Opinionated bitch #1

It's been a while.

All the posts I think of are either mind-numbingly boring - We did fingerpainting today at Playgroup - or might offend someone - mothers who don't go to Playgroup might feel their choices are belittled by me writing that I go to Playgroup.

Anyway because the recent snafu resonated so strongly with my childhood messages - don't have an opinion, it's unladylike and rude - I've been thinking of throwing the gauntlet down at my own feet and having an opinion every day - originally I thought for a month, but I think I'll start with a week and see how I go. For a whole week, I'm going to make a good parenting and bad parenting judgement every day.

Don't bother commenting though. I'm not going to read them. I hate people telling me I'm not allowed to have opinions. It's too much like having my Sunday School teacher and my high school form room teacher and my finishing school teacher (yes I was sent to finishing school. Can't you see I'm finished?) all arranged in a semicircle chanting 'No one wants to know what you think, Mikhela'. It's just something I have to get out of my system.

Good parenting.
Yesterday I went to the Ipswich Rail Museum and I thought, I like people who take their children to museums. I think it is good parenting. I must do it more often. I'm in a very comfortable routine of playgroups, parks and Granny dates, and sometimes it seems like a lot of effort to find out what else might be suitable for toddlers. I like when my children are exposed to a whole world of ideas that are outside my own field of knowledge. Maybe they'll learn something I don't approve of! They'll certainly learn something I didn't know. I learnt that Louis is shaping up to be obsessed with trains. Don't tell me that gender is solely socially constructed! Pearl is much less interested, but is happy to go along with Louis' excitement. 'Oh, another train?' I mentally hear her saying. 'Okay, sure.' Meanwhile Louis is enthusing, 'Yes, but this is a steam train. That last one was a tilt train. And then we are going to climb up on the diesel...'

Bad parenting
I hate letting the babies cry. I'm very jealous of that element of having one baby at a time - that you can comfort them without worrying about the other crying baby. I don't think that crying for extended periods is good for any baby (not just my babies! Yes, I am generalising), but tonight, for example, L is away and for some inexplicable reason they both decided to cry from 9pm til 10pm. An hour of gut-wrenching howling, as if they'd both had the same terrible nightmare. Most of the time I spent alternately holding one (who was relatively calm while in arms, but resumed at full throttle the moment it was put down) and patting the other one on the bum while it sobbed hysterically. I did take a couple of breaks to reconnoitre for caramel chocolates from the fridge, but I felt too bad to stay out there and enjoy them - I just shoved them into my mouth and leapt back into the fray. My twin book says 'Just leave them to cry. Bake a cake if necessary, to drown out the noise' (noisy cakes she must make).

So now we're out of caramel chocolates.