Teebee, Teebee

11.10.07

Cat, Aimee and I took a little trip back to Hackney’s finest – Homerton Hospital – for an ECV. As me and Aimee waited in the ‘birthing partner’ room, Cat was in the delivery room getting checked over.
Luckily, Baby No2 had managed to turn into the ‘correct’ position of head down without any manipulation necessary, so Cat was out after only a brief period. Aimee was on pretty good behaviour whilst we were waiting but I did have alarming visions of Cat going into labour and me having to entertain and control Aimee for several hours in the same tiny room. Anyhow, the news that unborn has turned has come as a welcome relief and Cat was very happy.
So, the rest of the day turned to me looking after Aimee at home while Cat took a well deserved rest and I tried very hard to avoid using the TV. Aimee has taken to nagging and nagging and nagging for us to play her favourite Postman Pat or In the Night Garden videos and when we relent she just stands there like a zombie for hours. At first I think, this is great - I can get some rest or do some of my own work. And yet, I get an enormous sense of guilt whenever I resort to the TV, partly fuelled by having read several articles about the harm that excess TV can do to a young child’s language development.
Regardless of the harm it is alleged to be doing, I think that it is my parental duty to join in with as much as I can with Aimee, and encourage her to play and draw, and dance and sing and do all the things a toddler should be doing, except for standing there like a Pompeii statue absorbing nonsense on the flickering screen (like us adults - oh the woes of double standards). So, I invented a new game of belly flop onto the giant beanbag cushion. Aimee loved it. After my initial demonstration, she belly flopped onto it for ages, never tiring. Then we got creative and drew animals together. Or rather, Aimee would call out the animal and pester me to draw one – usually birdies, but sometimes monkeys or cats. After a while, the page had a lot of very similar looking creatures in the menagerie, as I exhausted all the permutations of birdie, monkey and cat. Soon, she completely forgot the TV and stopped begging for ‘Pat, Pat, Pat’. Another top purchase was the pink mini-stroller. She runs around with that, with dolly sitting in it, for hours – upstairs, downstairs, all along the coridoor – everywhere. That thing cost about £5 and is played with more than any £50 quid electronic ‘educational’ toy.