WHAT DO DUMMIES, VEGEMITE, RICE CEREAL AND AUTISM ALL HAVE IN COMMON?

‘Don’t swear in front of your daughter,’ I harped to my husband the other day, ‘children hear everything you know. Her first word will be the f-bomb.’

‘I call her a little f_cker sometimes when she’s really annoying,’ my brother chimes in, ‘is that bad?’

The thing with parenting is, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing, there’s always someone doing much, much better and someone else doing a little bit worse.

Consider the dummy, the pacifier, (or as my husband’s family calls it) the moopie. A contentious item in some parenting circles. Miss Q isn’t into them really, except in the car when I have to dislocate my shoulder and hold it in her mouth while simultaneously changing gears and steering the car with my other hand.

No I don’t. Not really…ok maybe sometimes I do, but don’t tell the police, it would really cramp our lifestyle if Miss Q and I couldn’t get around.

Anyway, I mentioned this problem to a friend of mine and she said ‘why don’t you just sticky tape it to her nose. That’s what I did. Then she can’t spit it out.’

Now some would argue that is not good parenting. But really it’s just efficiency. And, (in my case at least) safer driving.

Note: I have since been told I can buy baby-safe dummy attach-ers which I’ll get around to purchasing at some point before her fifth birthday I’m sure.

Miss Q has begun solids over the last few weeks. (Well, Farex, that baby rice cereal if that counts as solid. I’m not sure it does. It looks like paper mache and doesn’t taste much better if you ask me. I’ve got no idea why she goes for it).

SERIOUS POO ALERT by the way. When Miss Q offloads she can really ruin an outfit. Generally this occurs in public. A friend of ours was holding her when she did one time and tried to convince herself it was pumpkin soup. Bless her.

Anyway, a family friend agreed with me that rice cereal doesn’t taste like much, and told me she used to add vegemite to her children’s. Vegemite. That spread made from used beer-brewers yeast, which is extremely high in salt. Now don’t get me wrong, I love it, just had it on my toast in fact. But I’m an adult with thirty-two years of beating my tastebuds behind me. Not a near newborn where nothing has touched my palate but the sweet taste of my own mother’s milk. Still, those kids have all made it to adulthood without weird eating habits or any other adverse effects as far as I can see.

Miss Q loves rudee-nudee time. It’s her favourite time of day. And when you’re in cloth nappies I can see why. It’s much easier to get your foot in your mouth when you don’t have to navigate it around the massive girth of your padded derriere. One day Miss Q was thoroughly enjoying doing just that in the presence of several other mothers, one of whom felt the need to say; ‘careful of her being naked. Not liking to wear clothes is one of the first signs of autism.’

Yes, seriously that’s what she said.

So what I’m trying to tell you is that parenting isn’t as straightforward as you may think. Perhaps vegemite is an excellent choice for a baby’s first food. Maybe dummies are rubbish, maybe they’re not. I’ll hold my ground on rudee-nudee time though, that ain’t nothing but grand as far as I can see.

The point being that there are many ways to skin a cat, or raise a human as the case may be. 

And don’t judge me if you hear my child using the F-bomb in public.