Am I a 1950's parent?

I came across these articles today, both of which examine the differing styles of parenting through the ages of a post war world.

http://www.parentingskill.info/the-best-style-for-parenting-today/

http://www.kidsource.com/better.world.press/parenting.html

They're basically the same thing just written in different fonts but it made me question my parenting technique... Babycakes is now 13 months old and toddling and getting into all kinds of mischief, which is fine as I believe kids have to push the boundaries every now and then to learn what is socially acceptable and what is potentially dangerous but when reading these articles I also realised that I'm fairly strict with him. I have a certain set of rules and if he crosses them then, regardless of his age, there is a punishment. He's only a baby but he knows rules like don't break into the cleaning cupboard, don't try to squeeze through the baby gate to get to the sky box and record 3 hours of Ceebeebies and don't pull the big kitchen bin over, but still he tries and I think thats perfectly healthy but it will result in a punishment along the lines of having a favourite toy taken away or a light smack of the hand or nappy. He will sometimes cry but most times he just shrugs it off and tries again. I have the rule of 3 though, I will ask him to stop doing what he's doing, then I will tell him to stop, if he persists then I will pick him up and take him away from whatever he's trying to do and if he goes back to it a 3rd time after that then thats when the punishment is served. But he knows the rules and he knows when he's being naughty as he often smiles when he's doing it and tries to run away when I approach him after telling him to stop, giggling as he runs! But I wondered, in this modern society of letting kids get away with murder, am I TOO strict? We don't really have a routine except when it comes to nap times, food times and bed time, if he wants to play then we'll play, if he wants to have quiet cuddle time then we'll do that and if he wants to watch some Ceebeebies then I'll put that on for him and he has very clear ways of expressing what he wants without actual verbal communication which, I think, at 13 months is quite advanced.

I admit some people might think that the little smack on the nappy padded bum is too extreme and is showing him that violence is a good outlet but I NEVER get angry with him and we've tried time out but I just couldn't cope with his screaming when I put him in his cot on his own. If I give him a little smack he just shrugs it off and wanders off to play with some toys, he will only cry if he's tired. He knows he's done wrong and he knows the boundaries so a smack to the bum is punishment enough, it doesn't hurt but he knows that he shouldn't go any further and wont.

Back in the 1950's there was the "My way or the highway" attitude of teaching children right from wrong as they grew up, then in the 1960's there was too much freedom to let children do exactly what they wanted and get away with it. I believe children should be guided, gently but firmly with set rules and boundaries and thats what I am trying to do with my babycakes. Some of my attitudes to parenting may very well be much in the style of the 50's parent but my attitudes are modern and at the end of the day all I want is to keep him safe and feel loved, so is being quite a strict parent when it comes to rules about potentially harmful things really that bad?

More wedding things...

It's far too early to be looking for wedding things. Like 2 years too early! But I was thinking about bouquets, like do I really need one? I've decided I want to carry a handbag anyway, and how nice is this one?I'm not sure how it'd look at a rockabilly wedding but I do love it so...

http://www.2become1weddings.com/Articles/detail~iData~19~iCat~1048~iChannel~2~nChannel~Articles.htm says that bouquets were carried by brides to ward off evil spirits, apparently the strong smells of cloves, garlic and chives (which were included in it) would keep them away. I don't want everyone to remember my wedding as the day they nearly died of garlic asphyxiation... I know I could carry flowers but I know what I'm like, I get bored carrying things! What I could do is choose some nice flowers and wear them in my hair instead... I don't know, I'll just keep thinking... If I do end up with a bouquet I just know I'll end up leaving it somewhere, on a wall... In a hedge... the toilet... Sigh...

Too many wedding cakes!!!

So today I decided to google some wedding cakes, as our wedding (in 2011 hopefully!) will be less than conventional I decided a wedding cake thats a bit different would be in order. I started my research. I must have looked at over 400 cakes online, all lovely, all unique and all as mindnumbingly cakey as the one before. I mean c'mon, it's a cake, it's gonna get eaten and end up as poo at the end of the day! But still it's important to me for some reason, I can't work out why so I'll just blame being a woman. I'm hoping for a rockabilly themed wedding as thats what I'm into, not sure if Bloke is quite aware of my plans exactly, he knows most of them but I dont think he's entirely sure of what he's let himself into! Anyway, it's late and I need the toilet and then I'm gonna go to bed so here's some of the lovely cakes I looked at today...

http://www.perfect-wedding-day.com/whimsical-wedding-cakes.html

Obviously I'm dismissing the Kermit and Miss Piggy one!

Things I have enjoyed this week part one.

Thanks to my good friend Matt for showing me this, I think its genius and I get myself into hysterics every time I watch it!



Wait til the end though, it gets pants wettingly funny towards the end!

No rant today

Just an update really, I turned the big 25 twenty days ago and bloke turns 26 on saturday so it's been a month of celebrations lol Caleb's 7 and a half months old now and he's really developing a character! He's been in his own room overnight for the last few nights, which is difficult for me because I miss him but it's better for us because Calebs getting more sleep, I'M getting more sleep and we're all just a lot more relaxed and happier! He's also got two teeth now and he's kind of comando crawling by pulling himself along the floor by his hands and pushing on his feet, he hasn't quite learnt how to move his knees when he's on all fours yet! He's pulling himself up the coffee table and sofa and he's easily distracted by the television so we have Ceebeebies on in the background most days! At the moment he's watching a clown with a severe ear imbalance fall about all over the place trying to avoid lots of buckets of custard, as he watches this scene he's babbling to himself and kicking his legs so he's clearly enjoying it! I'm waiting for bloke to get back from the barbers so I can go into town and get the last of his birthday presents, then we're going to whizz up to the cross of westwood and do some shopping together as a family (it's a rarity with his working hours lol) and then we shall head to his mothers for the evening. Blokes got a week off for his birthday which I've been looking forward to for ages so he's off work now until next friday which means lots of time together which is lovely :) we've set the dat for the wedding, it's gonna be October 2011 so we'll book it at Aberdeen house end of next year I think lol it's a while off but we need to save up the cash! Most people spend about £20,000 on their wedding, we're aiming for £2,500! We've lots of friends that can do us favours and help up, so we've got a free DJ, free photographer, free venue and my friends giving us a discount on borrowing his services as a chauffeur driving his car, which is my all time favourite car, it's a Shelby Mustang from 1969!! I've also got a (relatively) cheap dress in mind, it's vintage 1950's style ivory swing dress and it's beautiful. I'm going to visit the shop in london nearer the time and get it, so far I've only seen it on their online store lol

So yeah, the summers coming, Caebs growing, Bloke and I are still going strong and we're very much in love (been together 18 months today) and we're in a great little flat in the nicer part of Ramsgate lol I couldn't ask for anymore, I'm so happy!

The rant of a drain on society

As you can probably tell by the ironic title of this blog I'm in yet another ranting mood! Basically once again I'm letting the thoughts and assumptions of complete strangers get to me again, which I really shouldn't, they don't know me or anything about me yet they still seem to have opinions about me... I was recently walking to my parents house with the little fella in his pram, its easily a 20 minute walk and on the way I have to pass St Lawrence petrol station as there's stupid road blocks in Ashburnham road that I can't get the pram over, through, round etc... so I have to go the long way past the registry office and Ellington Park and through St Lawrence. Either way it was a miserable day, it was windy and cold and there was a puddle of drizzle building up on the rain cover over the pram, so when I got to the petrol station at St Lawrence I was pleased that I didn't have much further to go. Six minutes of more walking to be exact (I once turned on my mp3 player outside my parents house and was listening to Closer by Nine Inch Nails, the song finished when I got to the petrol station and its 6 minutes long so now I know how long it takes to get there!) I felt vaguely euphoric, soaked to the skin and covered in goosebumps and I didn't have long left until I could sit down and have a drink. There was a man coming out of the petrol station, he stood by the post box in front of me, blocking my path as he lit a cigarette. I was polite and asked "excuse me please" as I struggled to get the pram up over the curb but he ignored me and just stood there staring at me. "Excuse me please, I can't get through" I repeated. He took a step backwards allowing me just enough room to scrape the pram up against the post box in an attempt to not run him over with it. He was still just staring at me so I righted the pram and carried on walking. A few moments later I realised he was following me as I could hear him swearing under his breath. The he started shouting. "Scum! Thats what you are, you're draining all our reseources! Stealing my money! You're stealing all my money to fund your dirty habit! If you'd have kept your legs together until you were of legal age you wouldn't be there with that abomination! Its single teenage scums like you that are draining our society you know, you're the ones ruining this country!" and so on and so forth. Well I did what I'm not programmed to do. In order to keep a civil tongue I ignored him and carried on walking. Its not like me to let people go on thinking things about me that are untrue, in fact these days I'm used to whipping out my driving license to prove that I am in fact a fully grown adult of nearly 25 years! But I figured that if this guy could even read then he probably wouldn't believe what he read. Anyway, he spent the next few minutes just swearing at me until he reached the St Lawrence tevern (I still call it the White Horse!) whereupon he went inside. I wasn't really that upset but I was angry, but it got me thinking. If people are always going to make assumptions is there anyway to stop them? Its not their fault that they see every young girl with a pram and assume bad things about them, I went to Ellington High School, my year wasn't too bad but the year below me were terrible, I know at least half of them left with no qualifications and got themselves knocked up straight away so they could get council houses and not have to work. Its not the schools fault (I loved Ellington and will fight for its honour!) its the girls being lazy and thinking that they can get everything for free just by having a baby. So average Joe in the street looks at them and then looks at me and groups us all together. I know I look young, I still get asked for ID when I go into pubs, so I know I look under 18 and thats why I am used to getting my driving license out to prove that next April I will actually be turning 25. But I probably don't hep my cause. I should dye my hair a neutral colour and get rid of the bright pink bit I currently sport in the front of my hair. I should start wearing neutral colours instead of the black jeans and hoodie that depicts a band smashing up their instruments on the front of it. I should remove my lip ring. This would probably make me look older and more mature but it would be taking away from me who I really am. I like the pink fringe I have going on at the moment, I wear my hoodie because its warm and comfortable and I need to feel comfortable at the moment while my body gets used to having just had a baby (9 weeks ago but still...!) and I absolutely LOVE my lip ring, I didn't even take it out when I was working in mental health with schizophrenics who thought I could communicate with aliens with it! I look and dress this way because of who I am and my identity is important to me. So if I'm walking up the road looking like this and pushing a pram its no wonder people assume I'm a teenage mother. And of course if I'm walking up the road then I'm on my own because my fella is at work, but because I'm not with him at that exact moment I must be a single mother. This is where it gets cruel though, if I'm not with my fella then I must be a single mum, but if I'm with my fella on one of his days off then we must both be claiming benefits... He works strange shifts at work, mostly nights and gets his days off at random, for example last week he had saturday and sunday off, this week he has today and tomorrow off, which is thursday and friday. So if we go somewhere on his day off and its midweek then people look at us with disgust because we are clearly claiming benefits as its midweek and he's not at work!

I understand why people think these things and in the society we live in today its not hard to make assumptions, hell I do it, but its still quite hurtful to have them shouted at you as you walk down the street. Assumptions make an ass out of u and me.

So the first week with a new baby...

So last tuesday (16th september) I finally gave birth to my lil Babycakes, at 9:19am after an emergency C-section he was introduced to the world weighing 7lb 7ounces and urinating on 3 of the surgeons. I'm so proud of him :)





We registered him yesterday, his name is Master Caleb Antony Kendell Knight and he is, as of today, officially a week old :) I think he's possibly the most amazingly beautiful and talented baby ever to be born, but then, I'm his mum, I'm meant to!!