At Ed's and my Mum's insistance, I have put Philip on the waiting list for a nursery school today (where he won't go until he's at least 3 years old). I can't understand why politicians are worried that pushy parents get all the best places!

While I'm on the subject of political issues, since the Government seems to want to create a nanny state, I think they should start looking into our traditional nursery rhymes and the messages kids get from them. I've got a CD which has a song about a woman living in a shoe starving and beating her children. Why did we decide to adopt this song as a British custom? Is the moral that we shouldn't live in shoes (which I think Philip will be quick to work out are too small anyway)? Or that if you're unsure what to do with your children you should look up the recipe for broth before giving them a good hiding?

To return to more sane topics, my proposal for a university student to be placed at Stanford Lake (the school Ed used to work in in South Africa) to do technology outreach to rural schools for the summer has been accepted, subject to finding the right candidate. It'll be advertised during February so fingers crossed. The project is a bit of a departure from what Engineers Without Borders (EWB) has done in the past, though it fits very well with their mission statement, so I'm pleased they've been bold enough to take it on.

We've all got colds. What fun! Ed's not bad enough to be off work though. Philip couldn't be put down on his back around lunchtime yesterday but when he finally settled he slept for 3 hours during which time I had a snooze too. I was thinking I'd be up a lot more than I was in the night though so not going too bad so far.

The first version of this said Philip was playing happily on his kick-like-mad-and-you'll-get-lots-of-tunes-and-lights-thingy (called a musical garden in the catalogue, it comes with 2 volume settings :-)). But then of course he suddenly became unhappy and I called into play my new toy - a traditional sling. I'm so glad I got this in time for this cold, it takes the hard work out of carrying him round upright. After much research I bought one as modelled by someone famous who looked good on the photo. It's dead simple which was another factor. It came with a cheesy DVD which was great fun to watch and from which I gained the general impression that you hold your baby where you would normally and then move the fabric to keep him there. And it's working very well so far, much less stress on the arms and back and he seems to go off quicker.

So after the high drama if the birth and the first few weeks, this is now the diary of a home-all-day Mum. But what I've discovered like many before is that the social diary of Mother and Baby groups and activities is surprisingly hectic. I'm back to the days of having several clashing activities to choose between. The regular items are the 2 NCT classes, which may meet up in different groupings more than once a week. Then there's visting nurseries, baby massage, swimming, immunisations and other medical check ups, going for walks with the lady up the road, shopping and visting other friends all to be fitted in. And plenty to be done when I'm in the house as well. In fact they don't all fit so swimming and baby massage are still on the "will do when have time" list. Maybe this week?

We've been to the first of our antenatal group's Christening's today. Philip didn't like the pub at all (shocking really). Too hot and overexciting we think. He obviously needs more education ....