A frugal life is an easy life!

It has been quite a while since I posted my stuff, but I have been very very busy and nipping on to the site every other day to check that it is still here.

Baby routines?
Sprog2 is no longer a baby really, at just over two years old, she's growing in every way and pushing boundaries, etc.
I only wish I could remember the bloke's article, I read when just after sprog2 was born. I was sceptical in that here was a bloke telling newborn parents how they should manage their babies into their infant stages.
His theory was that it was a waste of time and energy to get babies into a routine, he claims that they will develop their own routines and slowly cotton on to what's what, by the age of around 3 years old.
This way they will accept the routine for stability and come to enjoy it.

I have to say, he was on the whole, absolutely spot on.
There have been numerous calls from all directions, mostly from the women in my world, to get sprog2 into a routine at a far younger age than my reading and theory advised me to do. I have for the most part, resisted and been mocked for doing so.

Baby sleeping routine is a shining example.
Since she went on the bottle, she has almost always slept in the afternoon for an hour or so, we haven't been quiet around her so noise doesn't wake her up.
At night, she plays and runs around, then a late change and wash between 9-10pm, then it's a cup of tea in a bottle and chilling out in her chair watching television until she nods off. Then I cover her up with a huge thermal blanket and there she stays until I go up to bed.
Very rarely does she wake up when I put her down in our cot, which is at the foot of our bed, deliberately facing away from us so we cannot be seen.

For months now it has been expressed to me that she should be in her own room and be sleeping in her own bed. I disagree. Obviously happy with her routine, I would prefer to let it ride until such time when her attitude towards bedtime changes on its own.
Last night I think one of the gear cogs in her swede clicked.
Waking up at 3am (I'd been out driving) in her chair about to go up to bed, she was wide awake. Oh no I thought, I'm going to be up for the rest of the night as she won't like going in her cot.
I explained that it was dark and that we were going to snuggle in, in bed. I placed her in her cot and asked her to lay down, which our wide awake little girl did no problem at all, laying there for about 30 minutes before nodding back off again.

To me this is a sign that her natural routine is now ready for going in a bed, in place of her cot in our room at first I think, before moving into her own room in a couple of months. I know from experience that all babies are different, some cry for England others are sedate and more composed (for want of a better word) time will tell, but I think that she is better suited to doing things in her own time. Famous last words and all that.

British traditions:
On the way home today, the radio tells me that the halloween industry is now worth more than £300 Million to businesses in the UK. After nipping to the supermarket for my bread for the week (buying six loaves and then freezing them means I never have to go there midweek and spend more than I want to) sprog2 and I had a quick look around the last two aisles, the sheer panic buying of joe public never fails to amaze me.
Rushing around, fighting over a child's witches hat. Banging bags of over priced sweet mixed bags into their trolleys like we used to throw hay bails around on the farm.

I am the first to uphold traditions that I was brought up with, sprog1 was always involved in halloween and bonfire night, but the sheer expense of the absolute pap that people buy, they need to stop and ask is it worth it?
Paying £9.99 for half baked costume, many of which are not even remotely scarey or in the spirit of halloween [no puns intended] that will last just as long as yesterday's newspapers or end up for sale on ebay for a buy it now price of £7, but will eventually be dropped to £3 after no one buys it, and the postage will cost more.

You've got an old sheet? Why not show your child some real worth and encourage tradition at the same time?
Halloween tradition won't be passed on to children who are shoved into a trolley or dragged around a supermarket on a Sunday afternoon, think about it, every halloween they'll think back to their childhood and dread taking the occasion for their own family.
What exactly has the trick or treat tradition got to do with giving money?
Some of the early door knockers costumes have been very poor.
Spend some time with your children making a costume, they will thank you for it plus it's cheaper. Even if you turn your child's face into a mush, think of the fun you'll have. Is this not the duty of a parent?

Ever tried ducking for apples?
Here's a crazy idea, if you knock on my door saying "trick or treat" I often say trick...... SO HAVE ONE READY!
Don't just stand there with your gob open, catching flies, put some effort in.
One final thing before my swede pops, for the past two years I've had people knocking on my door, whom I have never seen before let alone want to hand out sweets to. One woman has brought her toddler two years running, standing at the gate whilst her little angel walks down the path and knocks on a stranger's front door * which I sometimes dive out of wearing a mask and frighten kids as its halloween and they are fair game! What is that all about?

Other stuff:
Whilst you were sunning yourself back in July/August on some luxurious isle or after paying way over the odds for a caravan in Hebden Bridge, bad old me decided to spend the family's half holiday money on rendering and a wood/coal/peat burner. Well at long last, everything has been finished and it's finally in. More on the burner laters.
The culmination (ooooo a big word!) of all that meant a very busy summer holiday/early autumn period for me.

Will have the van out, pallet hunting next week ready for our bonfire, you can't miss it, it's in the front garden (read: drive) and fireworks will be going off in the street, whilst we have a few beers and enjoy baked potatoes, with cheese and butter on them * with the added bonus of friends and neighbours coming round to incinerate their burn bins - bags of bills and official stuff that needs getting rid of. I'm thinking of making some parkin and if we are really lucky, our neighbour Bel will do us one of her gorgeous broths.
As it stands, nothing is in place yet, hopefully by Thursday we will be almost there...

Finally, of this dad diary entry, a request.
If you are in to computing, please try to learn plain English!
Switching over from windows xp (which started suspiciously needing browser refreshing on popular websites) to windows 7 was hard work getting all the settings simlar to what they used to be. Would it be too difficult to develop an operating system that can save to a folder somewhere, the set up for folders, browser, etc, instead of leaving the end user starting from scratch?