At Least She Doesn't Go Up To 11

One of the slightly dimmer children in my mother's classroom, upon seeing this picture on the wall, asked if the volume knob actually worked.

Tattoo Designs

As some of you may remember, I've got ink. Of course, being as addictive as it is, the birth of a child is too large an opportunity to pass up for another appointment with the needle to burn another piece of permanancy into my flesh. (Tattoos are weird that way.)

Just trying to get a consensus on the design.

These are the Chinese Symbols for "mother" and "daughter". (Mother is the larger one on top) These would be joining two other Chinese symbols on my back.

This is a little design that I've come up with in Photoshop. May I just say hooray for the text to path feature previously only available in Illustrator? Obviously, this is the Prawn's name. Some people have commented that it is slightly hard to read, but I think I'm okay with that, as I think it looks nice as a pattern on it's own.



Both designs leave the option for a second one should be we lucky enough to have a second child. I can either add another "daughter" or "son" to the first one or a second name "wreath".

What do you ladies think? So far, the name wreath has the most votes, but I'm really open to either of them

Playtime

The arrival of the Prawn also heralded the arrival of many stuffed animals in our household. While is it very sweet to have a shelf of furry creatures with glassy eyes staring at our offspring, she unfortunately doesn’t seem to be all that keen on any of them just yet. We assume that she will make her own decisions on favourites, but we have to admit to a bit of lobbying on our part for 3 favourites of our OWN.

Sir Humphrey Bollagard: An extremely soft, cuddly donkey type creature bought by my virtual sister in law. (My b.i.l’s girlfriend who it’s painfully obvious to everyone that he’s going to marry) He started out as just Humphrey, as it seemed suitable name, but then Mr. DD began to use him as a crotch guard while changing The Prawn when it became obvious that she was making a serious kicking attempt to scupper plans for possible siblings, so he became Humphrey Bollagard. He was knighted after sterling service in the nappy changing arena.

He has one black mark against him however since he scared the living hell out of her on at least one occasion. Note: Don't place an unfamiliar stuffed toy on baby's lap when they are asleep.

I have mixed feelings about my child telling people that her donkey is called Sir Humphrey Bollagard, but you have to keep other people on their toes.


Ugly Worm: A gift from the Prawn’s godmother, my best friend from college.

As a recovering D&D player, I was actually mulling over the purchase of a cuddly Cthulu but my friend got this repulsive, yet cuddly beast for her goddaughter. Mr. DD doesn’t think he is as suitable a favourite as Sir Humphrey, but the lingering subversive gamer in me hopes that the Prawn will take Ugly Worm to her spit-covered bosom.

As I am a great imitator of ideas, I would dearly like to have a go at making an Ugly Doll myself. I am not, by any means, a seamstress, but I think I could probably handle an amorphus blob, a big creepy eye and a couple of teeth.

Many more Ugly Dolls are available from their home website.

Nichales Cow: I bought Nichlaes Cow way back in May of last year, before I was even pregnant. I loved his little face and hoped that we’d be able to have a child to enjoy him as much as I did. I highly recommend Nordic Kids, by the way, for unique baby stuff. Chances are, if I buy baby gifts, I buy them from there. The same manufacturer also makes a similar cuddly pig (which we have gifted to two other babies) and more recently, a cat.) I also own the change purse that bears his likeness, so, as you can see, I'm a big fan.

He is not quite as cuddly or large as either Sir Humphrey or the Worm, but what he lacks in cuddliness and size he makes up for in charm.

Musicality

In our quest to make the Prawn into a well rounded human being, we’ve tried to fill her life with as much music as possible. Indeed, she attended at least 3 gigs before she was even born. While she seems to be quite enamoured of Green Day and fairly tolerant of just about all of the rest of our record collection, we thought it was probably prudent to invest in some children’s music to make sure she doesn’t have any rage issues from being exposed to repeated listenings of Appetite for Destruction at an early age.

I went browsing on Amazon.com for suitable Prawn-friendly tunes and after handing over a fair amount of cash, I received a package from the States with many hours of listening pleasure in it. Children’s music can be so, so SO AWFUL and I was willing to part with a fair sum of cash to make sure that my daughter didn’t grow up believing “The Wheels On the Bus” sung by people that sound as though they have frighteningly white, sharp teeth was not the limit of her musical horizon. (Not that there’s anything wrong with “The Wheels on the Bus”. They’ve got to learn the basics of public transportation somehow. The wipers going swish, horn going beep…they pretty much have it covered except for the drunk next to you who goes puke, puke puke.)

First and foremost among my purchases was Peter, Paul and Mommy, the classic children’s album that was a classic even by the time /I/ started listening to it. The first track, “Marvelous Toy” had me in floods of tears as I remember quite clearly my mother and father singing it to me. The Prawn looked bemused; the whole sunrise/sunset thing was slightly lost on her. The rest of the album was not quite as perky as I remembered it although see seemed to enjoy “Daddy’s Taking Us to the Zoo Tomorrow”. I urged her not to take it literally as there is little time this week available for zoo visitation. (Luckily, there IS quite a good one just over the hill, filled with bears that are huff-huff-a-puffin, monkeys scritch-scritch-a scratchin and seals honk-honk-a-honkin.)

A friend's gift of Elizabeth Mitchell’s “You Are My Little Bird” after the Prawn was born turned me onto the children’s folk artist in a big way, inspiring me to download “You are My Flower” and purchase “You Are My Sunshine”. Although the latest album is by far the most polished, there are some lovely gems on her earlier recordings. Despite my rawk leanings, I’m really kind of a floaty, folk chick at heart who enjoyed living in a same sex dormitory in college and singing along loudly to the Indigo Girls. (No joke. I totally went to Lillith Faire) Mitchell obviously takes her folk music seriously (anyone who invokes the name of Woody Guthrie usually does) so I’m pleased to have her warbling away in my living room on most mornings.

No children’s record collection would be complete without at least one Dan Zanes album, I’m lead to believe, so, invariably, the Prawn now owns one. I don’t know much about him other than that he’s the Raffi of the day. (I can’t say I ever listened to Raffi, but kids went apeshit for him. But then again, kids also went apeshit for Bananas in Pajamas, which scared the hell out of me, so who knows WHAT’s going to turn the little buggers on?) I enjoyed the album a lot, although I believe that the Prawn will most likely enjoy it when she is slightly older. While Mitchell’s music is repetitive and fairly simple in structure, Zanes’ is slightly more complex, not to mention banjo heavy. I’m sure it will provide many happy hours of bopping around the living room for a toddler.

Along with the aforementioned Sesame Street Bathtime Sing-a-long and a Putomayo Playground compilation, I’m sure the Prawn is now musically tooled. For curiosity’s sake, please feel free to share childhood musical memories of your own!

Show Us Your Righteous Indignation

I have taken to taking the Prawn out for afternoon strolls in her buggy. I was once led to believe that small babies are quite passive and happy to stay where they are put, gleaning information from the world around them, ready to impart what they have learned in a philosophical treatise entitled, “Mama, Dada and Doggie: Nouns, Caregivers and Face-lickers” when they turn 9 months old or so. However, I found that I was much mistaken. The Prawn is BORED and lets us know by telling us, “ATTENTION PARENTAL UNITS. STIMULATE MY BRAIN OR FEEL MY WRAAAAAAAAAAATH!!” Hence, the daily change of scenery.

Yesterday, as I made my way up the sidewalk with the Prawn, a boy, on the unchanged voice side of puberty shouted out a window of a taxi at me, urging me to display a set of familiar female body parts.

There are many things that one thinks of saying long after a speeding car with a rude pre-pubescent wank-pot in it has disappeared, (i.e. “I would but you wouldn’t know what to do with them.”, “Come back when your balls drop”, etc) but nothing really covers the disgust that one feels when hearing something like that out of the mouth of a child while you yourself are pushing your 3 month old daughter up the street in her buggy. Having been to college in a small midwestern town with a high pick up truck/population ratio, I have experienced this phenominon on many occasions, but almost always from the person who was DRIVING the truck rather than someone who should be strapped into a booster seat in the back.

It got me thinking, on the rest of my stroll (The Prawn, who is supposed to BENEFIT from the change of scenery, fell fast asleep and when we returned home looked at me reproachfully as if to say, “Weren’t we going to GO somewhere, you lazy wench?”) about the whole nature vs. nurture argument. It’s fairly obvious to me that one can’t rely on either one or the other to completely shape a child, although either can limit the extent of his or her horizons. Children obviously aren’t BORN with a need to behave like utter asshats- asshattery is a learned skill. In the case of my squeaky friend, my guess is that he’s heard such phrases from his father or older brother with startling regularity. Obviously, I began composing an open letter in my head that I would dearly like to stick on the village notice board.

To the caregivers of the vile whelp who verbally assaulted me on Marsworth Road, 6th of June, 2007,

If you will pardon my tone, just what in the name of holy hell are you doing in that home of yours that makes your ignorant man-cub think that it’s okay to shout “show us your tits!” to a lone woman pushing a baby buggy up the road?

You are clearly inbreds and should be locked in public stocks and pelted with rotten tomatoes at earliest convenience.

Love and kisses,

Rockmama