Prances With Wolves

Thinking of children (as I currently have no choice in this – due to the fact they are screaming in the next room), leads me to ponder Ms Madmad’s post about leaving them to be raised by dogs.

I wish I had thought of this option when we HAD a dog. But being raised by dogs can’t be too bad, can it? I mean, Romulus and Remus were raised by a dog (yes, yes split hairs all you want, but a wolf is definitely a TYPE of dog – so they were raised by dogs). They went on to found Rome. Rome is one of my favourite cities. You can always get great food, there is good espresso on every corner, wine is good and cheap and when you have a bad day, grappa is available. Plus the fact that it is beautiful, walkable and there’s lots of eye candy about – what more could you want of a city?

Other achievers include Mowgli – also raised by wolves – but a bear and a tiger also helped. He had books written about him and his animal companions.

In fact, lots of children have been raised by animals. Enough that there was an entire unit in undergraduate psychology about it and a zillion books written on the subject. I mean, most of these kids were OK – sure, they didn’t speak, but given my children at present, that might not be such a bad thing.

I have lots of ideas about child rearing. I have a theory that all mothers should grow an extra pair of arms during each pregnancy. You really need those arms and you need more when you have another child. Let’s see – you need arms to carry the baby, and the baby stuff, and the car keys, and your bag and the shopping. Then you need more arms to keep your sunglasses on your head and to open doors and press buttons. And to push the stroller. And catch the toddler when he does a runner.

The arms may make you look a little like Kali, but you’d be a repository for odd jumpers with four or six arms, and they’d be sooooo useful. The arms could wither away when the children turn – oohhh 14 or so.

In addition to the arms, you should get a child’s remote control at the same time the baby appears. This would only have 3 buttons – a mute button, a volume control and a stop button. Some people would argue for a slow button, but a stop would do.

The number of times I have wished for a mute button (when on the phone to officialdom or tradespeople – or just on the phone really – to real people over 95cms tall), or a volume control as the screaming and shouting and whining increases, or a stop button BEFORE the child falls off the chair or runs into traffic. The laughter of children is great – but it’s loud!!!

In other news, Juno continues to grow, slowly. I managed 2 repeats of the cables last night, and estimate there are probably at least 7-8 repeats to go. This weekend will be almost entirely devoted to socks (road trip) but also possibly some work on Christmas gift scarves.

Have a great weekend – hope for some sunshine for us (instead of gales and blizzard – it IS meant to be spring after all)!!