A post about parenting

I'm aware that my posts have really become showing you all a picture of Marisca doing something.  I think that's all good and probably what most of you want: she is, after all, quite lovely, and photographs well.  That said, you don't get to see all of the failed photographs that I take.

So I'm intending to do more posts without pictures, just some of my thoughts on how it is to have a little girl.  I easily recognise that every parent is different and every child is different, and indeed with the same parents and same children, every day is different, so it may be difficult for me to generalise individual situations to a broader pattern.  Following some stuff I did at work recently I realise that I'm more open minded and easy going than most, but I think it would be fun to try and summarise my thoughts and opinions and preach them to you all as fact.

Here goes.

This is about getting water on your face.  There was a post on our work's parents forum about how to avoid getting water on the poster's daughter's face during hairwashing.  Some really imaginative solutions around use of flannels and even snorkels.  It just seems to be nonsense.  Marisca has had a phase of not liking having her hair washed for this reason, and Elspeth is very careful about how her hair is washed, as Elspeth herself has the same dislike, whereas I'm quite cavalier about it.  When we're swimming Risky has no problem with total submersion, or with full showering afterwards once she's sure that the water is the right temperature.  So I think, or indeed I am going to state as a true fact, that it's nothing to do with liking water on the face or not.  That's just a symptom of comfort with the situation and the amount of control the child has - getting water on your face when you aren't in control of it is pretty unpleasant for anybody.  I'm sure that babies aren't born with a water-on-the-face setting.  So, on that basis, I continue to be cavalier in hair washing, and to encourage Marisca to play bath games that involve getting wet faces.  Preferably just hers, but I'm willing to offer my face for wetness as required.

Here ends my fact about parenting for today.