Personal page of Fiona McNeill

Fiona McNeill

Stuff I like:

Books. As many books as possible. Especially 19th century novels (preferably by dour consumptive women or Trollope) and history (but not historical fiction, which is mostly very bad). Or poetry. Or anything really, except chick lit or sci fi.
Travelling. Especially for a long time with not very much money. Especially overland trips such as this trip and this trip (earlier trips not yet digitised). Especially to places where I don't speak the language (which, come to think of it, is pretty much everywhere). This is absolutely my favourite website .
My children. But not necessarily other people's .
Lying in bed and staring at the ceiling (or remembering the days when I could do that).
Having people round for dinner, going to the pub and generally social occasions.

Baby things that I like:

Baby-led weaning. This is a fab invention for the lazy parent: instead of spending all your time making hideous purees and spending hours trying to force them down your baby's throat, you just give the baby what you are eating (cut into chip-size pieces if necessary) and let them get on with it. Great for hand/eye coordination, great for avoiding fussy eating, great for the dog (who gets to eat most of it) and no need to go near horrible, bossy Annabel Karmel.
Cloth nappies. Apart from the obvious environmental benefits (don't quote studies at me that prove they are just as bad as disposables - these have all been demonstrated to be deeply flawed and are mostly sponsored by Proctor & Gamble), they are so much nicer than disposables. Do you wear cotton pants or do you wear weird papery-plastic ones full of chemicals? Plus they hardly ever leak, come in funky designs and I'd rather do an extra wash every 2-3 days than be endlessly running out to the supermarket because I'd run out of nappies (forward thinking is not my thing). Much more suitable for the lazy parent than is generally supposed.
Baby slings. Why do people always take huge pushchairs and prams everywhere? Babies are very small. They are not difficult to carry. They love to be in slings as they are at head height and people talk to them. You will not annoy everyone by getting in their way with your stupidly huge pushchair/pram and you don't have to wait for lifts or go miles round to avoid steps. It's obvious.
Co-sleeping. Alright, this is a mixed blessing. You never, ever have to get out of bed in the middle of the night, which is a huge benefit and I can't understand why you'd do anything else in the early days when babies feed every 5 minutes (except people are weirdly paranoid about squashing their baby. I don't think this is likely). However, there comes a time when you need to send your baby down the corridor and get your space back. This time is getting closer, though I'm hoping to hang in there till the night feeds have stopped.

However ... by advocating the above ideas and by not being into Gina Ford, I seem to have fallen into a touchy-feely-hippy parent category full of anti-rationalists who disapprove of formal education and don't want to have their children vaccinated. Which annoys me a lot.
Baby thing that are not so great:

Lack of sleep - I passionately and devoutly long for a good night's sleep.
Hanging out with babies - My baby is fascinating and amazing and gorgeous. Other babies are, to be honest, a little bit dull. And you spend a lot of time hanging out with them when you've got one of your own, even if you work full time.
Lack of social life - although actually this is almost completely subsumed by lack of sleep. I'd much rather go to bed than go to the pub. But this is a bad thing.
Not being very clever anymore - this is another sleep thing. I'm hoping it's going to get better when she starts sleeping through the night. Though someone told me that her brain never recovered from having children, which is scary.

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