Babytalk is a wondrous thing.  They seem to know exactly what they mean and their frustrated expressions show that it’s clearly us that has the communication problem, in not immediately grasping their every command.

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I’m a huge fan of baby-wearing.  Not as a fashion accessory you understand.  My husband and I just found using a baby sling or papoose the most practical means of getting around with  our babies.  Firstly, because it helped them sleep whenever/wherever (a godsend during a long haul trip to Australia).  Secondly, because they seemed happiest being held and sometimes my arms gave up long before their cries did.  Thirdly, because when my second baby came along, I needed to be hands-free to attend to my toddler, but wanted to make sure my newborn still felt involved and embraced.  Fourthly…do I need to go on?

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While my daughter practises reading aloud to me after school, her 3-year old brother likes to join in and copy the words she sounds out.  And although he can recognise some letters of the alphabet (primarily those in his name!), he could do with a bit of a helping hand.  But whenever I sit down with him to go through letter sounds, he goes right off the idea, preferring to play with the nearest car/train/dump truck to hand.

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When I was first pregnant, I considered my due date an immoveable goal that I would reach at exactly 40 weeks gestation.  After all, it had been calculated by proper, white-coated doctors using mystical cardboard wheels and confirmed by various scans, so I never doubted for a minute that it might not be my baby’s actual birth day.  Although all the pregnancy books, ante-natal classes and online forums said labour might begin two weeks before or after the so-called due date, I stuck to that date as though it were an unbreakable pact between me and my baby.

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Halloween tends to be a holiday claimed by that great big U.S of A. But judging by the Halloween paraphernalia smuggled into the last few feet of the recently erected Christmas isles in shops, Halloween has managed to stake a spot in England.

It is such a fun holiday for children to celebrate – of course carefully omitting the potentially age-inappropriate elements that are likely to scare children and run amuck in fertile imaginations. Halloween is a festival of orange, purple, pumpkins and sweets, and who needs e better excuse to dress their children up, make delicious food and throw a party? Certainly not me. I can’t wait to dress my baby girl in her first Halloween costume. I am definitely going for a pumpkin, so that will naturally be number one in my top five most accessible Halloween costumes for 2010 – check out the rest:

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