Free child care?

In his latest attempt to get himself out of the mire, Gordon Brown today has pledged in an interview with the Telegraph to give every child 2-years old and above free child care. Costing, obviously, in the range of £1 billion and promising to take so long to implement that poor Emily will be a granny by the time she can benefit from it.

Of course, nursery and child care are the top of my stress list as I continue to grapple with the nuances of forking over thousands of pounds so someone else can bring up my child.

Do we get someone in? Do we drop Em off at a nursery centre? If so is it one round here or one near work? What time do they close? How will we pick Em up if it closes before we can get back?

Do we pack up altogether and move somewhere else? Canada? Australia?

It'e enough to do your head in. Thankfully we're 6 months away from having to worry, but time goes by quite quickly these days.

Universal day care or nursery has been a political hot potato for years and not just in this country, as this backgrounder from the CBC will attest.

Whether we get it for Em and thus have £1200 extra a month to pump back into the economy in other ways is yet to be seen.

Tales from down under

Not much to report, apart from Emily has been trying Sue's patience with her teething. Up at 3am, feed, grizzle, etc. and then exhaustedly catch a few more winks.

Sue sounds run down when I talk to her on the phone, almost like she's coming down with something. The lack of sleep could very happily play into that.

Sue's also said that Emily has gone through another growth spurt. I don't know how big she is now, but I imagine she's taller than the world's shortest man (who was only 2ft something) who was in the papers recently for the launch of the "Guinness Book of World Records".

Image via Wikipedia Sue and Em are off on the inter-Australian adventure come Monday. Brisbane, Newcastle, Melbourne, etc. So this weekend will most likely be out last Skype conversation.

I'll be happy to see my girls again when they get back. A month is a long time by any standard, but in Emily's case, it's quite a tangible amount of her life - 1/6!!

Nappy rash

Sue's been doing some investigation into the causes of nappy rash, as Emily seems to have come down with a down under case of it.

Sparing the gory details, but it seems to be more of a fungal infection, than just "something babies get". To this end, Sue has swapped the sudocreme for a more powerful anti-fungal cream, and it seems to be doing the trick.

Also, reports from Adelaide tell me that Emily is still being rather irritated by her teeth. Apparently, whilst out shopping with mum and nanna, she was gnawing on some cardboard packaging to try to alleviate the pain.

It also looks like Samuel is getting on better with Emily. That initial "I'm the baby around here" jealousy seems to have been replaced with something much more akin to love. Which is good.

Web Camming from Oz

Today was the first real day I was able to converse with Sue and Emily since they got to Oz. We spend well over an hour on the web cam where Sue showed me all the wonderful borrowed things that are keeping Emily occupied.

She even sent me a screen capture of Emily in a borrowed "floor scooter" thing from cousin Samuel across the road.

Seems that even though she has nappy rash, Emily is still quite a happy and content baby, wowing and winning over everyone who comes across her.

Not having had children before, I really hope this carries on through her life and doesn't end when she stops being a cute and cuddly infact.

As it's the 6th of September, there's exactly a month left before the two of them are back. I'm quite excited about this, but I imagine that Sue - with the pampering she'll receive - won't really be looking forward a month with anything but remorse. I could be wrong.

Arrival in Oz

Well,

Got some IMs from Sue yesterday. The flying duo made it safely to the land downunder and apparently Emily was a superstar on the plane. Far from being the nightmare sleeper on the plane, she managed to catch about eight hours on the first London - KL leg, while poor old Sue only managed to get around four.

Sue rang last night to say that all was well, and that they landed safely in Adelaide.

It's been a strange old couple of days without them, moving Emily's toys and glancing over at Sue's schoolwork laptop, knowing they're going to collect at least a modicum of dust in the next month or so.