends to rule out sunbathing/chilling out with a book/leisurely afternoon drinking sessions and other methods of de-stressing favoured by adults. So Theo and I, although looking forward to catching up with my family and the beauties of the Cornish coastline, weren't exactly optimistic about the prospect of laid-back break in our routine.

Our "holiday" was actually a social whirl of re-connecting with relatives, so although it meant food and accommodation costs were low-to-non-existent (in the latter case), it did mean a fair amount of leg-work when it came to fitting everyone in. And I've got quite a lot of family to fit in.

We started in North Devon, staying with sister Am and her family (husband and five children) at their cottage which has been extended once to accommodate their burgeoning offspring and is now in the throes of a loft-conversion to continue the space-creating theme.

It soon became plain that five young children also meant ten extra pairs of eyes and hands when it came to keeping track of Rosie. Eight year-old Hester in particular was hugely taken with her younger cousin and was more than content to spend every waking second as self-appointed child-minder and companion. Her willingness to push Rosie around in a toy buggy for hours was hugely appreciated by myself and Theo, if not Rosie herself. Apart from Hester's desire to carry Rosie everywhere - rather against Rosie's own inclination - Rosie rather enjoyed having a personal slave to do her every bidding and lapped up the attention. She even submitted to Hester's - and the rest of the children's - appalled curiosity concerning her nappy changes with admirable forbearance.After a most enjoyable sojourn (including a night where Rosie effortlessly slept through in her travel cot), we timed our trip to south Cornwall to coincide with Rosie's nap and thus had an uneventful journey to Falmouth, Rosie choosing to wake up just as we were approaching the beaches. Not surprisingly, she approved whole-heartedly of our decision to treat ourselves to a couple of cornets with scoops of delicious Roskilly's ice-cream as we strolled onto Gyllingvase. Both Theo's strawberry and my hokey-pokey varieties were met with vocal appreciation ("Mas!! Mas!!" = "More" in Spanish) and loud complaints when they had been eaten.Rosie was deeply unimpressed with the sea, giving it little more than a suspicious, cursory glance before making it clear she wanted to go back up the beach, thank you very much, Daddy. On the other hand she was delighted by the giant sandpit surrounding her and happily put spade-fulls of the stuff in her bucket, before tipping it out again and repeating the process until it was time to go.
Nanny Joyce and my dad were both suitably charmed by Rosie as she darted about Nan's lounge before we collected the keys to Dad's flat - he'd kindly acquiesced to my request to spend a couple of nights there and had decamped to Nan's for the duration. My dad's flat being a matter of a few hundred yards further up the street from Nanny's cottage made the arrangement reasonably straightforward for all concerned.

As it happened, I wasn't the only one of my dad's progeny on the blag for some accommodation - my younger brother was also temporarily ensconced in his old room, which saved us the trouble of making an extra appointment to meet up with him. He had also assisted Dad in giving the flat a bit of a Spring clean in honour of our arrival, which was no bad thing.

Despite Theo's misgivings about the two sets of stairs in my dad's flat and Dad's own concerns about one of the plug-sockets, Rosie negotiated both hazards successfully and enabled us to scale down from Def Con 1 and enjoy the fantastic view from the front window. We had an overnight sleep negotiation with her, but that ended after about an hour with Rosie settling back in her travel cot and all three of us getting back to sleep until morning.

The next day was spent enjoying a Cornish cream tea with Nanny Joyce in the morning and another beach visit in the afternoon plus a reunion with Kim, a lovely friend of mine I hadn't seen in years.After a thankfully quiet night, Theo, Rosie and I quit my dad's pad in favour of a cuppa and catch up with Nanny Dot and Granddad Alf, followed by valiant efforts to keep Rosie awake during the trip down to Chez Rainbow near Penzance. This time we wanted her to eat lunch en route, then obligingly have her lunchtime nap once we had arrived at my sister's place. It was easier said than done. Although it was over an hour before her nap was due, the motion and warmth of the car proved very soporific to Rosie, who started to nod off even as she clutched a sandwich in her hand. Cue much loud singing, opening of windows and general activity to stave it off. Why worry, you might ask? Well, an early, shorter-than-ideal nap would probably lead to an overtired tricky toddler later on with likely ramifications for overnight sleep.

As it was, we probably needn't have bothered. When we arrived at the Rainbow's cottage, Rosie enjoyed herself so much running around in their expanse of garden, she was impossibly overhyped and took much longer than usual to get off to sleep. She was then wide awake after a pathetic forty minutes (having been in the general habit of snoozing for a minimum of an hour and a half or more). The best-laid plans etc....Anyway, once more the presence of other children, their toys and lots of space to run around meant Rosie had more than enough to keep her occupied while I caught up with my sister and Theo did the laundry. I think he did other things too, but that's my main memory.

The last two nights of our holiday were also successful in terms of Rosie's sleep and we managed to include another beach visit (Praa Sands) as well as an hour with Aunty Annette and her husband Alan, a visit from brother Jez and various yummy meals with Becky, my brother-in-law Dan and lots of diversion with the lovely Rainbow children.All too soon, it was time to head back home and we managed to squeeze in a quick stop at a friend's house in Exeter on the way, after which Rosie obligingly snoozed until we pulled up in Clifton Down station car park to do some shopping and make preparation for our return home.

Looking back, we lucked in. Rosie proved herself to be generally tolerant to the various changes in her surroundings and personnel and we actually felt reasonably refreshed when we got back from our travels. Not only that, but the trip away has led to Rosie eating a few foods she previously shunned and the discovery of the word "the" (see previous post). So a plus for child development too. Splendid.

Tuesday 30 August 2011

"The Pasty" - by Theo


The photo, I feel speaks for itself. It was Rosie's first ever pasty and thus, as far as she was concerned, 'the' pasty.

Rosie has, quite hilariously, discovered the definite article. "The", accompanying practically every noun, English or Spanish, is now a common feature of Rosie's burgeoning vocabulary. It also does strange things to the following word, making the vowel longer and drawn out, and thus increasing the comedy value. So whereas before she would have just pointed at her bed and chirped out a clipped, terse, short-voweled "Cot" (or "Cuna") now it becomes a plaintive, urgent, portentous "THE CO-OT!" In this particular instance she is of course grammatically correct, but versions such as "The Papa" or "The Fork" or even "The Mano" ("no, Rosie, tienes que decir 'La Mano'") are also regularly produced.

Nothing, though, is quite so hilarious as when she wails, like one in terror of a dreaded and yet inevitable doom, "The Poo!"

Monday 29 August 2011

(Non-)Christening(s) - by Theo

Kate and I have on several occasions had idle conversations about which of our friends and relatives we would ask to be godparents to Rosie, weighing up the pros and cons of asking family members vs friends, those resident nearby to those further away, and so on. I guess it's a good thing that we don't so much have a shortlist of potential candidates as a very, very long one. All this, of course, presupposes that we will actually have a christening for Rosie, something which is by no means certain.

Last weekend once again raised the topic in our minds as we attended two very different baby-related events. Firstly, on Saturday, we headed over the Second Severn Crossing to Wales, and the haven from the world that is Rocks Cottage, the home of the Bullock clan. It was to be the introduction of the latest member of that illustrious family, baby Jessica, to the wider world. Karri, Jessica's mum, hadn't wanted to do a Christening, but at the same time had wanted to have some kind of event for her, and so a summer garden party was the solution.

Embarrassingly however Kate and I forgot that Karri had told us this back in July; we simply thought the weekend get to together was because Poppy (Jessica's aunt and my best woman) was coming back from Brussels for the weekend. Of course if we'd managed to rub our sleep-scrambled brain cells together we might have wondered why Poppy was coming back that particular weekend.

As ever, we had a lovely time. Su, Allan, Amy and Karri put on a fabulous spread (Poppy just wafted around really), while eldest Bullock grandchild Harii supervised the various visiting children and Rosie commandeered first the baby walker then the hammock.

The following day - Sunday - saw us up very early thanks to Rosie, although this was just as well as we had a Christening to get to at 9.45am. Lateness definitely wasn't on the cards as Kate was to be named a Godmother to Liz and Al's cheerful little boy Damian Beren. A cranky Rosie was taken for a brisk nap around St Andrews park, then we snuck into the back of St Bart's church for the last 10 minute of a very modern and very child-friendly service, that included bubbles for the kids and a rubber duck in the font.

Kate's new Godchild Damian was angelically behaved, both in the church and back at Liz and Al's for the Christening party. Rosie also enjoyed herself, amazingly not being too overwhelmed by the mass of new people as Kate and I tried to engage in a whirl of catch-up with old friends before we headed down to Cornwall (see next blog).

Rosie chomped her way through a veggie sausage, then was treated to one of S's outstanding cakes before deciding to spill the whole of tub of bubble-blowing fluid down Mummy's legs. Still, we all had a great time, and the weekend has got us thinking again about what, if anything, to do for Rosie in terms of socio-cultural quasi-superstituous naming-ritual(s).