INTERFERENCE!

“LADY, YOUR BABY’S FACE IS IN THE SUN!” the middle-aged woman sitting outside a small café in Primrose screamed at me. About 17 responses immediately shot into my head, but I restrained myself and simply mumbled under my breath, “Hey, he’s seen it but once before in this gloomy country, so let him peacefully enjoy it.”

It got me to thinking about all the unwanted advice you get as a mum. Now I’ll be the first to admit that prior to having a baby – hey, even now! – there was much I did not know. I find the role a largely trial-and-error one, sometimes gleaning info from books, or friends who have daringly born children before me, but mostly just figuring it out in my own way as I go along, praying a lot, and hopefully making as few errors as possible. And that seems, for me, about the right recipe for raising kids.

Funny how the unsolicited advice starts within ten seconds of your bump being big enough to affirm there is a life growing inside. Waiting at the bus stop after a doctor’s appointment around about my fifth month of pregnancy last year, a woman – in complete seriousness – told me that while she’d never had a baby, her sister gave her the ultimate advice: chew a cup of broccoli per day and always stay off your feet. Um, thanks. And practical, too.

Or the classic “He’s too hot/cold” comment. I guarantee 83% of mums out there have heard this one. I’ll bet I have more times than Tadpole is months old.

Now the lady in the café. I don’t know if she’s never been a mum, was an extremely perfect one, or was simply bored that day with her same ole cuppa of Earl Gray. But I wondered: what in the world would motivate her to yell at me?

And anyway, I thought the Brits were reputed to be overly delicate and apologetic even when making a criticism or complaint.

Don’t get me wrong. I am quite open to advice in the correct context: your best mate who has a baby the same age suggests you feed your little tyke chunks of peaches but stay away from those darn bananas if you don’t want him to be constantly constipated; when contemplating the ways to get your child down stairs without carrying him, your own mum tells the tale of how she managed to teach you to go backwards without breaking a leg.

That I can handle. But this completely out of the blue – and usually wacky – stuff is for the birds.

In the words of the incredibly overweight woman on the bus, to me with my fussy Tadpole: “Your baby is obviously hungry!” Yeah. No comment.

One Blue Shoe

A fabulous thing about being a mum in London is that you do so much walking. A not-so-fabulous thing about being a mum in London is… that you do so much walking.

Hmmm.

It’s fabulous when it’s a lovely day (all 38 we have each 12 month cycle) or when you consider trying to lose that pregnancy weight (which I haven’t done). It’s also a sweet bonding time with your baby, nature, and your surroundings being able to point out the cute ducklings in the pond or the screeching red double-decker bus that just hauled past at lightning speed.

It’s not-so-fabulous when it is raining.

Which is, well, about 77% of the time.

And given that the weather here can change on a dime – make that, a two pence – it means you can easily experience fabulous and not-so-fabulous in an extremely short span of time. Like we did the other day.

It had been scorching hot (oops, I’m too acclimated to London – it was actually in the 80s and 90s, although, cut me some slack, as nearly everyone in the UK lives without air conditioning) for about 3 days straight, and I had barely ventured for much more than a stroll in the hot sun with the panting pug and squinting baby.

But this day it had cooled considerably, and my mummy-buddy M.H. and I headed to our Gymboree class on foot. Fifteen minutes into our half-hour hike, the sky opened up and out of nowhere the rain poured. Of course, we’re Londoners, so barely batting an eye, we snapped on our buggy raincovers to shelter our little ones, popped open our brollies, and continued on our journey.

Needless to say, we were soaked when we arrived at Gymboree. Actually, it was primarily our trousers that were wet from the backsplash of our flip-flops and the puddles splattered on us by traffic. It was only then that, removing Tadpole from his buggy, I noticed he only had on one blue shoe.

Now, my baby is notorious for pulling off his socks and shoes, but usually I notice immediately or quickly enough to walk back 100 meters in the park and retrieve the tossed item of footwear. As the class was starting, and I didn’t see it down the corridor, I quickly gave up hope of ever seeing the missing blue shoe again and headed into the rowdy playroom.

After 45 minutes of bright colors, loud music, and general over-stimulation, we retreated to buggy parking and loaded up our worn out babes. Thankfully it had stopped raining, and we were able to appease our children with Cheerios as we toddled homeward.

In this city of continuous pedestrian traffic and widespread petty theft, there was no hope of retrieving the blue shoe, but we briefly joked about it anyway. It’s just the kind of thing someone would take – one useless size 2 shoe, likely soaked with rain and covered in muck. For a fleeting moment I was truly sad, knowing how these first shoes – purchased by Dad – looked so adorable adorning my baby’s precious naked feet… and then there were bigger and better mum issues to focus on, like why our babies wake at 4:30am every morning.

Knee-deep in our chat about blackout blinds and white noise machines, my friend suddenly pointed into the distance and shrieked “LOOK!” Sure enough, about 7 shops up and kicked forsakenly to the edge of the sidewalk lay a speck of blue, which I instantly recognized as Frogman’s accidentally discarded shoe.

Sounds nutty, so chalk it up to the pregnancy hormones in my body working overtime, but it brought momentary moisture to my eyes, on one hand saving a sliver of my faith in humanity and on the other reuniting that first pair of my firstborn’s precious blue baby shoes.

A Toast to Blogging

Pubs – originally, Public Houses – in England come by their names rather interestingly. Many are centuries old, so lots of early regulars and visitors were illiterate. Thus, pictorial signs were used because they could be recognised when words could not be read.

Examples, still seen today, include The Slug and Lettuce, The Fox and Hound, The Rose and Crown, The Cock and Bull… you get the idea.

Being a Londoner – ok, not officially, but hey, my son was born here, I welcome a day of rain when the June temps have been 28C more than 3 days in a row, and I effortlessly use the words “queue” and “keen” now – I figured a lovely blog name would be one that mimics the respected and ever-popular pub.

So here's to The Penguin and Pug, where you’ll hear snippets of daily life (just as in any ‘local’) about my growing family here in jolly ole England.

Hardly a Trendsetter

It's not that I'm completely unfashionable or behind the times, but none of my friends would exactly describe me as a trendsetter. So here I am, jumping on the blogging bandwagon well after many people have already taken the plunge into this world of personal web writing and authorship. I figure if I don't do it now, my 10-month old will somehow surpass my breadth of computer capabilities, and then I'd appear terribly fuddy-duddy.

Just don't expect too much - although I'm admittedly an Internet Addict, I'm a busy woman with limited time to ramble for all the world to read...