Winter headwear

If there's one thing Emily hates (and I can think of more than one thing at the moment) it's hats. Or to be more specific, ANYTHING on her head.

She just really dislikes it - pulling and tugging at anything you place remotely near her head. She does this for sunglasses too, but that's not all that much of a concern.

For the past few months it's not really been an issue covering her head as it's been summer. As winter is quickly approaching, I'm starting to be a bit concerned that I'm going to have a baby topped off with a frozen popsicle for a head.

It's been suggested I try one of those hats with flaps that you can tie at the bottom. I can only imagine the feedback Emily will provide on that, but I think a little aural discomfort is worth the trade off of her not coming down all manner of winter related illnesses.

When we solve that one, there's the small issue of she also hates gloves...

Emily's reaction to "Coraline" and other concerns

Cover of Coraline

We watched Neil Gaiman's excellent "Coraline" on Blu-Ray last night. Even though I knew it was far removed from a children's film, I thought we could let Em see the first few minutes of it - every film has that peaceful, happy setup phase at the beginning.

We eventually put her to bed about 10 minutes in, but I have no idea what happened in the film as she was laughing so hard. I don't really know what it is about stop-motion animation that got her all giddy, but I couldn't hear any dialogue over her laughter. It was quite amusing.

It did get me to thinking though. What do children actually take in. I was worried that the darker undertones of the film would subconciously scar her for life, but I have a strange feeling now that all she would probably take in (if she watched the whole film) was the quirky animation, a talking cat and some other funny - hysterical - stuff happening on screen. Having said that, the spider woman that "Other Mother" morphs into kinda gave ME the creeps.

I don't really plan on making a habit of viewing R or even PG material with Em (we're happy with "In The Night Garden" at the moment), but her reaction did make me sit back and think.

Related articles by Zemanta

• There Is Something About Coraline (timesunion.com)
• DVD Review: "Coraline" (popdose.com)

Toddler Discipline - The beginning

Emily is getting to that stage where she's not a blank slate anymore. She's started to do these little things to test Sue and I. Part of me wants to let her experience things and be free, but the other part, the part that can envision this boundary-free tearaway, wants to stop her at every turn.

It's incredibly hard to know what to let her do and what to put a stop to. Do we allow her to fling her food on the floor or kill that dead? Is she allowed to trace her fingers around my closed eye or will that morph into attacking sleeping children at school?

And then there's the kicking. When we're out and about, Em uses kicking to signal excitement. When we're playing that same kicking sometimes results in a boot to the head for mummy and daddy. Do we scold her and put an end to this (sometimes) painful experience.

I can't help but think the choices we make today will shape the child in the future. With parenthood comes great responsibility. I can't help but feeling our actions now will  help determine whether Em becomes a PhD or an ASBO.