Day 50 – CLASSICAL CULTURE

WITH Baby Sensory done and both M'Lady and I managing to evade capture by The Leader we found ourselves at a loose end on a Thursday. To stay at home having some sort of one-on-one coffee/milk morning would have been odd so luckily we received a message from our very in-the-know friend, Rosie.

Rosie is in possession of a 19-month-old (basically a grown-up), so is a seasoned professional on the baby circuit, which is a kind of stock exchange that lives online, in word-of-mouth and on noticeboards at places you probably don't know about (because you're not in-the-know). It's where sales and events spring up every second of the day and will be snapped/booked up in a flash... so you need to be on your game, if you want the good stuff.

So, thanks to our lady with a finger on the pulse, we had a hot ticket the biggest gig in town at 1030 on a Thursday – Bach to Baby: Swooning Bassooning at St Mary's Church in Putney (www.bachtobaby.com). The church was merely the setting... nothing religious here. 

At the beginning there was a dramatic hand-waving from the main man (I assume he had an official title such as lead tenor but I didn't catch it) in an attempt to hush the audience. It didn't work. Babies were still gurgling, burbling and crying and parents were still whispering. I hasten to add that I was complete silence per the instructions. At his point I was thinking "Ok mate, you've got an audience of predominately babies... this is as quiet as it's going to get so just crack on" and then he insisted on giving his silencing wave, with arms outstretched, another shot. I'll give it to him, it worked and if he learnt nothing else at classical music school, it was worth it. With silence achieved the acclaimed Bassoonist, Christopher Rawley and pianist Dominic John got to work. 

The opening piece was Gabriel Pierne's Solo de Concert and from the first blow of the double-reeded instrument all of the kids' eyes were transfixed on the musicians. I had expected the youngsters to be interested but this was amazing, like a hypnotism. Of course, the spell only lasted about one minute before the business of crawling, dribbling and dropping sippy cups resumed. 

The expert musicians rattled through a few more pieces, including Godfrey's Lucy Long, Mozart's Bassoon Concerto (2nd Movement, Andante ma adagio) and Debussy's Pour Les Arpeges Composes. This was a cut above the CD of Twinkle Twinkle and the attempt at a Broadway version of Incey Wincey Spider that I had become accustomed to on a Thursday...

One pointer I might suggest though, as someone with zero accomplishment with any musical instrument (unless you're counting my voice of a husky angel), would be to shorten the arrangements in order to harness the attention spans of the very young audience. It seemed that at the beginning of each composition the children came to life, excited and engaged, but after a minute or so they were drawn elsewhere. A four-minute piece from a bassoon was asking a bit much of an eight-month-old. However, this was only my first time and the Back to Baby series seems to be doing okay for itself with sold-out bookings everyday all over London including Buckingham Palace, so they can probably take or leave my advice. 

As well as the music there were some educational snippets about classical music and how the instruments work dished out for the adults (and the super bright babies). My favourite fact of the day was that Bach didn't actually write any music for the bassoon after he found himself in an unsavoury punch-up with a bassoonist. 

For the last couple of minutes of the performance the musicians took Nursery Rhyme requests from the floor. My shout out for Ba Ba Black Sheep was snapped up with gusto and belted out by the trio of bassoonist, pianist and singer. What happened next left me baffled... the parents on the other side of the auditorium to me were asked to choose the next nursery rhyme and the response from every single one was "we can't think of any". Now, that is simply unacceptable. I thought it was the law for every parent in the land to have a catalogue of songs to sing on loop for their babies. Maybe Putney is too posh for nursery rhymes... "No darling we don't do Twinkle Twinkle, we do Dvorak's Song to the Moon". Never fear, Rosie stepped in to save the day with a request for the classic Grand Old Duke o York, which was brought to life by our woodwind leader.  

Overall, this was an excellent activity for both parents and babies! 

The inspiration from the music stayed with me for the rest of the day, so much so that when I was in Sainsbury's on a quick trip to buy four very specific items for the Milk Lady, I found myself singing (too loudly) in a Gnarl's Barkley kind of style:

Double Creeeeeam, Lemons,
Fresh Tarr-a-gooooon.  
And dooooonchooooo  forget that washin' up Li-quiiiiid. 

Then later, in the lift, I was singing my old favourite to A-bomb: 

She's a Stinkbomb Lady, 
Doin' Stinky plopsies. 
She's a Stinkbomb Lady, 
Doin' Stinky plopsies.

The shame was that while singing my bluesy verse with my head in the buggy a rather sweaty woman in ill-fitting leggings had walked through the lift doors. I looked up and knew that the crease-faced shopper had heard me. It was a long 10 seconds descending to the ground floor. Nothing was said but we both knew that although my song was not aimed at her, the woman could've done with a spray of deodorant. 

That wasn't being mean, it was just a fact of life.

Day 37-38 – Rave Sleeping and Reverting to the Dark Ages

Very Messy (ahem, no relation to Lionel)

WOW. 

So much for me getting recharged. Monday was the jab just to sharpen me up for the week and Tuesday's tearaway tikes was the solid uppercut that I thought I had recovered from. Then with a relatively decent sleep, Wednesday (Day 37) hit me from behind like a speeding freight train only for me to peel myself off the canvas for Thursday to mow me down like an out-of-control combine harvester running late for its wheat order. Nothing major happened, I just never quite caught my breath from the moment I woke to the the second I turned in.

Never fear, the details are here... 

Of course Wednesday was swimming day and M'Lady woke up raring to go. At 0650 I found her limbering up with a few stretches and activating her core muscles with a side-plank exercise. In reality, as I walked into her room she was arching her back in an attempt to dislodge her cankle from the cot's bars before the momentum of being released caused her to roll over. As the lardy lady went to roll a second time both gravity and the Law of Moments gave up and left her beached on her side. She was there for quite some time. Then I stepped in to rid her of the night's wee-fest. 

This week's foray into the swimming pool was another great success with my champion performing beautifully on the commands of Hold On, Turn, Swim Swim and Dive Dive. We really rattled through the moves and the kids spent most of their time being dunked or thrown face down into the water. To the layperson the training could seem ruthless and to those weeds who wear woolly cardigans and scarves in the summer it would certainly appear as abuse, however all of the babies loved it and swimming is easily A-bomb's favourite part of the week.

At the end of the session, after diving off a giant float while we chanted jelly on the plate in their faces, the tiny people were given the chance to run along the float, into the pool. Yes, run. So the other TODDLERS (aged 15-18 months ish) were held by the instructor and their mums and guided off the foamy mat while they walked quickly. 

A-Bomb, aged seven months, was last up. 

In her wonderfully clipped tone the excellent South African teacher asked: "Can Alexa walk yet?" 

"No," I responded, almost apologising before catching myself. 

"Ah, of caws, yis. She is younga."

Not a problem, my specimen popped up on the float, rose on her feet and we dragged the little munchbunch in feet first. As she came to the surface she was all smiles with bloodshot eyes. Superstar. 

Back at home she was so tired that she slept for more than two hours. More impressive than all of her efforts in the pool though was the fact that she managed to stay zonked out despite the full-blown RAVE that my next door neighbour decided to have at 1.30pm on weekday. My baby's ability to keep her eyes closed through the high-pitched 80s synth notes was commendable. 

The fact that she didn't flinch means I can keep that particular complaint in my locker for when I received a knock regarding my own (much worse) bad habits in future.  

THURSDAY saw us – a duo now being dubbed AC-JC by the fans (just the Milk Lady) – attend BABY SENSORY armed with spare clothes, because we had been forewarned that it was to be "messy play". Finally a fully sanctioned time for us forgotten folk who can't help but destroy things and end up covered in spinach and bin juice! Sadly the messy bit had to wait until THE LEADER had finished her six-minute Broadway-ready version of Incy-Wincy Spider with pom-poms. But the wait was worth it... one delicious pile of cooked spaghetti and one wobbly and very sticky mountain of jelly to play in. Of course there was the mandatory safety statement from THE LEADER along the lines of "It's all safe to eat if your little one puts it in his or her mouth, but it is not suitable for vegetarians" which was followed by the inevitable "why is it not for vegetarians, is there meat in it?". One day, in some kind of promised land, a giant shovel will appear from the sky at moments like these and scoop away (possibly into a bin of raw meat) those who ask questions that don't deserve an answer.

Anyway as the babies faced down their prospective messes I opted to place A-bomb directly in the middle of the jelly so that she got the most out of the experience. Other babies soon followed suit by smashing the hands and feet into the gloriously soft and squishy stuff. M'Lady then made me super proud by falling backwards into the pile of yellow sludge to ensure was completely covered. With time called on the fun called far too soon I quickly threw some pasta on my darling's head, just to make sure she was as messy as possible. I did not want her to feel shortchanged. 

Just before we returned to the mat to wipe down our offspring I received the the most outdated, sexist and regressive comment yet from one of the mums. I was not meant to be offensive but that didn't mean it wasn't. 

On seeing A-bomb covered head-to-toe in jelly, with her hair matted and eyes caked, the sweet woman said: "Ooo wait until you get her home, her mum is going to go mad at how messy you've got her". 

I replied: "Her mum is at work, it's my concern. The aim was to get messy".  

I left it there because I had no intention of having a debate about how it's the seemingly innocent comments that reinforce negative gender stereotypes. 

On reflection though, outside of the jelly pasta arena the comment made me think about the ridiculous parameters some people squeeze their lives into: Man earn money, woman cook food, man look after child sometimes for treat, woman keep child clean, man go to pub, woman get angry at man if he does thing different with child than woman might. 

On the whole people seem to get it now: men and women can both be parents and rules do not have to exist that mean only mothers take time off work to raise their kids. 

If only the woman from the 1940s knew what I ended up doing after messy time, she would have had a heart attack. I washed my own baby and put her down for a nap, then fed her from a bottle all by myself, then put her on a mat to play in the garden while I HUNG WASHING UP that I had washed myself using a WASHING MACHINE. So much multi-tasking it should be and might well be illegal. 

Come on people, we are all humans. Men and women have a few different body parts that serve a few different purposes but other than that, move on from dark ages and get over the gender thing.

MAN IN MULTI-TASKING SHOCKER

DAY 31 – COMMANDO KID

AFTER a few weeks off we returned to Baby Sensory to hear the teachings of The Leader.

Firstly a giant thunderstorm was piped through speakers at an intense volume, which succeeded in scaring the life out of all babies and parents. All part of the "awakening the senses" experience. Then we continued with the brainwashing by chanting "say hello to the sun... etc" before hundreds of bubbles were blown in our darlings' faces at the same time as bells were shaken aggressively in front of their tiny eyes. The grand finale saw the pre-toddlers smothered with chiffon rags while being bounced up and down on a waterbed. A-bomb smiled and laughed throughout but I cannot confirm whether or not that was through happiness or fear.

Post-Sensory the usual gang of mums and I (plus babies) treated ourselves to lunch at Cafe Nero... I know, high-rollers. While we inhaled our sandwiches and wraps the baby army got stuck into their respective bottles of milk and pots of solids. The highlight was when M'Lady joined her friend, codename "Z",  in a high-pitched duet. She "sung" her noises (I cannot call them words) and then "Z" warbled back high notes that are unattainable by normal folk. It was certainly lovely to watch because the pair of seven-month-olds were clearly enjoying communicating with each other, however I must say it was an awful racket and I'm not holding out much hope for a lucrative singing career for my daughter.

Back at the ranch we got through the naps, milk feed and solids session in excellent fashion (sweet potato and a first foray into cheddar cheese), which left us with lots of play time on the mat, with Wimbledon tennis on in the background. Calm down baby vigilantes... A-bomb wasn't watching TV she was busy hitting herself in the face with her wooden squeaky toy. Anyway, I set the munchbunch a task of chasing down her toys using only her body, i.e without me handing her what she wants or me lifting her over to the coveted items. Another rule that was impossible to enforce was: no rolling. The Lady has become an expert making her way to any desired location by flipping herself front to back then back to front, as many times as required, which is plainly unacceptable on the streets and not a practical method of travel. So with only her best interests at heart I had set the scene. Clearly the girl has got a steely determination, especially when it come to her beloved toys and as soon as the rattly squeaker thing was put on the other side of the room she launched herself forwards. M'Lady succeeded and I am putting it down as a full-blown crawl but I must say that her technique was less textbook baby crawl and more Royal Marine evading capture in a sweaty jungle. Lumpy legs propelled her forward as her left arm simultaneously reached out front, wedging her shoulder almost under her chest. From there she somehow sprung herself onward, reaching forward with her right arm but keeping her left arm under her body. All the while she was making the sound of a warthog with tonsillitis. Weird but effective. Top commando crawling Private A-bomb.