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...seasons (available on DVD) introduced us to the dreary cubicles of the Wernham Hogg paper company in Slough, England, through the framing device of a BBC documentary. The finale revisits the characters three years later to find that receptionist Dawn (Lucy Davis), who previously rejected Tim's last-minute confession of love for fear of upsetting her life plans, has moved with her lunkish fiancé to Florida. (The drudgery of routine, and the terror of changing it, is the show's constant theme.) Meanwhile, the power-hungry pip-squeak Gareth (Mackenzie Crook) is now office manager, having replaced the boorish...
...workplace satire. (A sublime example of that style is the movie Office Space, from Daniels' Hill co-producer Mike Judge.) But The Office finale isn't a downer; it offers the characters some hope and a chance at redemption--even David. At one point he shows up at Wernham Hogg, asking his ex-employees to go out for a drink--begging, really--in the mistaken belief that they love him. Only Tim accepts, to break the awkwardness--but also, perhaps, because he and David, like war veterans from opposite sides, share a bond that only they can understand. They have...
Babies do in fact communicate their needs, but parents are often too close or too tired to figure out what they're saying. Hogg's advice is to back off a bit, watch and listen. She believes that a lot of distress is caused by too much stimulation--parents who believe a baby needs to be "tired out" in a noisy musical swing right before bed, for instance. Parents who can establish an environment with predictable routines, such as a soothing bedtime ritual, are likely to have calm babies...
Unfortunately, Hogg uses 300 pages of cute anecdotes, acronyms (S.L.O.W. means "Stop, Listen, Observe, What's Up?") and silly charts to convey her advice. One chart, on "translating body language," offers the revelation that if your baby looks "like a person falling asleep on a subway," then she's "tired." In many other ways, Hogg's advice sounds obvious. Not only have people like my Aunt Lena been dispensing this kind of wisdom for generations, but also Dr. Spock first published it in Baby and Child Care in 1945. For me, his famous first sentences, "Trust yourself. You know more...
...more information about Secrets of the Baby Whisperer, including author Tracy Hogg's book-tour schedule, go to babywhisper.com