A "tame" weekend

Miranda coped fine with the plane ride back from South Africa, we were utterly exhausted, Auntie Jo had looked after the house and it's furry inhabitants with no problems, and we finally put Miri to sleep in her own cot again, had a sauna and managed to get some sleep. The problem was then, how on earth do we top these last two weeks? I am worried that she will no longer be content with my normal routine as it pales in comparison with globe trotting, and she'll get bored. I suffer the same - every time I go away, it is harder and harder to come back. I worry we have inadvertantly passed on itchy feet syndrome to our baby daughter...

Jopo and Grarr

This weekend was not exactly "normal" however, as it was Whitby Goth Weekend. We had our one night at home, and then drove straight to a self-catering cottage my Mum had hired for the weekend at Runswick Bay just outside Whitby. Booking anything actually inside Whitby is impossible since everything has been booked up for months, but this place slept my parents, us with Miri in a cot in our room, and Jo and Graeme who came along too, following us on the bus. We got lost but not majorly lost, but it turns out there is absolutely no phone signal there, so when Jo and Graeme missed their connecting bus and turned up an hour and a half after they said they would, they couldn't phone us, and we had to scour the tiny village trying to find a public payphone! Help! Wilderness!
I love Whitby Goth Weekend. It is daft really, because we don't really do much when we are there. There are bands on, a club night and occassionally other evening events, but I have only ever bought tickets for the evening events once and then decided it wasn't worth it. During the day we dress up and pose and be silly, then go round the stalls at the Bizarre Bazaar shopping for outfits for the next Goth Weekend. Then we eat fish and chips and get nicely tipsy (or worse) in our big gang of friends, which gets bigger every year. Carl never used to dress up at all, prefering to "be an individual" and look normal amongst the sea of freaks. He is slowly getting to it though, particularly steampunk styles!

Of course we dressed Miranda up too. On the Friday she was our Devil Child with red lined cape and a horned red hat. The next day she was all in black and purple; her Granny has supassed herself knitting a little Victorian dress, bloomers, cloak and lacey bonnet. She looked amazingly cute and we got paparrazzi'd all day! There are always hundreds of goth-spotting photographers there but despite our best efforts with my indecently short dress, the multitude of corsets and chris's spikey goggles, Miranda got more attention than the rest of us combined.

Herein lies the rub: should I really be inflicting my own dress sense on Miranda? I am fairly certain she will be extremely embarrassed about these pictures, and pretty much everything about her Sad Old Goth parents when she's older. But really, what is the alternative? She may just as easily grow up to hate pink or pastel colours and will still be embarrassed by us even if we both dressed ourselves and her "normally". I've already written about inflicting femininity on her and I don't really see it as any different. When she is older, she can choose for herself whether she wants to come to Goth Weekend with us, but until then she can be Mummy's Little Vampire, and be admired all over Whitby!

Primark and The Daily Mail

Miranda has a few new words in Miri-Speak:
Eeh-Goo - "Ooh shiny thing!"
Uuneng! - "I've got farts!"
Ehgaah - "Yum" or possibly "I'm full!" after feeding....
Iyurl - "I'm bored."

She seems to be using the last one rather a lot at the moment. She is so alert nowadays and the downside of her sleeping through the night is that she is VERY awake, all day. This means I have to devote more attention to her (even writing this is extremely difficult) and I'm constantly trying to find new ways to amuse her. Granny found her a bouncer - as in, a swing on a spring that you clip on to the door frame, not a security guard - she is not to sure about it yet, but it amuses me no end!

With the aim of Entertaining Miranda, I head into town every day with no real purpose other than getting out of the house. Fortunately Miri is still interested in most of the shops in Darlington, so we traipse round for hours window shopping. The other day, however, we had a specific aim: Primark. I know you may grooooooan at this, dear reader, but I am aware that most of their clothes are chavvy and very probably made by Asian kids not much bigger than Miri... (though pretty much every high street clothes shop is guilty of that!) - but it is cheap. Since Miranda grows so quickly and needs new ones every other week, I can't afford to spend more than a few quid on Tiny Jeans.
Plus, Auntie Jo informed me of this:


Primark tells breastfeeding woman to use changing room or leave store

Ridiculous!!! 
Of course, I had to test our local branch but unfortunately for this groundbreaking research, Miranda was, miraculously, not hungry. According to Beryl from Coventry (see the comments on that article), getting your breasts out in public to feed is just attention seeking, anyway. This reinforces my already pretty negative view of Daily Mail readers, as you may imagine. Which actually attracts more attention? a) someone breastfeeding a baby, b) a hungry baby yelling it's head off, or even c) women wandering round with huge boobs popping out of Primark's cheap vest tops? Answers on a postcard....
Anyway, I left with a pair of very tiny grey jeans for Miranda for £4, and promptly disposed of the hideous pink belt that came with them. Babies do not need belts and my baby does not need pink! Actually, this is something else the Daily  Mail, or at least, it's bloggers, disapprove of: babies wearing jeans. Apparently I am making Miranda into a mini-adult by dressing her in jeans. On the other hand, they are warm, practical and generally Not Pastel....

I don't do all my shopping in Primark, by the way. Most of my clothes, and now Miranda's too, come from all over the place. She was so exhausted here, I couldn't get her out of the sling!

Miranda wears jeans by Primark, "My Mum Rocks" t-shirt from Pandemonium in Whitby, Poncho from Some Efnic Stall Outside Sheffield Student Union, and sling by Infantino for Boots. Socks, model's own. Styling by Mum at Caffe Nero.