Week 15

Wearing: Still in my old clothes, but have shovelled a good few bags of the slimmer, non elasticated stuff into bags in the attic. Feels quite liberating to have less clutter and less choices. Especially since I’ve decided on a new resolution: I’m not buying any clothes for this pregnancy.

Nothing, not even charity shop finds. I’m going to make-do and alter my ordinary clothes. Does this mean I’ll be wearing my own duvet cover from next week till the middle of November? Quite possibly.

Either way, I thought I’d try to photograph myself in this same outfit throughout this pregnancy diary, right through to the end. Even when I can’t do my trousers up, and the top turns into a boob tube. You may want to stop looking at around week 20. Certainly avoid looking while eating your breakfast.

Feeling: Where is that fabled energised, glowing pregnant woman? Because this (above) is not her face. Pah.

Also: anyone else find they do a bit, errmm, loopy when they’re pregnant? I don’t just mean the incontrollable urge to eat shaved ice and shout at your husband. When I get pregnant, I seem to channel Captain Planet.

Last time round, I became fixated with the environment. It’s not that crazy, I suppose, for your mind to turn to the things we’re doing to our planet and the way we’re going to leave it for the next generation when you’re pregnant. But, as with most things, I tend to take it to extremes.

So last time round, I became obsessed with the nasties that go into cosmetics and shampoos. Psyched up by my friend Penny and her film Toxic Baby, I stalked the aisles of Boots, sneering at the small print on labels and battling the urge to snatch toiletries from the arms of perfect strangers.

I got over it, in time. Mostly. Then I decided that the Costa-ification of the high street was ruining traditional British culture and possibly, probably, my unborn child’s future community. So I boycotted pretty much all chain stores until my cravings for Birds Eye Potato Waffles and inability to roll my enormous girth further than the local Sainsburys Local squashed that crusade.

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I’m bored. I’m the chairman of the board.

Okay, neither of those things are true. I’m not the Chairlady of any board but I have, recently, been asked to be a board member of a new organisation, The Save Childhood Movement. It aims to look at the ways that the modern world’s rapidly changing environment is effecting childhood, invite experts from a myriad fields to weigh in on the issue, then come up with practical proposals for the future. And I’m not bored. I’m really excited.

We have an amazing, star studded advisory board but now we need to hear from the real experts – parents. And I don’t mean that in an empty, head-patting sort of way. These things are made by parental involvement. What are your most pressing concerns? What needs examining and debating and what can’t wait for that? What needs putting right, right now?

One of the things we’re doing is launching National Children’s Day UK and after months of research, debate, late night scribbling and head scratching it’s finally upon us… May 15th – two day’s time – is henceforth declared an annual day to celebrate kids’ crazy, anarchic, brilliant and inspirational minds. A day to pat yourself on the back for surviving another year, take a step back, and let the kids and their explosive imaginations take the lead.

The National Trust, Play England, Eureka (the national children’s museum) and loads of other organisations are on board.

One thing we’re asking families to do is ask their children what their perfect day would look like. If they had an entire day with no school runs, no mummy-and-daddy-have-to-be-at-work-in-half-an-hour, no limits at all on their imagination, what would they do and who would they spend it with?

What do our kids really value? What would yours say?

I’ve written a bit about it, today, over on the National Trust’s Outdoor Nation blog. Want to see it? Well, I’ve copied it in here, just in case…

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Where are mini conservationists, zoologists and explorers made? Is it on their first trip to London Zoo, squinting through the bars at a Sumatran Tiger taking his tea? Or the first school field trip, peering out at a sodden landscape from under an anorak hood? No. In my experience, for my son at least, it happened two weeks ago, in a friend’s garden, while I was looking the other way.

After half an hour of intense silence, prodding a stick into a pond and examining frogspawn, he asked to take some home. We scooped some into a jam jar, filled an old coke bottle with pond water, and cycled home via a nerve-racking and leaky trip round Sainsburys.

They lived in a yellow bucket in the garden, under the grave and vigilant guard of an enrapt two year old. And last week, they turned into tadpoles.

Our kids don’t always need us to prompt and prod their enthusiasm for learning. That instinct, that spark of curiosity and need to explore how the world works, is innate within them. And sometimes, we blundering well-meaning adults who have lost that connection with the world, just get in the way. We talk about the importance of play, but then trip ourselves up with the urge to quantify it in adult terms – what impact is it having? What are its results or its ‘value’?

As Bill Gates has said, “If you’ve ever watched a child with a cardboard carton and a box of crayons create a spaceship with cool control panels, or listened to their improvised rules… they you know that this impulse… at the heart of innovative childhood play…. is also the essence of creativity.”

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Oh I love him…

(Photo from our Cardboard Kingdom workshop at the Land of Kids Festival… more on which later, I promise… Courtesy of Momma Loves and Sonya Hurtado)

Shoes, night time nappies, wipes and underwear. These are my formidable four, the things I’ve so far encountered that pose real problems in a year of cost free kid care.

At the beginning of the year, the list was much, much longer, so I suppose I should feel grateful. Toiletries, for example, have been crossed off since I chatted to Dr Flower and realised that J can use adult shampoo, soap, even toothpaste as long as we get the gentler stuff. During the day, reusable nappies have proved so easy after advice from Wendy that I barely notice the impact on our lives now. Everything else – toys, clothes, food… – has so far proved easy to navigate through trading or just changing our habits (if not easy, then fun, if not fun, then satisfying…)

Nighttime nappies and wipes are a regular challenge though. We can’t find enough reusables that see J through the night, so we’re in disposables. Getting those for free means keeping an eagle eye on swapping site which, if you’re prone to obsessive behaviour, can turn into a full-time job. Same goes for wipes. At home we use flannels. Out and about, we’re still on disposables. So back to those swapping sites for hours that could otherwise be used learning Mandarin or motor-maintainance. Or at least occasionally cleaning the bathroom. Or working through my backlog of emails about, you know, my actual job.

For that and other reasons, potty training is looming. And now that I’ve starting thinking about it, that’s going to present different challenges. More on that later…

And, finally, there’s shoes. When we first started thinking about The Shoe Problem, J still had a lot of space left in the shiny pair he owned. Now, it’s a race to see whether he can kick them into dust before his toes push through the ends. After speaking to Laura West, I’d resigned myself to the fact that shoes were non-negotiable, one of those things on which you just have to spend money in order to get a properly fitting pair that wouldn’t cripple your kid’s inner Ussian Bolt before he even made it to the starting block.

But then Tracy Byrne emailed. Tracy is a podiatrist and leading paediatric researcher. She specialises in infant foot development. She’s regularly in the press, commenting on everything from barefoot running to swollen feet in pregnancy. Basically, she’s as expert as they come. And here’s the thing: she thinks second hand shoes may not be the end of the world. In fact, if you know what to look for and what to avoid, it will be absolutely fine.

So there is hope for our free year! Here’s what she had to say:

Me: Under what circumstances might it be okay to buy second hand shoes for your kid? 

TB: It is OK to buy second hand as long as you can see and feel that the shoes have not broken down, or don’t have a very poor wear pattern on the soles and heels.  When buying 2nd hand shoes you must ensure that they can be washed in the machine or the insole wiped with surgical spirit to kill off any residual verruca virus/athletes foot or fungal nail infection.

Me: Would it still be okay if they were your kid’s main pair and were worn a lot?

TB: As with any shoes as long as they fit the suitable requirements (flexible sole, wide fit and natural materials) it should be fine that they are your child’s main pair. Most importantly the foot should not have to adapt to the shoe, the shoe should allow the foot to develop as naturally as possible. If the shoes are second hand it is also important to remember to keep an eye on them and replace them when necessary before they become to worn down.

Me: How much does finding exactly the right width matter?

TB: If the shoe has an adjustable closure such as Velcro, laces, buckles etc. there is no need to have width measured.

Just as feet shrink and expand throughout the day it is better to be able to adjust the width than have a standard fitting which allows no room for spread and natural growth!

Me: What are the real dangers of getting their footwear wrong? And how likely is it, really, that those problems will arise?

TB: There are a wide variety of long term side effects which are preventable and can be caused or exacerbated by ill fitting shoes. The best way for children’s feet to develop well is by spending as much time as possible barefoot. When children start to wear shoes it is important to avoid shoes which have stiff/ hard soles as their feet are still developing and as such need flexible shoes to move with their natural growth and movements. Wearing unsuitable shoes can actually weaken the muscles and ligaments in the foot and cause problems such as poor posture/balance and spatial awareness.

Me:  If you are buying/trading second hand shoes for your child, what would be your top tips?

TB: Shoes should be:

Completely Flexible,

As flat as possible,

Have an adjustable closure (Velcro)

Wide toe box