I'm very easily distracted and read anything and everything!
But I do have a very good memory for text, so if I read something once, I can recall it very easily, so I'm lucky that way.
I don't think the booty thing works if you buy them yourself - you need an item of clothing worn by a baby. Anything will do, it's just that booties are small and babies tend to lose them easily anyway, so if you have a friend with a baby, she's bound to have an odd one floating around
plus booties are probably the only item of clothing that babies don't puke on. Though I bet some manage it
oh, as for the Scottish tradition - I researched my family back to the 1400s, and I was surprised to see that so many of my female ancestors were looking after a sibling. Someone at a local records centre up there explained it to me. Must have worked, they were all quite prolific. I have a local history book at home with a photograph (well, daguerrotype) of an old lady in it. She was in her 80s at the time (not bad for the early 1800s), and had 12 children, more than 50 grandchildren, more than 90 great grandchildren and a scattering of great great grandchildren. I hope I inherited her fertility genes.
