We were living in Felixstowe, England when Amanda was born. It wasn't a little village, but a fair sized town on the chilly North Sea that was still small enough to walk everywhere. I loved it there. Every morning I walked out for daily food shopping, and pushed my baby in a perambulator like all the other moms. People are always surprised when I tell them it was common to leave your sleeping baby outside on the sidewalk in the pram while you went in the stores. Of course, most shops were small (baker, butcher, etc.) and there wasn't room inside for a big pram anyway. So you ducked in and did your business while keeping an ear out for your kid. Imagine leaving a baby outside a grocery store now!
The English baby nurses we saw for routine care at the Felixstowe "Surgery" were kindly but no-nonsense types. When I told them Amanda would sometimes cry inexplicably (as all infants do) they advised me to "put her pram outside in the garden air for a bit, go in have a quick cup of tea." So maybe this is how the famous British "stiff upper lip" comes about! I'm sure Prince Charles' old nanny did it to him. Hummm...
But not bad advice actually-- a tea break is good for mom's nerves, and both parties are happier when they get back together. And I tell Amanda it's OK to put Nova down sometimes when she cries. Like all new mothers, I worried about many things when Amanda was a baby, but leaving her outside alone for a few minutes in her pram wasn't one of them. Everyone did it. But these are just memories of a very different time and place.
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