The Origins of Style - What Not To Buy

If you're one of those types who likes clothes shopping, you will adore having children. Voila - not only have you doubled your weight, you've also doubled your shopping opportunities (even if your capacity to pay for it has considerably diminished).

Before my baby was born, I'd coo over teeny, ickle, delicate things at designer baby stores. I actually bought a rectangle baby wrap for 30 bucks (plain stretch cotton with an overlocked hem) because there was no way I wanted my teeny, ickle, delicate, designer baby to be wrapped in the same thing from Philp Wrights at 2 bucks a metre. What a wanker I was.

Then he was out into the world and I belatedly realised that babies grow FAST. What fitted perfectly yesterday barely slid over pudgy arms today. Domes popped eye-wateringly at the crotch and terrified screeching became our regular morning chorus as his enormous alien-like head was wedged inside a too small collar.

Before I knew it, the designer babystores were traded in for T&T and Farmers, and then it was Savemart and a world of hilarity. There's nothing funnier than dressing your kids in original 70's baby clothing. Our parents had a great time doing it and I can see why. Orange corduroy! Ba ha ha ha.

There's the joy of Playgroups and their boxes of free clothing (sometimes known as the Lost and Found but whatevs), and the awesomeness of a friend who drops by with a bag of clothes out of the blue. Love, LOVE that.

I was especially lucky to have a boy and a girl. Boy's clothes are lame. Tops and pants in a variety of leg and arm lengths. Yawn. But girls! Dresses, skirts, pants, leggings, skorts, tunics, tights... so many opportunities to satisfy the shopaholic - if only they weren't all in various shades of bloody pink. Which brings me to the point of this ode to shopping:

What Not to Buy

1: If your baby can't sit up, don't buy anything that does up at the back. Babies do not lie obediently still with their faces mashed into the bed while you stuff around with fiddly buttons. There's also that whole breathing thing.

2: Pyjama Onesies. The legs are never the right size and the domes are smaller than ants. Use nightgowns for easier night time changes. (Boys can wear nightgowns too - Wee Willie Winkie wore his with pride).

3: Overalls without domes at the crotch are the stupidest invention ever because you have to strip the whole damn thing off to change the nappy. Life is too short for that kind of crap.

4: Scratch mittens. Your baby has just spent months in the dark touching, sucking and feeling her way with her fingers. It's an important part of learning and helps her feel secure. Don't stuff it up because you're too scared to keep her nails short.

5: Knitted booties with ties. What are you - a shepherd? You don't live in the Middle Ages. Get socks.

6: Button up collared shirts. Who irons? Nobody irons. Who loves wasting time using their giant fingers to fumble around with miniscule buttons? NOBODY. But hey - if you want your baby to look like a crumpled, misbuttoned sales exec after a boozy night out, go for it.

7: Denim is hard and unyielding like concrete. Your baby is soft like a marshmallow. Why are you putting marshmallows in concrete? Jeans on babies are just plain wrong.

8: Babies don't walk. THEY DON'T NEED FUCKING SHOES.

9: Onesies for older babies. Try snapping crotch and leg domes together when your baby is mobile. Just try it. Then throw out all your onesies and admit I was right.

10: Dresses look best when they're sashaying. Flouncing. Twirling. Dancing. They do not look at their best lying in a crumpled heap on a flaccid baby. And if your baby is crawling she will only get her knees stuck in the fabric and start crying. Dresses on babies equals pointless.


I hope this helps. If I have managed to save you five bucks then my work here is done. Happy shopping!

3 Reasons to Hit a Child

Heard of Colin Craig? He's that weasel faced cretin whom the New Zealand Conservative Party is proud to call Leader. He says a lot of really dumb stuff in the hope that the media will pay lots of attention to him and he'll get into Parliament.

He has just admitted to using violence to discipline his children and says that two thirds of parents want to abolish the anti-smacking law. Two thirds! I asked around and nobody I know was actually asked to be in this survey. I wasn't either - which is why I shall share my anti-smacking views now.

In my mind there is never any excuse to hit children for disciplinary reasons no matter how annoying they are. It's a punishment that is derived from rage, not reason. It hurts, it's demeaning and it teaches children that it's okay to hit. There is a wealth of research proving that smacking damages children both physically and psychologically. And for all those who say, 'I got hit and I turned out fine', well no, you didn't, because you think hitting is okay and you will pass that message on to another generation and the world will become a crappier place in which to live.

So yes, hitting to discipline is not okay. But in other circumstances such as outlined below, hitting your child is necessary and awesome.

When Your Child is on Fire

If your child somehow manages to set himself alight it is perfectly acceptable to hit at his flaming limbs with your hands in an attempt to put out the fire. Other methods include fire extinguishers, water, and the classic 'Stop, Drop and Roll' - brilliantly performed by Mareko/Deceptikonz.

When Your Child is Being Savaged by Mosquitoes

Mosquitoes are similar to Colin Craig. They both suck. If you see a sneaky mosquito on your child's arm, chin deep in pudgy flesh, swelling gently as it guzzles your sweet baby's blood, it is helpful to slap at the arm in order to kill the mosquito. If you do not, the mosquito will call its mates for an easy meal. Your child will itch and scratch all night and if they receive too many bites they will feel sick, (and there's also the whole malaria thing which is another reason to be thankful we live in barely tropical New Zealand).

When your Child is Not Breathing

Every parent should know how to do CPR. Do a course or at the very least, check out the St John CPR 'How To' guide here. (To be fair, chest compressions aren't exactly 'hitting', it's more 'pushing' - but it's a very fine line from pushing and shoving to hitting and bashing, am I right?)


Hitting to make your child obey is stupid. The anti-smacking law may be clumsy but it sends a message that New Zealand does not tolerate violence towards our children. Why we tolerate weasel faced cretins is another matter entirely.

The Resolutions I Will Not Make

A brand new year - and it's resolution time! Time to feel good about becoming a better, thinner, stress-free, more fun, more balanced you. Which means six weeks of self-righteous gym sweating, a few days of counting kjs and measuring palm-sized helpings of pasta, one hardcore meditation session, and maybe a couple of hours without chocolate. (No need to restrict wine. That would just be over the top stupid.)

The promises you make to yourself are so easy to break! Give yourself an excuse, justify it with flawed reasoning, and then you can forget about it and move on. Making promises to someone else is a bit harder when you have to face up to that look of crushing disappointment in their eyes.

So here are three resolutions I would like to make to my children this year which I am never going to tell them about.

1: I will stop shouting at you.

Obviously this is not going to happen. If their stubby little legs are heading for a busy road, I will move my stubby little legs faster whilst shouting like a banshee. If they are about to drink bleach, I will shout that water is a far better choice. And if they do what I have asked them not to do for the third time, I will shout, if only to be heard over their indignant wailing. I do not want to be a shouter, but I am. Sorry kids, but since the anti-smacking law came in, that's all I've got.

2: I will stop giving you junk food.

This is an easy one. They hardly ever get junk food anyway. On my son's third birthday we indulgently let him eat as much crap as he wanted including a huge piece of double chocolate mud cake for dessert. That night in bed he was scratching and twitching like a junkie on crack and neither of us got to sleep until after midnight. It was horrible and I felt like the worst mother in the world. Needless to say Christmas, the traditional time for overindulgence in scorched almonds, candy-canes and Roses chocolates, was a very quiet affair. But boy, did they enjoy their carob covered carrots.

3: I will play more.

The point of having extra babies is so they have someone to play with when Mum can't be arsed. But when they're little they don't really have that 'playing together' skill set yet. They have, 'I'll play with this and you play with that and then you take my stuff and I hit you.' I need to play with them more - a) to teach them how to do it, and b) because it's more fun than housework (and then maybe they'll like me more than that cradle-snatching bitch, the TV).

The best resolutions are those made to yourself and not shared with anyone, least of all with your children. All it takes is three little words from a quivering, cherubic lip, "But you promised..." to guilt you into keeping whatever ridiculous declarations you made in January.

So, Mums the word... and roll on February.