Silent Sunday

A Dog Is Still A Dog

A big fat, juicy worm, anyone?  I have a big old can of them just opened!  I’ve read a really tragic story today about at two year old girl who’s been attacked by a West Highland White terrier.  Don’t worry, she survived, but she’ll be scarred.  You can read the full story here, but the gist of it is that the girl and her parents were at their neighbours’ house for the dog’s third birthday party.  Yes, you read correctly  - the dog’s birthday party.

Now, believe me, I am so sorry that this happened and I feel terrible for the little girl and her family, but the fact that the dog was having a party speaks volumes to me about the way it is treated, and about its perception of itself and others.

A Westie is a terrier.  Their instinct is to shake and kill.  That’s what they were bred for before they became cute little pets.  People forget that.  Those little fluffy puppies are still dogs and they should be treated like dogs.

Sure, it’s up to owners to decide whether the dog is given food from the table, or whether he sleeps in their bed, but these ‘lifestyle’ decisions too often cloud their judgement and the beloved pet is mistaken for a human.  A dog still needs to know its place – they’re pack animals – and all too often the owners do not give clear enough guidelines, which makes the dog nervous.

We have a dog.  We all love him very much, but he is below Daddy and Mummy in the park order.  He’s even below me and the chickens!  He knows that, and he’s happy because he doesn’t have any stress.  He has a great life – he eats well, he goes for long walks, he sleeps a lot, and barks at the postman.  He came to our house when he was just seven weeks old, but still Mummy and Daddy wouldn’t trust him with me on his own.  As I’ve said already, that’s because he’s a dog.

It shouldn’t make any difference how long you’ve had your pet, or how trustworthy you think he is, or how big it is - instinct is still there.  A dog can’t say to someone, “I’m not really in the mood today,” or “Stop that please, I’ve had enough.”  Unless you’re watching very closely, you won’t see the warning signs which are always given before an attack.

I think this was a terrible accident and I wouldn’t blame anyone involved. But please, don’t leave a child alone with a dog.

CB

Pretty Harmful

I am cross with myself for even giving today’s “research” a second thought, but I just can’t help it because I disagree so strongly.  I spotted a tweet by @Working_Mum of Adventures of a Working Mum and clicked the link to the Daily Mail. Some might say it’s my own fault!

It seems grown-ups are not to tell little girls that they’re pretty any more, for fear of turning them all into bimbos who think the only measure of success in life is one’s looks.  Drivel. The book is called “Think: Straight Talk For Women To Stay Smart In A Dumbed-Down World,” and it sounds to me like it’s missing a huge point about self-esteem.

By telling your daughter she looks beautiful, or that she’s wearing a pretty dress, are we really encouraging an obsession with appearance?  Perhaps if you only ever comment on how she looks, but not as part of balanced positive feedback.  Mummy tells me that I’m beautiful every day.  She tells me that I look sensational, but she also comments on how clever I am and praises me for working things out or doing things myself.

There might be a worrying increase in pyschological problems, but I’m pretty confident that I won’t become one of those statistics.  At least, not because Mummy tells me I’m pretty.  It seems to be that any obsessions with appearance are more likely to come from the constant media bombardment of comment and photos of celebrities.  Has the skinny little waif put on a couple of pounds?  So-and-so steps out in “no make-up disaster.” “Another wardrobe malfunction,” and so on.  It’s this incessant coverage and ridicule that is going to cause more trouble for people, surely?  In fact, if by the time I’m old enough to look at that sort of magazine I’m confident enough in myself, it’ll cause me no trouble at all.

The report says that teenage breast implants are up 150% year on year.  And that’s because mummies tell their babies they’re pretty?  Nonsense.

As for compliments being detrimental to my perception of myself, how on Earth can me thinking I’m worth something possibly be a bad thing?  When I enter a room now and people smile at me, it’s building my social confidence.  That confidence will grow and I’ll be self-assured enough to try things.

Here endeth today’s rant! 

CB

5 Lessons I've Learned From My Parents

5 Things I’ve Learned From My Parents

I’ve followed Actually Mummy on this one and joined in Kate Takes 5's Listography.  What a lot of fun thinking about the lessons I’ve learned from Mummy and Daddy!  There are some things I’ve learned that won’t be relevant for ages yet, like I don’t want Daddy dancing at my wedding, and that I don’t want to see Mummy dancing again, ever, but the ones I’ve picked could be handy things to know.

“P*ss Poor Planning Leads To P*ss Poor Performance”

Put another way, “Fail to plan and plan to fail.”  The 6Ps is pretty much Daddy’s mantra.  I can tell when he and Mummy have planned and when they haven’t.   Either one of them on their own is pretty reliable, unless they’re sleep deprived (see below) but trying to get the three of us out the door, on time, with everything we need, is a virtual impossibility because they don’t communicate.  Each one assumes the other has done things or packed bits and they don’t check until it’s too late to meet our deadline, or worse still, we’re half way to our destination, and then Daddy complains and gives us the lecture about the Ps.  Again.  Proper Prior Planning Leads To Perfect Performance.

Sleep Deprivation is a form of torture

I don’t even bother asking them if they want to play during the night any more.  It’s just not worth it.  One or other of them used to shuffle in, fumble about in the cot for my dummy, shove it back in my mouth, then shuffle out again.  Not so much as a, “No, thank you, CB, I don’t want to row your boat.  Nor do I want to sort farmyard shapes.  Maybe in 5 hours time when we get up for breakfast.”  Nothing.  I shout out every now and then, just to check they’re both still alive.  It’s important to know they could react in an emergency.  They’re deprived of sleep, but it’s torture for me in the morning having to wait to play while they get the coffee inside themselves!

There is no such thing as the Kitchen Fairy

I’m a messy little monkey, I’ll admit.  I throw food around the kitchen, I smear mud into my clothes, and my favourite medium for expressing my artistic brilliance is jam and carpet.  I began to notice that every night, leaving my trail of destruction as I tried to flood the bathroom from within my bath, it never looked quite the same in the morning.  Each day seems to be ‘reset’ and I have clean clothes and crockery.  I used to think it was a bunch of fairies coming in overnight, then I saw Mummy putting my clothes into a white cupboard in the corner and when she opened the door again, all the mud and dog hair was gone.   There’s another one beside it that cleans dirty dishes.   So it’s not fairies, it’s magic!

Manners don’t cost anything

This isn’t quite true, but it’s a nice sentiment.  Mummy believes it’s wrong to go to someone’s house empty-handed.  If you’re just popping by, it’s ok, but if you’re going for a meal, you must take something for your host – flowers, chocolates, we sometimes just take eggs from our chickens. It needn’t be fancy but the gesture acknowledges their effort.  She insists on writing thank-you letters, too.  We made cards for my birthday present Thank Yous. “Manners don’t cost anything, CB.”  No, but the stamp does!  Ha ha!

A mother’s love is unconditional

I’ll end on a soppy, sentimental one.  I know Daddy loves me too, but Mummy has put up with a lot.  I’ve ruined all her clothes, I’ve destroyed her jewellery, I’ve pulled her hair and gouged her eyes – all things no-one else would get away with – but then I give her a grin and a cuddle and she melts into a big, gooey mess.  She loves me anyway and she tells me every day.  It’s reassuring to know.

CB

Look! A Book!

This post was inspired by Mammasaurus's book week but I didn’t note the deadline to get involved and now I’ve missed it.  Better luck next time.

Look!  A book!  Any book, actually.  I love my “That’s not my . . .” books, all of them, I love my ‘classics;’ the Hungry Caterpillar, Guess How Much I Love You, The Gruffalo, the list goes on. 

Mummy is a believer that “reading is succeeding” so I’ve had books around me since I was born, and if that sounds pushy and over the top, she doesn’t care.

We both relish the story part of bedtime routine.  I don’t understand a huge amount yet, and there’s not a lot of correlation between Mummy’s voice and the pictures for me, but that’ll come.  At the moment, it’s more important to have our special, private time. Just us.  I’ve had my bath and my milk, brushed my teeth and combed my hair, and I choose a book for Mummy to read.  I sit on her knee and listen, and I point at the pictures.

I think at this age, I’m more receptive to the association than to the actual words – books mean a cuddle, some uninterrupted one to one time with my mummy.  It’s all positive.  Let’s face it, for that sort of experience, the books don’t need to have a complex storyline – make it up as you go along!  Describe the pictures, point things out to us, and we’ll show you what we see.

Going forwards, Mummy hopes this special book time will help me with my concentration and stimulate my imagination. It will help with background knowledge on all sorts of subjects, not just English.  She read all that in a book herself.

Mummy tells a tragic story about a little boy she saw in the book section of a toy shop.  He was carefully looking through lots of books, enjoying the pictures, the colours, the words on the page, and just the feel of the book.  His mother shouted at him, “’Urry up, you’ve got a book at home!”  A book?!  How terrible!  Books are so readily available now and they needn’t be expensive.  I’m with Mummy there, I think that poor little boy was deprived.

I’d urge you all to make time for books.  Quarter of an hour every day.  Of course, longer if you fancy!  It’s not long, but it’s infinitely better than the telly!

CB