Baby Bookworm

I am a prolific and passionate reader- I seem to continually have at least two books on the go, plus I also follow a host of bloggers. I completed a BA, specialising in English Literature and one of my absolute favourite parts of teaching was reading aloud novels with a my intermediate aged kids. 

Up until now Miss Muffet has been far too busy to sit and actually listen to a story, which you could imagine broke my heart a little. Action Dad and I persevered and played around with different times and places to read to her and found that the winning combo was reading to her while she was in the bath and was fairly contained. She also insisted on only being read Hairy Maclary From Donaldsons Dairy, complete with different voices for the various dogs. And only Hairy Maclary From Donaldsons Dairy. If we attempted to read anything else she lost interest, so over and over we read the kiwi classic of the adventuring dogs and her personal fave " Scarface Claw, the toughest Tom in town!"  I even made her second birthday cake, a Hairy Maclary cake 

 

 

Just after Buttons arrived, Uncle Bogey gave us a collection of board books which his three boys had grown out of. The perfect present for a toddler who has recently gained a baby sister - we have put the basket of books by the sofa where I breastfeed and I invite Miss Muffet to come and read with me while I am feeding. It's lovely to be able to give her some special attention during this crazy time where frankly she is getting half as much attention as she is used to.

 

There are lots of awesome books in this bundle- classics like Spot, Peepo and other books by Lynley Dodd and some more modern titles like the Gruffalo and The Gruffalo's Child. 

Being Miss Muffet, with all her quirks, she has latched onto one particular book. It has become the new Hairy Maclary From Donaldsons Dairy. The book I can now recite by heart.

 

Miss Muffet adores this book and her favourite parts are of course the flaps for lifting. It is a cute, rhyming story and is short enough to hold her attention. The pictures are sweet and the book is sturdy enough to stand up the toddler test . 

To be honest, I don't care how often I have to read Miss Muffet's favourite book of the month. I think it is so important to read to kids every day- they learn vocabulary, phrasing and it extend their world view. It is a special way to bond and share attention with children. It sparks curiosity and creativity.  I hope Miss Muffet and Buttons inherit my love of reading and this is the best way I can think of to introduce them to the world of reading. 

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Why blogging?

 

I have been slowly telling friends and family that I have been writing a blog- it's a bit of a weird concept. Hey! Come and read all about my funny little life! pry into my thoughts! It's interesting, I promise!! It's kind of like writing a journal and then wanting people to read it. 

Most people have been super enthusiastic ( although they comment in person instead of on the blog! Hint hint Amazing Sister....) Well, at least they have only said nice things to my face, who knows what they really think. I came across a funny situation the other day where my sister in law was having a wee rant about why on earth you would want to read someone else's blog, not knowing I had recently begun mine- cue red faces from both of us! 

I have been reading other people's blogs for a while now- you can see some of my faves in the gadget column to your right if you are on the full web version. I find it really interesting reading into other people's lives and especially people who are in similar situations to me- Kiwi mums, some of who are crafty, some who tell funny stories about their kids, some who review products and some who seem to be able to put into words exactly how I feel. I have found that reading blogs is like when you join a new coffee group- you lurk in the background for a while before making a few comments and hoping that someone will reply!  I find myself reading blogs when I can't sleep, when I am having a coffee or when Miss Muffet is happily playing independently. Most posts are short and you can read them in one sitting- no story lines and characters to remember for this sleep deprived Mumma! 

After reading blogs for about a year, the idea of starting my own emerged. I found that I would think about things- usually at stupid times like 2am, and clearly they were genius so I wanted to share them. Social etiquette deems calling people or texting at that hour kind of rude so writing them down serves to get my thoughts out of my head so they can stop whirling round and round and I can focus on other things- like remembering to buy rubbish bags. 

A bonus is that my blog serves as a way of almost scrapbooking some of my family's moments- I never get around to printing photos and I worry that I will forget the funny things that happen so my blog acts as a kind of time capsule as well.

I read a post by Happy Mum Happy Child the other day, which was coincidentally about starting a blog. She wrote about making sure you write for yourself and having your own voice instead of for an audience, especially when your blog is so new. I find it hard to manage my expectations about who will read what I write- I figure when it comes down to it, you write because you have something to say, and you want someone to hear it . 

Confessions of a Former Magazine - a- holic

Last week I was having a yucky day so I decided to buy a lovely trashy magazine on a whim while I was at the petrol station. I surveyed the rack of assorted titles and out of habit discounted the Woman's Weeklys and Woman's Days and all that jazz because I have always considered them to be reading material for my Mum. I grabbed an NW and carried on my way. 

 My addiction to mags started at college where I read Girlfriend, Dolly and CLEO and learnt to do such wondrous things as a zig zag hair part ( bonus points if it had glitter running through it)  and lusted over high heeled jelly sandals and off the shoulder peasant tops. I was a true Girlfriend loyal fan and religiously bought new editions, before swapping with friends who were CLEO and Dolly fans. Articles were read and reread until the mag started to fall apart and then the pictures were used to create collages on my school books- I bet my teachers loved my artistic homages to Hanson and JTT! 

The hairstyle sported by most of the girls in my fourth form year at dances ....

 

 

At Uni, I moved onto NW as it was far more scandalous and trashy so became the perfect foil for my English Lit degree. At about $5, a magazine was the well priced treat and distraction when I was meant to be studying and I soon had a sizeable stack sitting in the corner of my bedroom. When Future -Action -Dad -To-Be heard me complaining about having no money one week, he counted up the number of mags in my stack and then worked out how much money I had spent in the six months I had lived in my flat. The figure was fairly scary and confronting and I had a short reprieve from buying mags .... Before sneaking them back in a month or two later. 

NW and I continued to have a lovely exclusive relationship until the purchase of Action Dad and my first home, when I decided I was grown up and needed to expand my horizons to Your Home and Garden. Flicking through the pages, I had grand ideas about DIY and renovations, despite my lack of skills and desire to spend my hard earned cash on beautiful shoes instead of at Mitre 10 Mega or Bunnings- where we seemed to end up every weekend! 

So anyway, last week after doing some cleaning and running some errands and then doing some more cleaning as Miss Muffet had decided to "explore" the spice rack all over the floor, I remembered my NW sitting on the front seat of my car- where it had been for 3 days, untouched. I brought it in and turned the kettle on, planning on having a quick read and a cuppa.   Miss Muffet had other plans in mind for me, namely playing with Peppa Pig and reading Where is Spot ? over and over again.

Finally on Mothers Day, I made a firm plan to sit down and read my mag. I told Action Dad that this was the plan and I was not to be interrupted for 20mins and he and Miss Muffet went out to play. So I lay on the couch, hot lemon honey and ginger within easy reach and cracked open my now out of date NW. 

And I didn't know most of the people within the pages. And I hadn't heard of the movies. Or bands. And I found myself wondering if the clothes being advertised  would cover even one of my thighs, let alone both- and weren't the models cold??? 

It has been a long and lovely relationship, with memories of reading sneakily in lectures and when lying on beaches but I think the time has come for NW and I to part ways and accept that I am growing older, even if it is not so gracefully at the best of times. I need to move on- it's not them, it's me.