A Different Beast

Oscar has just started to get interested in watching children's TV, and we switch the Idiot's Lantern on for 20 minutes or so first thing in the morning while he has his beaker of milk (which means N and I get a bit of time to remember which planet we live on before the day kicks in).
Whichever wonderful person at the BBC dreamt up CeeBeebies should be awarded the Nobel Prize - in my current position its usefulness ranks right up there with the wheel and the light bulb. I'm not suggesting kids should be left in front of the box all day long, but the odd fix of Teletubbies or Tweenies is pretty harmless as far as I'm concerned. It all seems so safe and cuddly, with its wholesome presenters and carefully planned out educational messages, and no chance of some unscrupulous advertiser slipping in a product placement for Turkey Twizzlers. Oscar sits on my knee at the crack of dawn each morning and bounces along to the theme tune of Balamory, and I must admit I've started to look forward to finding out 'what's the story' each day. I think N has developed quite a crush on Josie Jump. We really must get out more.
Watching new children's TV has made me realise just how far things have moved on since I was a nipper. When were insects replaced with 'mini beasts'? Did they go through some kind of Saatchi-style rebranding exercise when I wasn't looking? 'Take Hart' appears to have metamorphosed (excuse the pun) into a show that tells you how to take photos on your mobile phone, download them onto your laptop using Bluetooth and edit them in Photoshop. Poor Tony only had a gallery, and even that was really just his wall. The best bit of Kid's TV progress as far as I'm concerned has got to be that no child has ever got to sit through Metal Mickey ever again.

Oh Crumbs...

Oscar REALLY likes biscuits. Despite our efforts to get him to eat little bits of chopped up fruit and vegetables for snacks, he would far rather gorge himself on the little animal shaped biccies that live in our bread bin. These delicacies are made by the organic baby food manufacturers, and contain concentrated grape juice instead of sugar (which I suspect in nutritional terms doesn't make a blind bit of difference, but makes us parents feel less guilty). They're only teeny, just big enough for a toddler's fist funnily enough, yet they seem to have 'spreading ability' which Dulux could only aspire too. When mauled by Oscar for a minute or so, they transform into a sticky vomit-like gloop which gets stuck on everything. My entire life is currently covered in biscuit (which I believe is Parenting Stage 3, following Stage 1 - baby sick and Stage 2 - baby drool). I have found biscuit gloop stuck to my face, in nappies, underneath the car seat, in picture books, on the TV screen and in the lining of my coat. Oscar's face is permanently encrusted with the stuff, and nothing short of an industrial sand blaster will remove it (now there's an idea...). I was pushing Oscar round the high street this week and I could see childless people looking down their noses at 'crusty child in buggy'. I imagined them making mental notes to ensure their future offspring would always be kept immaculately clean. I wish them good luck with the brocolli florets, because quite frankly they'll need it.
Yeah, I know. I should just bin the biscuits and only offer 100% healthy snacks. I just need to decide whether I prefer my life to be covered in carrot or mange tout next.

Toddling along

I appear to be the mother of a fully fledged toddler. Oscar is walking! It began between Christmas and New Year with him taking the odd 'buzz lightyear' step (more like falling with style), and he has now moved on to staggering around the house like a drunken sailor, looking very pleased with himself indeed. Neil and I took him to be fitted for his first pair of shoes yesterday, which was a big event in the W-D calendar (he is size three-and-a-half 'F', for anyone interested - presumably the 'F' stands for 'Flipping expensive'...?)
It is not just the walking that earmarks the beginning of Oscar's toddler era. There are signs and clues everywhere. We appear to have a living room full of plastic beeping things (last year's blog entries that state that Oscar is content with playing with simple toys now seem cringeingly naieve). More food goes onto our kitchen floor than into Oscar's mouth, and he now scrapes his once eagerly devoured vegetables off his tongue as if they were sulphuric acid. He is permanently covered in a crusty layer of food, snot and household detritus (and screams blue murder if I try to get anywhere near him with a damp flannel). Despite abundance of beeping things, his best games ever are trying to empty the kitchen bin onto the floor, taking the tops off milk cartons, making the cereal dust in the bottom of the Shreddies box 'snow' over his head, squashing grapes into the sofa and sticking his fingers up his nose and offering the contents to Mummy. I have the world's worst 'poker face' and my poorly concealed sniggers just egg him on, but oh it's all so much fun! Although I could live with less baby snot.