Molly formerly-Forbes-now-Weaver-except-for-professional-gigs blogs hilariously and thoughtfully at Mother’s Always Right. I’ve been stalking reading Molly for quite some time and was thrilled when she agreed to throw some words our way. Here she tries to decipher the meaning of her non-toddling toddler Frog’s dreams.

The stuff dreams are made of. Or not.

My daughter has started dreaming. I know this fact with unwavering certainty because I haven’t had a good night’s sleep in more than a week.

The dreams began with the occasional cry in the middle of the night. Nothing major, just a little shout here and there. The reluctant teeth, hiding out under the gums, were inevitably blamed and we all went back to sleep. But then the dreams went up a notch.

There’s nothing spookier than going to calm your crying 17 month old, to discover her lying fast asleep in her cot. It’s the type of experience that’s particularly unwelcome for ghost-phobic types like me, who stupidly choose to live in houses over 500 years old.

I eventually pinpointed the dreams when I brought my daughter into my bed one night. The screams were so loud that by 3am I didn’t have a choice. I needed sleep so the husband was pushed out of bed onto the sofa downstairs and the non-toddling toddler (what do you call a non-walking child of 17 months, by the way?) settled in next to me.

Instantly she fell into a deep, peaceful sleep. For about twenty minutes. And then she sat bolt upright – eyes still closed – and murmured “Mummy”. This was followed by more peaceful sleep, interrupted by another “Mummy”, punctuated by a “tiger”, “woof” and something incomprehensible.

And it was at that moment it dawned on me: my daughter’s dreaming. About me. And tigers. Going “woof”. Hang on a minute, who’s the one going “woof”? She better not be dreaming that I’m a dog. Perhaps she’s dreaming that I’m being eaten by a tiger. What’s worse – being a dog or being eaten by a tiger? And so on and so forth. So consumed was I in trying to unravel these potential dreams, that I didn’t get a wink of sleep for the rest of the night.
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I know it’s too early for Talitha to know what’s going on but I’m really looking forward to celebrating her first Christmas.

I’m already imagining showing her the lights blinking on the tree, reading her the Nativity story and watching her get more excited about the wrapping paper than her presents.

A Christmas post in November? How commercial am I? I think it’s my trip home for the holidays that has got me in the mood (Trinidad is still “home”? That’s a whole other post).

So, as I pack my things and try to get the house under control so it’s not too depressing for Laurence for the week and a half that he’s without us, I’ve been listening to Talitha’s first Christmas album: Baby Sing Christmas. With her, of course, since it’s hers.

Like most babies, music lights her up. Unluckily for me, though, she sometimes gets overstimulated by most of the music I naturally like listening to, whether it’s rock or folk. Really, buzzed by folk music? C’mon, baby.

Luckily for me, this is baby music I do enjoy. Forget over-processed backing tracks and squeaky vocals, Baby Sing Christmas is simple and clean: acoustic guitar and a soothing voice.

It’s so chilled that she even fell asleep while listening to “O Christmas Tree” (I was taking a break from trying to get her to nap). Alas, this is the child who does not sleep so it never happened again but it was impressive enough.
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Just when I’ve sort of started getting the hang of keeping a tiny human fed, clean, entertained and relatively rested on a daily basis, the time has come to do it all on a transatlantic flight. God help me. I mean it.

This Thursday, I am taking my five-and-a-half-month-old baby and a pared back selection of our belongings on a journey from London Gatwick to Piarco Trinidad.

Since I wanted to make the most of being on “maternity leave” by visiting Trinidad for a month, I will be conducting this feat sans husband.

So, with gritted teeth and a deep breath, I’m giving it my best attempt to being something that does not come naturally to me: organised.

I’ve broken the planning down into the essential categories. If you’ve traveled by airplane with a baby, I’d love it if you threw your two-pence in.

Feeding…
Although Talitha is mostly breastfed, I still need to top up with a couple of ounces here and there of either expressed breast milk or formula so I needed to think this one through. The sources I read online and a couple of people I spoke to had differing opinions about whether you’re allowed to take liquids used for infant feeding through security.

I thought I’d clear this conundrum with Virgin Atlantic. They say I can either take 100ml of breast milk or formula aboard or bring powder and the crew will provide the hot water. I’m still unclear whether this just refers to security but it hardly matters – taking cartons wouldn’t be practical for us since I only need two ounces at a time. So, I can exhale, that bit’s settled.

But there’s another aspect of feeding that I haven’t worked out yet. I’m envisioning Talitha popping off, letting my giant boob splay on to the embarrassed business man sitting next to me, no warning given. With a baby who (quite rightly) refuses to have her head covered and melons that need holding, I’ve still not worked out a way that lets me feed efficiently while discreetly. I’m locked into lactivism by default. So, sorry in advance, fictional business man.
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At one point, I wasn’t really into babies. I didn’t really notice them. I just sort of registered that they were babies, that they were sort of cute and didn’t think about them. I certainly didn’t ask to hold them. In fact, on occasions when they were offered to me, I took them awkwardly and counted the moments until they could be returned.

Then the womb-longing started. Suddenly I noticed babies. Everywhere. And they were so cute. A woman would walk past us with a pushchair, I’d glance at Laurence and he’d shake his head. It was as if my baby radar had been switched on without warning.

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I can’t remember when we first started talking about home education. It was probably before Talitha was even conceived. Since then, we’ve gone round and round talking about the merits of alternative education while maintaining a wait-and-see approach.

After all, she’s only just trying out her consonant sounds. She’s not running off and getting hooked on phonics next week.

I realise that this topic is provocative for some, though I don’t really get why. On a couple of occasions people have actually taken offence when I’ve casually mentioned that we’re thinking about homeschooling. I’m discussing our decision for our child, not attempting to pick the foundations of society apart.

Let me say now that our decision will not be rooted in distrust in the British education system or mainstream schooling in general.

Laurence often jokes that I’ll choose to do something simply because it’s the opposite of what the majority is doing. I promise this has no part to play in this or most of my decisions.

OK, I may tend a tiny bit towards the alternative generally but I’d like to think that’s open-mindedness. I’m not looking necessarily for the “different” way, only for what’s best for us.
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