I often hear people saying things to their children that upsets me.  The other day I heard a (very nice, kind, generous) mum say to her 5 year old daughter “if you can’t get on with M and play nicely with her [M being this girl’s best friend, according to her mum!], I’ll ring Daddy and tell him not to pick up your bike at the weekend”!!!  Now is it just me, or is it just plain wrong to tell someone that they will only be allowed to have a promised, exciting present if they like and want to play with someone else specified by the present-bearer at a time specified by the present-bearer?  Of course, this is nothing next to the “get ‘ere now or you’ll get a slap!” type comments everyone unfortunately hears being yelled every now and then.  But it’s these less dramatic comments that make me realise quite how far I’ve come in this gentle parenting lark!  I once heard a mum of a 15m old explaining to another mum (whose toddler had just given the 15m old a bit of his chocolate biscuit) how her little darling had never had chocolate before, and how she had been intending to deny him this delicious thing until he was three - even to the extent that she’d told him he couldn’t have any of the cake she’d made him for his first birthday as it was a chocolate sponge!!!  She’s moved out of the country now, but I do wonder, now that her son is just over three, if he can’t stop himself absolutely gorging on the stuff whenever he sees it! 

Anyway, on a lighter note:  At 6.15pm Flopsy said “Oh look…it’s quarter past six…Daddy will be home soon”!  She looks at the clock an awful lot, and tells us what she thinks the time is, or asks us to tell her, and she usually gets the hour right…but she’s never been this accurate before, and, although we’ve often said “Daddy will be home at…” or “We’ve got to go out at…”, she’s never pinned the time to an actual event herself.  What a star!

Mopsy (who I, sadly, don’t seem to write much about!) is gorgeous, and bubbly and cuddly.  She has ’snacky’ breastfeeds throughout the day, so on the rare occassion there is little enough going on for her to fall asleep at the breast, I really enjoy sitting down quietly with her and feeling her calm down gradually, until I see her eyelids closing and her body relax completely.  I really miss that…Flopsy used to do it all the time, but there’s far too much going on for Mopsy to do it often.  Sometimes, just before she goes to sleep, Mopsy comes off, says “Mummy”, sits herself up and plants a big milky kiss on my lips and hugs my head for at least a minute, then lies back down and latches on again.  It’s my favourite thing in the whole world!  That is one of the many reasons I want to promote longer-term breastfeeding - what a joy mothers miss out on when they stop at 6 or 12 months just because they’re culturally conditioned to think that it’s wrong to continue breastfeeding a toddler.  But then some critics say that they think it’s wrong for mothers to enjoy breastfeeding - how sad. 

Oh yes, one other thing…Flopsy calls pyjamas “Jimamas” - it’s my current favourite word and I think it may be one of those family words that just stick!