I once worked a Baby Expo with a friend of mine and drove her mental counting the number of twins I saw. There were an extraordinary amount of them there but she didn't really seem to care as much as I did.
I think I'm a frustrated statistician.
And on that, allow me to drive you nuts with my ongoing fascination with baby names. These are the names of all the baba's I know born in 2012.
Trips! Jack, Olivia, Alexander
Twins! Zack & Lily-Mae
Henry
Zia (boy)
Ines
Luca
And within a week:
Faolan
Jasper
Winter (girl)
Jackson
Charlotte
Ayla
Charlie (boy)
Bennett (cousin to Charlie)
Isabella
Lila
Alexander (cousin to Charlie & Bennett!)
Arya
21 babies! Just under 50% girls this year though, better than last year's figures.
And so here's the Baby Center's (USA) list of 100 Most Popular Baby Names for the year, and here are the Baby Centre's (UK) lists - boys and girls.
And here's my deeply scientific analysis ...
6 of the names above appear on the American lists, 9 on the UK lists, showing once again, but not as conclusively as before, that South Africans seem to tend to follow English trends more closely.
That said, there's far more overlap on the US and UK lists then there was last year.
Fascinating stuff. No?
Oh, no.
Living and parenting on the edge. Of Africa.
Showing posts with label studies have shown. Show all posts
Showing posts with label studies have shown. Show all posts
Friday, 11 January 2013
Thursday, 5 January 2012
naming (and unrelated shaming)
Do you remember that stage in your life when everyone was turning 21 and you seemed to have a 21st birthday party every other weekend? Each one of them a good excuse to dress up, over-indulge, throw name, snog the birthday person's younger sibling, throw up, total someone's dad's car and declare it the 'best night ever'. Until a couple of weeks later when you did it all again.
Do you remember when everyone was getting married and you seemed to have a wedding every couple of months? Each one a good excuse to dress up (in my case this round involved less 2nd hand hippy crap and more seconds store 'designer' labels), over-indulge, REALLY throw name (often in front of aged aunties), snog any number of people, throw up, total your own car and declare it the 'best wedding ever'. Until the next one ...
Well now I'm in a stage of life where everyone is having babies, which doesn't really provide opportunity for some of the wildness described above (except for a couple of the more adventurous baby showers), but does give me an excuse to indulge in a bit of scientific analysis (cough).
Actually I just like making lists really.
Here's the names of all the babies I personally know who were born in 2011:
18 babies! That's not counting the one's I know of from the blogosphere or friend's of friends. And only 6 girls ... 2011 was definitely the year of the boy in my circles.
So on to the science.
Okay, it's not really science, I just picked up on the 100 Top Baby Name lists floating around and compared them to the list above. I used the Baby CentER (USA) and Baby CentRE (UK) lists and deduced the following:
Only 1 name on the above list appears on the American list, in comparison to 8 names from the UK list.
Ergo, people I know are not that concerned with popular trends when it comes to baby names, but where there are overlaps, they (mainly South Africans) still lean more towards British trends than American.
Lank interesting no?
No? Sigh.
Can't wait 'til everyone starts turning 50.
Do you remember when everyone was getting married and you seemed to have a wedding every couple of months? Each one a good excuse to dress up (in my case this round involved less 2nd hand hippy crap and more seconds store 'designer' labels), over-indulge, REALLY throw name (often in front of aged aunties), snog any number of people, throw up, total your own car and declare it the 'best wedding ever'. Until the next one ...
Well now I'm in a stage of life where everyone is having babies, which doesn't really provide opportunity for some of the wildness described above (except for a couple of the more adventurous baby showers), but does give me an excuse to indulge in a bit of scientific analysis (cough).
Actually I just like making lists really.
Here's the names of all the babies I personally know who were born in 2011:
Iona
Alex
Cameron
Zuka
Sashin
Katie
Leo
Isaac
Juno
Harrison
Leah (two Leah’s actually!)
Adam
Christopher
Stavros
Sam
Aune
Wian
Liam
18 babies! That's not counting the one's I know of from the blogosphere or friend's of friends. And only 6 girls ... 2011 was definitely the year of the boy in my circles.
So on to the science.
Okay, it's not really science, I just picked up on the 100 Top Baby Name lists floating around and compared them to the list above. I used the Baby CentER (USA) and Baby CentRE (UK) lists and deduced the following:
Only 1 name on the above list appears on the American list, in comparison to 8 names from the UK list.
Ergo, people I know are not that concerned with popular trends when it comes to baby names, but where there are overlaps, they (mainly South Africans) still lean more towards British trends than American.
Lank interesting no?
No? Sigh.
Can't wait 'til everyone starts turning 50.
Thursday, 3 November 2011
4 going on 14
Last week I had a moan on facebook about how I thought we were supposed to be in the 'Fabulous 4's' with Friday, and a whole bunch of mum friends commented that sadly I seem to have been misled.
Apparently it is in fact the 'F*cking 4's' we find ourselves in the middle of right now.
Which does seem to make a lot more sense ...
We are having a bit of a tricky time with Friday, and it is disrupting family life somewhat. She's moody and uncooperative, prone to sulks and huge sobbing fits over ... nothing. She's not taking instruction well at all and has developed a hard and defiant little facial expression which instantly makes my palm tingle with an almost uncontrollable urge to unite the two.
Those in the know say kids experience a hormonal surge at this age not unlike those that come with the teenage years, and if you scan the list above I could very well be describing a 14 year old right? Joy.
I think all of her behaviour is rooted in one thing, an admittedly very teenage thing too: she's just loving the sound of her own voice.
She doesn't hear us when we tell her to eat her supper because she's too busy talking to herself inside her head.
Or just too busy talking.
She'll lie sobbing on her bed for 30 minutes because she's quite intrigued by the sounds she's making.
She'll scream at me for the same reason.
She'll argue just to try out her voice and see how much influence she can wield with it.
She barks instructions for the same reason.
She shouts at her sister, she squeals in the bathroom, she 'sings' as loudly as she can so as not to hear us.
She basically cannot stop talking, through the good chats and the bad spats, and I think it wears her out.
I'm a little averse to all this talk of the Terrible 2's, then the F*ck You 3's, and now the F*cking 4's. They feel like handles with which to explain away a whole lot of (trying but normal) growing up behaviour. And they fall into that old trap of focusing on the negative, never a healthy way to view the world.
Growing up is hard, I still feel like I'm struggling with it everyday. But I'm resolved, on this one, to remember that I'm more grown-up than her, I'm the Mum, and just like my long-suffering mother did for me, I'll try and muster the creativity and patience to deal with this.
And possibly invest in some earplugs.
Apparently it is in fact the 'F*cking 4's' we find ourselves in the middle of right now.
Which does seem to make a lot more sense ...
We are having a bit of a tricky time with Friday, and it is disrupting family life somewhat. She's moody and uncooperative, prone to sulks and huge sobbing fits over ... nothing. She's not taking instruction well at all and has developed a hard and defiant little facial expression which instantly makes my palm tingle with an almost uncontrollable urge to unite the two.
Those in the know say kids experience a hormonal surge at this age not unlike those that come with the teenage years, and if you scan the list above I could very well be describing a 14 year old right? Joy.
I think all of her behaviour is rooted in one thing, an admittedly very teenage thing too: she's just loving the sound of her own voice.
She doesn't hear us when we tell her to eat her supper because she's too busy talking to herself inside her head.
Or just too busy talking.
She'll lie sobbing on her bed for 30 minutes because she's quite intrigued by the sounds she's making.
She'll scream at me for the same reason.
She'll argue just to try out her voice and see how much influence she can wield with it.
She barks instructions for the same reason.
She shouts at her sister, she squeals in the bathroom, she 'sings' as loudly as she can so as not to hear us.
She basically cannot stop talking, through the good chats and the bad spats, and I think it wears her out.
I'm a little averse to all this talk of the Terrible 2's, then the F*ck You 3's, and now the F*cking 4's. They feel like handles with which to explain away a whole lot of (trying but normal) growing up behaviour. And they fall into that old trap of focusing on the negative, never a healthy way to view the world.
Growing up is hard, I still feel like I'm struggling with it everyday. But I'm resolved, on this one, to remember that I'm more grown-up than her, I'm the Mum, and just like my long-suffering mother did for me, I'll try and muster the creativity and patience to deal with this.
And possibly invest in some earplugs.
Wednesday, 10 August 2011
sleep much?
A few months ago my husband sent me a link to a UK Mother & Baby survey which claimed, after surveying 1000 mothers with children under two, that on average these mother's got 5 hours sleep a night.
We kind of scoffed at it, after 6 months of atrocious sleep from Sunday she was now only waking twice a night - a marked improvement - and I felt like a whole new person, energised, productive and happy.
However ... I started to take heed, counting the hours I got in between those wake-ups, averaging them out over a week or so, being honest with myself about what time I went to bed and, shockingly, I think I'm a 5-a-night kind of girl!
How is it possible I'm managing to get by on that?
Is this proof that the human body can adapt to anything? Am I slicing years off my life each time I push my strained and tired body and mind even further? Am I far under-reaching my potential as a human being, would I be doing a post grad in Chemical Engineering if I had more sleep? Would I be a nicer person?
Or am I just doing what generations of women have done before me: coping?
Sucking it up, doing my best, looking forward to a time (which will come, it must right?) when the kids get older and this aspect of parenting gets easier?
Living in the (sleepy) moment.
How much sleep are you getting?
We kind of scoffed at it, after 6 months of atrocious sleep from Sunday she was now only waking twice a night - a marked improvement - and I felt like a whole new person, energised, productive and happy.
However ... I started to take heed, counting the hours I got in between those wake-ups, averaging them out over a week or so, being honest with myself about what time I went to bed and, shockingly, I think I'm a 5-a-night kind of girl!
How is it possible I'm managing to get by on that?
Is this proof that the human body can adapt to anything? Am I slicing years off my life each time I push my strained and tired body and mind even further? Am I far under-reaching my potential as a human being, would I be doing a post grad in Chemical Engineering if I had more sleep? Would I be a nicer person?
Or am I just doing what generations of women have done before me: coping?
Sucking it up, doing my best, looking forward to a time (which will come, it must right?) when the kids get older and this aspect of parenting gets easier?
Living in the (sleepy) moment.
How much sleep are you getting?
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