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.

Two days to go

I'm feeling kind of odd today. Partly tired, partly having my nerd-geekness shaken by seeing some true "lifers" (extreme examples, complete with mullets!) in the documentary "The King Of Kong", but mostly as it's really creeping up on me that I'm going to be without my girls for a month.

With their trip now only two sleeps away, we've decided to have a nice family weekend. Mainly composed of having a nice quiet time together, Sue packing and Emily refusing to sleep, regardless of showing all the signs that she'd like to.

This next month will the first time I've been away from Sue since early in our courting when I went to Canada for a solo-holiday (booked before we met) and will be the first time I've been away from Emily for any length of time.

I think back to my dad at times like these. When we first moved to Canada he was on assignment to - ironically - Australia and New Zealand, for weeks at a time. While it must have been hard on mum raising two kids solo, it must have been hard on dad living out of a suitcase and missing vital weeks of our development. I do, however, recall one trip netted us with a new family car that dad would have refused to buy until the existing one had COMPLETELY broken down.

I find myself looking forward to their return more than I have in the past couple of weeks. Sure, there'll be some side benefits - I can sleep until 7am!, I can go to the pictures or do stuff in the evening, but it's a sad list of items in the pro column, when it means I'm without my girls for a long stretch.

At least I have France in November to look forward to.

Towering Emily

With Emily almost as big as toddlers months older than her, we've been routinely told she'll be a tall girl. In fact, our midwife just after Em's delivery, told us she'd be tall and have trouble finding a boyfriend.

Yay!

With that in mind, I took keen interest in an article The Times are running today on the troubles of being a tall woman. Granted these women are gargantuan - over 7ft tall in some cases - but I imagine there MAY be some relevance for my large baby.

Ah the joys of worried parenthood. Of course, on the flipside, she could have been a midget - at least then she could have continued shopping in the children's clothing section.

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Now playing: Van Halen - Love Walks In
via FoxyTunes

Sleeping patterns

When I got home last night, Emily was fast asleep from an active day.

She didn't wake up until Sue was going to bed around 11pm. This was a neccessity wake-up, as Em hadn't been fed or changed all evening, and you can't leave a child in that state all evening and all night.

Anyway, I was dreading the wake up as I assumed the five hours sleep would mean she was well rested and ready for play.

Thankfully, this wasn't the case. Em had a drink and a change and then dear old dad eventually got her off to sleep again around 1am.

Having said that, I was exhausted and ready for bed around 11pm as well. The more these things happen, the more I realise that we need to get Em into a routine. I know other people who go nuts if their baby misses the 7pm feed by 5 minutes. This I do not want, but more structure can't hurt Em.

Caesarian fears that might not be true

Image via Wikipedia It's Tuesday, so that means a whole new week of fears and issues regarding every aspect of life.

Today, it was Caesarian babies' turn to feature in the "your life is screwed" category.

As most news outlets were running a story saying that children delivered by C-Section are more likely to acquire childhood diabetes than children delivered normally.

So with all the issues and fears and worries around normal and healthy children anyway, we now have a potential health timebomb ready to explode at a moment's notice.

Really, it's all I can do to get out of bed in the mornings sometimes.

Birthday adventures

Got back from Bognor today, having attended my cousin Louise's son Harley's first birthday.

Emily was (as usual) in fine form, smiling at one and all and making sure they knew she was a content little camper. Nothing could put her off her stride, not even headbutting the birthday boy (accidentally of course).

The only downside to the weekend was Emily's teeth. We're off the gel now and trying homeopathic powders which seem to work on the teething pain much better and quicker than the gel.

She is still going from being the happiest baby ever to the most miserable in a matter of seconds, all due to the ongoing teething issues. She's also still crying in her sleep, which is hard to handle, but Sue and I both know it won't last long.