Happy Christmas y'all!

My beautiful Christmas girls in their posh frocks

Hope everyone had a lovely day! Ours was great - although it started kind of early with the sound of jingling bells at 6.18am. Why oh why did we buy Isabel a stocking with bells attached? Schoolboy error. We managed to persuade her to snuggle for about quarter of an hour but then the excitement became too much (for all of us!) and we had to break into the stockings. I'm surprised Bucks has any chocolate left given the enormous pile which formed on the bed. We then sent Isabel scurrying round the house with questions like "did Santa eat everything you left for him?" - very cute!

Early stocking opening!

Lunch was cooked by Husbandio and self with no arguments (true, I kid you not!) and once we were all full to the brim the true present mayhem began. Some great gifts were exchanged - Isabel's favourite was one from Husbandio, a Rainbow In Your Room. She also liked her Hannah Montana annual (I know, I know), a make your own flowers kit and a large pile of books. And the DVD of Santa Buddies, which was a joy for us all! I got two beautiful necklaces, some great books (the new Stephen King, yay yay yay!) and DVDs (can I wait til the new year to see the final episode of Gavin & Stacey? No, I can't!). And some quirky gifts were received too - a paint your own tie kit, and a samovar. That's just the kind of family we are.

All in all, a lovely day - no rows, peace and harmony, all the pressies worked and had the right batteries. And, since we cooked this year, the prospect of having next year off! Not that we didn't enjoy the cooking (thank you Nigella and the briny turkey in a bucket) but getting fed is always good, isn't it?

When these crackers pop, they really go don't they?

The turkey she is a brining

Goodness, but I'm getting lazy in my old age. Actually, it's part laziness and part pain - I have a crack which has opened up in my left index finger (no, I don't need any rude jokes thank you) due to the cold weather, and it really hurts to type. Also, I have more wrapping to do, so time is of the essence. Hence the second photo blog in just a few days.....

Our inspiration for the festive season!

The turkey's out in the garage, brining. Yum......

Isabel's quite excited about Christmas - can you tell?!

It was all worth it in the end

A couple of months ago I promised Isabel she could have a Christmas party, and today the day finally rolled around. She's been really looking forward to it, and we'd done quite a lot of planning - bought a snowman tablecloth with matching plates and napkins, some party bag bits and pieces, and all of the food and drink. She and I worked pretty well together while Emsy had her nap - we set the table (complete with sparkly Christmas sprinkles, naturally!), prepared the homemade pizzas, and tidied the house prior to the arrival of a small group of her school friends.

The table, before the hooligans wrecked it!

I was pretty nervous before the party kicked off - I even had a dream the night before in which I forgot to make the dough for the pizzas. One of the things which exacerbated this was that last night, as I was kissing Isabel good night, she looked up and said "it's my Christmas party tomorrow", then grinned and hugged herself and said "I love this feeling!". Oh, the pressure! If I hadn't been worried before, I was after that!

When we got up this morning I wondered for a minute if we'd even be able to go ahead, such was the state of the snow. As it was I had to cancel Emily's paediatric appointment for a second time because the main road down the hill into Wycombe was closed. However, since the party attendees were all local to us it turned out that most people could walk, so we went ahead with only two cancellations (including Isabel's best friend, but she weathered this storm pretty well).

Our house in the snow

And everything went pretty well - we played a few games (classics like Pass The Parcel, What's The Time Mr Wolf?, and the tray memory game) and then had a tea of pizza, garlic bread, crisps and cucumber, followed by mini Yule logs, mince pies and Nigella's Malteser traybake (looks very homemade, tastes lush!). The only slightly odd moment was that they had a conversation about death while eating their pizza, which was not really what I expected of a group of five and six year olds! Are they mature, or just bizarre? I'm reserving judgment for now. And after some post-food dancing and the distribution of Secret Santa pressies, they departed into the snowy night, gifts and party bags in hands. Cooking Christmas lunch is going to be a breeze after today!

A photo blog

Photos today because I have a slight cold and am pooped - lazy blogging, but hey, sue me.

Lots of snow = indoor craft activities. Today: paint your own umbrella. With permanent paint. Which also got on her face (sigh....)

Venturing out into a pristine, snow-covered garden.

Dressed for the weather.

Dressing tip: if making a snowman, put washing up gloves over your real gloves. Keeps your hands dry, which is the key. You heard it here first...! Isabel's tip today was how to keep your feet dry when your parents have failed to buy you new waterproof trousers and the snow keeps going down your wellies. The solution is to put empty bread bags on each foot, and secure them with rubber bands. Looks idiotic, works a treat.

When in search of entertainment in the snow, simply take one shovel and use it to throw snow at your eldest child. She'll love it, honest.


See, she's laughing!

And so's her sister!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Usually I get all nervous and irritated when plans change at the last minute, but today the snow altered my day completely and I managed to go with the flow and even quite enjoyed myself.

My original plans for the day were to take Emily to her paediatrician appointment, wrap Isabel's pressies at lunchtime while she was at school, and then take her to a friend's birthday party in the evening. But none of this happened - we woke up to loads of snow (looks beautiful!), and to the news that the school was closed. No big deal, since it was the last day of term anyway. Then Emily's appointment was cancelled (fortunately moved to next week, amazing that they had another appointment slot available before Christmas), and the birthday party Isabel was due to go to was also cancelled. So we spent a lovely day at home - went out for about half an hour but beat a retreat when lots of snow went down Isabel's wellies. Tomorrow's job is to buy her some longer waterproof trousers, and better gloves! We watched The Snowman and Father Christmas in the afternoon and ate mince pies, and generally felt very seasonal. And Emily was in better humour than in recent days since tooth number 2 is now through. Good times, good times.....!

The etiquette of Christmas cards

I'm generally a person who's pretty good with a card. I send birthday cards, thank you cards, sympathy cards - you name it, I'll card it. And this means that, come Christmas time, I generally have a lot of cards to send. Total this year came to around 80, while Isabel sent 36, so well over 100 went out from our house. I even managed to post them all pretty early.

However, now comes the etiquette issue. I've already, to my great irritation, received cards from people I didn't send cards to. Do I quickly scrabble around to get a reciprocal card out? Or just put them on the list for next year? And how much should one write in a card - just a quick "love from..." or a full blown message? This year I took the rather cheesy step of putting a little sticker in each card with a picture of Isabel and Emily, which I'm sure also breaches some kind of British etiquette rule. Made me feel very American doing this, but I thought it was a nice way of showing everyone how much they'd grown up, and it was a very cute photo. Better, and cheaper, than printing Christmas cards with them on it! Apparently, in the US you can order cards with a photo on the front and a personalised message inside, and then you just address them and post them. Sounds very tempting, but it's not that difficult to spend a couple of hours once a year writing "love from..." in each card. I think the sticker idea is as far as I'll go down that particular road for now....but I may be tempted if the number of cards I have to send goes well into triple figures!

Christmas Tree Etiquette

It's that time of year again when someone (OK, not me, I admit) has to go up into the loft to extract the Christmas decorations, and into the garage (again, not me, it's chilly out there) to get our tree in a box. I am slightly ashamed to admit we have a tree in a box, but not that ashamed - there are several good reasons behind our decision, and although I do feel we should have a real one, deep down I'm perfectly happy with the one we have. Because I'm naturally cheap.

Last year, it being our first Christmas in this house, we went to the local Christmas Tree Farm (yes, there is one, in fact there are three near us!) to get ourselves a tree. As we wandered up and down the aisles it began to occur to us how flaming expensive Christmas trees are. We had no idea - after all, until then we'd lived in a flat and made do with an Argos tree in a box. The more we wandered the worse it got - the nice trees cost a fortune, and the reasonably priced ones were either runty, oddly-shaped, or looked like all their needles might fall off in the car on the way home. Added to which, they were all really prickly. And this was the element which tipped the balance - we managed to persuade Isabel that these trees were too prickly and that our friendly old tree in a box was much easier to decorate!

This year we cut out the middleman and just went straight for the tree in a box. It's cheaper, it's a nice regular shape and it has real (yes, real!) pine cones on it. It's not as classy as a real tree, but since it's been decorated by a five year old, class doesn't really come in to it. Not for us the beauty of a colour theme, oh no. Our tree has had everything we own chucked at it in a fairly random way, but it still looks beautiful because it's ours. It does have a new angel this year though, of which it should be very proud. And some cute elves sitting underneath it!

The new angel, by Isabel and Mummy. No, of course the feathers don't go on the wings, don't be ridiculous.

The tree, with its oddly regular shape.

Still looks magical in the dark with its lights on.

And the elves are pretty magical too.

Baby food - the labels lie!

I gave Emily a Cow & Gate pot of Peach and Apricot Melba for dessert at lunchtime today, thinking it would make a nice change from apple puree-based products. How naive I was. Apples must be the cheapest fruit to use for baby food, because only 17% of the Peach and Apricot pot was actually made up of peaches and apricots. The vast bulk of it (61%, should you be interested in the detailed stats!) was, you guessed it, apple. I thought it tasted just like the apple one I'd given her a few days before. What a scam. I was a bit cheesed off at the Banana Dairy Dessert too, which sounded yummy and was quite nice except that it was really just banana yogurt. I guess that doesn't sound as impressive. Still, at least it can be stored in the cupboard and not in the fridge. How do they do that anyway - why does it not go off? On second thoughts, don't tell me......

I usually taste everything I give Emily to make sure it's alright, and also because I'm greedy! Her main courses are all home made but I do sometimes use these fruity pots just for convenience. Most of the food tastes really nice if rather oddly textured, but I took a sip of her bottle of formula today (checking the temperature - I'd accidentally over-heated it and wanted to make sure I'd managed to cool it down enough before giving it to her) and it's disgusting! Yuk! And I am someone who likes milk and will gladly drink it neat, unlike Husbandio for whom milk is akin to poison. Formula really does taste horrid - a combination of condensed milk, single cream and iron filings. Seriously, it tastes really metallic. Ugh, vile, I've had to pour myself a large Pinot Grigio to wash away the taste. Hard life!

Am I trying to squeeze too much in?

I was almost late picking Isabel up from school today, which has never happened before. Usually I'm a couple of minutes early and look scornfully at other parents sprinting through the school gates after the bell's rung, panting and red in the face. But that was me today. I met up with my NCT group and slightly underestimated how long it would take me to get back - I arrived about 60 seconds before the bell, but had to park on a roundabout and then battle the buggy out of the boot so Isabel was already in the playground looking around nervously when I arrived. Thank goodness I wasn't any later, she might have wandered out trying to find me. She now knows to stay by her classroom until I arrive, should I ever be late again!

Which may well be tomorrow. I've booked myself a crazy day, which will go as follows:
Shower
Children dressed and breakfasted
School run
Emily's Babyland class
Drive to Twickenham
Lunch with school friends
Drive back home
School run
Collect mother from train station
Take Isabel to swimming lesson
Feed children and rest of family
Bathtime and bedtime
Out for curry with the other mums from Isabel's school year
Pass out

I must be mad! But I've prepped as much as possible - lunch for both children is made, cup of tea for breakfast has been laid out, Isabel's school bag is packed, Emily's day bag is packed, but I must have forgotten something....ah yes, charge iPod, I'll be needing The Now Show and Jonathan Ross to accompany me on the drive. Wish me luck......!

Doin' the Twist and the Mashed Potato

On Saturday night, Husbandio and I went out together for only the second time since Emily was born more than seven months ago. Somehow getting a babysitter usually seems too much like hard work (or too expensive, unless you can persuade a family member to help out!), but we made the effort for once, and strutted our stuff down at the school disco. Isabel was quite jealous, until I explained that this school disco was only for mums and dads - they have a separate one for the kids in February, which I believe I'm meant to be helping to organise (mental note to find out more about that after Christmas!).

We went for a curry first, and missed the games they'd organised at the disco, which I don't think I'm too upset about. The disco itself was really fun - the school hall was decorated in black and white, balloons floating above each table and little table decoration sprinkles, it all looked lovely. It could have been a scene out of a sitcom though - all those middle-aged parents who don't get out much, dolled up in their finery and dancing as if their lives depended on it. It's a shame that white middle-aged, middle class parents don't generally count dancing among their many talents, so it was quite a funny sight - lots of enthusiastic miming to classics like Come On Eileen and even an impromptu air guitar jam session when the DJ played an AC/DC track. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. But we went along with it and joined in the dancing, aided by some pear cider, mojitos, a bottle of red wine and some spiced rum! And didn't even suffer too much the following day - felt a bit fuzzy round the edges, but nothing a nice afternoon nap couldn't fix. Good times, good times, as my brother Charlie would say - having boogied the night away and written all my Xmas cards I'm starting to feel quite festive!

Keeping the tradition going

Today was the day of our annual work Christmas lunch, an occasion which I love and cherish. I had a panic a few weeks ago when I thought I might not be able to go due to lack of babysitter, but Husbandio very selflessly arranged to take the day off to look after Emily and collect Isabel from school so that I could swan off into town and drink myself silly. And I do truly appreciate it!

In the end it was not the heavily booze-laden occasion which it has been in previous years, but still a very good time was had by all. We failed to stick completely to the budget, but since the CEO was there to sign and didn't seem too cross we think we may have got away with it! The food was yummy although portion size was not what it could have been (translation - I could have eaten the whole meal twice!). For the record, I had smoked eel (with some rice thing sandwiched between two slices of beetroot - there's always beetroot in these bloody posh restaurants), duck a l'orange (with some kind of beetroot jus, as if to add insult to injury) and then posh Xmas pud. Yummy, but small.....

Drinks-wise, I had champers to start then some white wine. In past years I've had white with the starter, red with the main, and several amarettos to wash down the pud. Those were the days - lunch starting at noon, and not leaving the venue until closing time, eleven hours later. Apparently, one year one member of staff got the wrong coat from the cloakroom attendant but figured it was nicer than her own coat so kept it. And on another occasion one of us (not me, I hasten to add) was taken back to the office after the lunch on the grounds of not being able to get home by himself. He fell asleep leaning his head on the edge of the boardroom table, creating a large indentation on his forehead which lasted well into the next day. These are really quite mild stories, I admit, but we've had some marvellous times at our Christmas lunches, so thanks to the company, and cheers!

Just don't tell my mother....

Any number of posts could start this way. This one does because if my mother knew that our buggy was in danger of collapsing she would suffer sleepless nights because of the worry, which in turn would generate endless suggestions as to what we should to do rectify the situation. And, since I am a 37 year old mother of two, I feel qualified to fix the buggy off my own bat. Which is what I did. Eventually. And in a rather roundabout way.

It started collapsing several weeks ago (pleeeeeeease don't tell her I've been wheeling Emsy around in a potential death trap, it'd be more than she could handle). And it's not been a death trap as such, it was just that a screw which was pivotal to the structural soundness of the buggy had lost its nut and kept falling out - in other words, in common with the rest of the family, our buggy had a screw loose. I kept screwing it back in but, since the nut had disappeared, it was never long before it worked its way out again.

So, today Emsy and I visited four (4!!!!) hardware stores in order to try to get a replacement screw which was a bit longer than the one which kept falling out since it didn't seem possible to get a nut to reattach since it's only just long enough as it is. It turned out that what was impossible was to get a longer screw of the same width. In the last shop a kindly man took pity on me and gave me, gratis and for nothing, three free nuts, which I took home and still couldn't manage to attach to the screw. So, I did what anyone would have done in this situation - took a hammer to it. No, not really, I actually took it round to my retired neighbour who I know is good at DIY, and he worked on it for about half an hour and finally managed to screw the nut into position.

I thanked him in person, and will drop a little something round as well, but also wanted to thank him in cyberspace - THANK YOU DENNIS! For potentially saving my child's life, and my own sanity!

Parents are weird

Sometimes parents find very strange things funny. Two examples of this cropped up this week:

1. My dad chortled when reporting that, due to the Thanksgiving holiday, a conference call that he didn't really fancy taking part in had been cancelled. Chortled! It was a really naughty schoolboy giggle, bless him.
2. My mum reported excitedly that she'd fallen over in Sainsbury's and that she was really chuffed because she'd done it properly. Even Isabel looked quizzical when she heard this, but it turned out that my mum meant that she'd put her hands down rather than falling flat on her face which is what she did a couple of months ago. Still not really anything to be proud of, but if it made her happy...!

How weird will Husbandio and I become? We must have a fair distance to go, if our collection of parents is anything to go by, because there's a broad range of weirdness to be tapped. I like to think that we'll develop our own brand of weirdness though!

Pride cometh before a fall

A good friend of mine has two small children at home, afflicted by some kind of vomitty bug. I expressed concern via the traditional medium of Facebook. As an aside, by the way, does anyone ever call anyone any more? I call my mum, but only because she has no e-mail address and wouldn't know what to do if her decades-old mobile phone got a text message. As for everyone else, if they're not on FB, Twitter, e-mail or Skype then they get short shrift from me. That's a terrible confession isn't it? My three lovely aunts have got e-mail addresses in the last few years and I'm often in touch with all of them now, where I wasn't much before (especially when my grandmother was still alive, since she was very much the family hub through which all news had to pass!), so that's a good thing, but makes me feel slightly guilty at being a bad neice in the past. Ah well, got that off my chest now, so I feel much better, thanks for listening.

Where was I? Oh yes, vomitty bug. Well, as I expressed concern, I also said that I didn't think we'd get it since I have a notoriously strong stomach, and that both kids seem to have inherited this trait. Idiot, I know. Since then Emily has thrown up big-stylee, as reported yesterday, and Isabel did the same tonight. I had her off school today since she had a really nasty streamy cold, right on top of the one she's just getting through. Not fair, poor little thing. She was OK this morning, then had a long nap and couldn't really get herself together after she woke up, whingy and tired, kept flopping down on the couch. She managed a little bit of pesto pasta with jelly for pudding, then got upset over something nonsensical whilst in the bath and worked herself into such a state that she was sick. So, another day off tomorrow I think. Oh joy.....but it'll be OK so long as I can coordinate their naps!

Nursing the sick

Not a long post tonight, since I have, as Husbandio is wont to say, a "fog in my head". Poor Emsy was the really sick one today, not a single smile all day, which is not good since she's normally such a sunny little thing. She managed to squeeze six naps into the day, which has got to be a new record.

She ate up very well though, which was great. She needs the calories, we're going for a third week of growth in a row, woo hoo! Unfortunately her dinner reappeared less than an hour after she'd eaten it. Either she couldn't manage a Petit Filous or I shouldn't have put her in the car. Ooh, the mess. It ended up on every item of clothing, even under her bottom. And came out of her nose. Oh my God.

Ha, even though I'm sick I just managed to get one right in the intros round of Buzzcocks. Addicted to Love, by Robert Palmer. And Husbandio has just guessed Life in the Fast Lane by the Eagles. We rock!

Oh, I don't know where this post is going; since I've finished my cup of tea I think I may head for bed. Fingers crossed for less sickness tomorrow.....

Another cold? Really? Sigh....

When I picked Isabel up from school yesterday she had a really croaky voice, and as soon as I heard her I felt an ominous tickle in the back of my throat. Lo and behold, by bedtime we both had lovely colds. Hers is worse, or she's more of a drama queen, one or the other. She had a temperature of 39.1C this afternoon and looked very rosy-cheeked (even rosy-eared, that's how hot she was, poor little thing!), but we knocked that on the head with some Nurofen. She even had a big nap, which she very rarely does nowadays - fell asleep next to Husbandio on the couch while playing Farmville. Not sure whether that reflects worse on him or the game!

I can't believe how many colds I've had recently though, what's going on? I've had three in the last two months, which is just too many. I suppose it's a necessary evil of having a small child at school, but it sucks. I can't understand why I'm currently so unhealthy - I'm eating my fruit and veg, and getting some exercise (OK, not loads, but walking up and down the hill near our house or walking to school is all I can manage at the moment!). I need some kind of miracle cold shield to get me through the rest of the winter though, because this is getting silly. All suggestions gratefully, if snottily, received. And now, back to the honey and lemon tea, and large bar of Galaxy Caramel - thanks Husbandio. Sometimes buying those extra things in Sainsburys is the right thing to do.

Probability rocks

This morning, over breakfast, Isabel and I engaged in a philosophical discussion about the nature of probability. As you do. OK, that's not exactly true, we played heads and tails with a 2p coin, and between the two of us we managed to get five out of six wrong. What's the likelihood of that?

Anyway, I then told her a story, which may have gone slightly over her head, about an incident which happened to me at university. I was at a lecture, about probability, and the lecturer tried to demonstrate what he was saying by flipping a 50p coin, and claiming that the probability of it landing on one side or the other was one in two. Which sounds right. But he hadn't figured with the law of Sod, which intervened to ensure that the coin landed on its side. Even though, according to the lecturer, there was no probability of that!

Thus inspired, we created the following piece of art. I have no idea how Isabel managed to balance the 2p though, that was nothing to do with me.


This was all before school, no wonder we're both knackered before the end of the day! After that of course, we relaxed with a little light reading....

Gearing up for the festive season

Well, the ball has started rolling - my first xmas online order should be arriving any day now (M&S had a 1p delivery on Friday, and loads of nice tops for kids, so clothes and of the course the obligatory book will be the name of the game this year!). I'm also planning a little Christmas party for Isabel - in an effort to make sure that she has more than one friend at school! I very much like the girl she's best friends with, but having a wide social circle (no sniggering in the peanut gallery) never hurt anyone, so I've drawn up a list of about 10 girls and will try to sort out a date near the end of term for some festive fun. I think an after school event will be the way to go, with activities which hopefully won't be too riotous, such as pin the tail on Rudolph, and making little Christmas trees. That, plus a seasonal pass the parcel, a round or two of Musical Statues, some free play time and a bite to eat should suffice.

The challenge is that Husbandio has declared his total disinterest in this scheme, so I'm going it alone. Which should be fine - it's feeding Emily in the midst of all this excitement that concerns me slightly! But it should be fun for Isabel, and may consolidate other budding friendships. Wish me luck!

Sometimes homework doesn't seem too bad

Next week it's Cross Curricular week at Isabel's school Each year has chosen a topic and teachers are planning to teach all areas of the curriculum through this topic (as far as possible, at any rate). Topics include People Who Help Us, The Circus, The Tudors, Ancient Egypt, The Ancient Greeks, and the Titanic. Isabel's class is doing Toys, and her homework this weekend is to research the movie Toy Story. Well, that's our Saturday afternoon sorted while Husbandio is off to watch the England vs. Argentina rugby match in the rain - we shall be doing homework, which will mostly consist of watching Toy Story, with perhaps a bowl of popcorn for added atmosphere. It's a hard life....!

The politics of the playground

I just read a funny mummy blogger post about the types of mothers you find at the school gates, and it really struck a chord with me. I think there are a couple missing (such as the Perennially Late Mother who always parks right outside the school and makes her children run in since they always arrive after the bell has gone), but overall it's pretty accurate.

It's funny how we all fall into a specific pattern every day - parking in the same place, talking to the same people in the playground, realising that despite having written reminders on the calendar we haven't provided our child with any money to (a) buy a poppy, (b) buy a cake from the charity cake sale, or (c) pay for her hot dog on "it's hot dogs for lunch" day. Yes, I have done all three of these in recent weeks. I always seem to take Isabel to school carrying only my house keys and mobile phone, so never have any cash on me. I'm not sure why writing things on the calendar doesn't help - I also forgot to send her in with a toy the other day for some class project, and had to quickly whip a cloth book off Emily's buggy as a last minute offering. Went down OK, luckily.

It's true though, we are such creatures of habit. The same people are late every day (not me - I may not have everything I need, but I am at least there on time!), I park next to the same people every day, and get stuck on the path behind the same slow woman pushing her baby in a buggy while her two year old dawdles alongside. Lord, she's slow. And the path is narrow, and very muddy on either side, so there are very few opportunities for a quick nip round the side. Meanwhile Isabel's ducked past on her scooter and is miles ahead. Luckily she's been trained to stop at landmarks along the way, so I can at least catch up eventually. It's when I get stuck behind the same woman on the way back to the car that I start to get impatient (impatient, me? Hard to believe, I know). Playground rage anyone?

Post #200!

I started this blog on January 1st and have written 200 posts since then. I started writing not as a New Year's Resolution but it seemed to be a good date to start something which I'd been thinking about for some time. Until mid-April I posted every day, but the arrival of young Emily threw a spanner, or maybe a nappy, in the works. In the last month or so I've been trying to write a bit more regularly, but daily posting is proving very difficult. However, the one thing that's been a real incentive has been the discovery that I can connect the blog into my Facebook page. This has meant that I feel people are actually reading it since I get a lot more comments than I used to - and, after all, writing without an audience is a bit depressing.

When I started writing back in January I promised that the blog would contain three things: stories about things which amused me, funny things which Isabel has said, and some whinging. I think the whinging quotient may have gone down since I had Emily - most of my whinges were about the various delights of pregnancy, such as indigestion and breathing difficulties. My favourite Isabel-ism must be "Be sanguine" - I've been much calmer ever since, and when I get annoyed at something I just think "be sanguine" and it makes me feels better! And the burnt iron mark on the carpet is hidden under Emily's playmat, so it's out of sight, out of mind.

I've really enjoyed writing this blog even though some evenings I just can't get my mind to produce anything worth reading. One useful aspect is that the act of writing has kept my mind ticking over while I'm on maternity leave, which has got to be a good thing. And I've enjoyed looking back at what I've written - I hope that the kids will be able to do the same in future years. So, here's to the next 200 posts (no groaning in the peanut gallery!).

Just a little thumb thing

A terrible pun, I know, apologies. Or not, I love a good pun, and even the odd bad one!

Today's post, anyhoo, is about getting Isabel weaned. Weaned off sucking her thumb that is (I haven't gone in for extended breast-feeding, don't worry!). When she was a small baby her thumb crept in and we rejoiced - a baby who settles herself at night, how marvellous! And without an ugly dummy! We patted ourselves firmly on the back, until, by the time she was about 18 months, when we realised that getting her off the thumb would not be easy. For years we've been saying "Thumb...!" in a threatening tone every time we spotted her sucking it, but all to no avail. It seems to have a mind of its own, and slips in when she's falling asleep (at night, or when dozing in the car) or, and this is where the problem really kicks in, just when she's tired. Like in the middle of her disco class the other day. She did look a right plum.

So, today was the day - we painted her thumb (and every other finger, since she got excited and thought it was nail polish) with Stop and Go. All went well until we got to bed time. I told her a story about the Thumb Sucking Fairy being imprisoned because she was still sucking her thumb, and said that if she could go to bed with the stuff still on her thumb then she would find a present from the released Fairy under her pillow in the morning. Half an hour later she was still awake, and came downstairs mumbling "I don't believe in fairies". After some persuasion and snuggling she went back to bed and seems to now be asleep. Must remember to slip a little pressie under her pillow before I go to bed - and fingers crossed she's not up in the middle of the night!

Do I need a hobby?

This seems a silly question, since I appear to be quite busy enough at the moment. I'm even wondering how I'm going to have time to get back to work since every second of the day already seems to be accounted for. I am, of course, going back to work despite this problem, but I'm just finding it a little hard to imagine.

The reason I've been thinking about a hobby is to solve a problem which is nothing to do with boredom or having too much time on my hands. It's to do with sleep. Specifically, I have an annoying tendency to put the kids to bed, sit on the couch, turn the telly on, and fall fast asleep. I then stagger upstairs a couple of hours later, perfunctorily brush my teeth, and fall into bed. How boring! However, on recent nights I've had things to do in the evening (sort out some photos, and make a birthday card) and those activities have happily kept me awake while still watching something on TV. Hence the question - do I need a hobby?

It'd have to be something reasonably uncomplicated, so that's probably knitting out of the running. And I'd like to end up with a product I actually want, so bye bye crocheting. I'm not quite artistic enough for drawing, and while I fancy the idea of being able to make a skirt or some curtains I don't want to have to use a sewing machine since that would drown out the telly! The hobby I was thinking of, therefore, was quilting. Does that sound terribly sad? I fear it does. But it could be fun, and I've always been a big fan of a quilt. Perhaps this is an early sign of a mid-life crisis! I think Husbandio may be going through something similar, since he seems to have taken up baking recently. If your husband's going to have a mid-life crisis though, this one comes highly recommended - it's delicious!

Getting out and about

Emily's now more than six months old, and today I realised that Husbandio and I haven't been out in the evening together since she's been born. After Isabel was born we went out together about six weeks afterwards for sushi to celebrate our wedding anniversary, but this time we're so used to being homebodies that not going out seems much more natural than going out. How very sad...

So, I've decided that we need to start making an effort, especially as I can see breast-feeding becoming a thing of the past within the next few weeks which will be nicely liberating. Next week we're heading out for dinner on the night when my mum stays over, and next month there's a Christmas disco at the school which might be fun. I've also got two girls' nights out this month, one to the book group (two hours trashing Shantaram, marvellous!) and one trip to the local Thai pub with the NCT girls. And then it's Christmas on the horizon - lots of potential child-free social occasions, how exciting! And fun to be had with our lovely girls too of course, but a little bit of me time and us time would be most welcome....!

Happy Birthday Husbandio!

Well, the day has finally arrived, and I wanted to use my blog to wish my lovely Husbandio a very very Happy Birthday! He's a marvellous husband and a great daddy, so I hoped he liked his pressies and his birthday dinner. I've actually already stolen one of his presents while he's on the phone - I bought him a thing from IKEA which has a cushion underneath and a hard surface on top, so you can put it on your lap while you're sitting on the couch and put your laptop on it. It's marvellous. Why didn't I get myself one? Doh!

I also got him an iPod Shuffle for using at the gym - it weighs, I kid you not, 10g. What a ridiculously small amount! I think that's partly because they've moved the controls from the device to the headphones, but even so. He doesn't much like headphones though, so we'll see how useful it actually proves to be - hope it is!

The meal was fun - I challenged myself to make something with chili in every course, since Husbandio is a massive chili fan. So, menu below. The chili in the main course was in the burger itself by the way. Oh, and the cowpat reference is because that's what Nigella says this pudding looks like!

Everyone is brighter than me at the moment

We've had a lovely day - it was my stepmother's birthday so she and my dad came round for lunch. Isabel made pesto puffs (picture below!) which were delicious, I made lamb stew with dumplings, and Husbandio made yet another scrumptious cake. Isabel and I helped a bit, but he did most of it - he's becoming a baker extraordinaire!



It was also a day on which I didn't do anything stupid, or not noticeably stupid at any rate. Which makes a change recently, since my brain's been rather unreliable, to say the least. However, despite this I'm still clearly the dimmest person in the house. I present two pieces of evidence to support this:

1. I've been really struggling to give Emily her antibiotics. She has to have 2.5ml of this noxious banana-y liquid three times a day and it's so disgusting it almost makes me gag. When I try to give it to her, using a dispensing syringe, she won't open her mouth, always tries to spit it out, and this horrible flourescent yellow liquid runs down her cheeks and into the creases in her neck. So, I got Husbandio to give it to her at lunchtime. Problem solved, I thought. He came down saying "no problem, she took it all, no spillage". How so, thought I? So, when he gave it to her in the evening I watched, and she opened her mouth like a little star and drank her medicine like a pro. What?! Never happened for me! So I took the syringe and had a go myself and she did it for me too, leaving me looking like a moron saying "that's not what she did before...!" I swear she looked at him and winked, the little minx.
2. I read that a new piece of research has been done, which found that breastmilk is not only tuned to the individual baby's needs, but to their needs at specific times of day. So, if you express some milk in the morning for someone else to feed the baby in the evening, don't expect them to have a good night's sleep - in the evening they need bedtime milk. Very interesting, I thought, until I realised that this means that even my boobs are cleverer than me at the moment. Dear oh dear.

As one recovers, the other falters

Emsy woke up bright and sparky today, which was great, but Isabel came slumping into the bedroom this morning with a very runny nose. Hopefully she'll follow her sister's example and it'll just be a 24 hour bug. Despite the nose, and general whingy-ness, we still decided to take her trick or treating because she'd have been just gutted not to have gone.

We dressed the two of them up in their Hallowe'en outfits and went over to a neighbour's house - the kids played a few games and then all went out trick or treating in a big group (eleven of them, must have been a bit of a shock as people opened their doors!). She had a great time and got a lovely haul of sweets, and I haven't even snaffled any of them yet. I'm enjoying the remains of the bucket that we bought though, since we only had two groups call at the house so there's plenty left! A US colleague of mine once said that his sons go out on Hallowe'en with pillow cases and have to come home to empty them half way through since the pillow cases are full. How scary is that?!

Sickness and disease....

Oh dear. Emsy woke up this morning with a bright red face, and has felt hot all day, even though it's not registered on the thermometer. I think it's just a feverish cold since her nose streamed all day, and she could barely keep her eyes open. When she was awake, all she wanted to do was sit on me and gaze into the middle distance. However, she takes after her mother and still managed to eat quite well, so she can't be that ill!

We therefore had an 'at home' day today to mark the end of half term - made a birthday card, did some colouring, and even got creative in the kitchen. Isabel watched I Can Cook on CBeebies in the morning and decided she wanted to make Chocolate and Mandarin Pudding - I'm never one to turn down pudding, so we bought some mandarins and she made quite a nice little chocolatey/orangey trifle thing. Yummy! Might try some more of their recipes another day - I like the idea of her making my dinner for a change.

Having popped Emily down for the night at 7pm, Isabel then had a bubble bath and, during the bath, began to sniff. Looks like she's got the bug too. So, having dosed one up with antibiotics and Calpol and the other with Medised, I'm now settling down with a cup of tea and some Daim bar cake. That counts as an exciting evening round these parts.

It was a day....

....during which my mind and my body seemed to become somehow disconnected. Everything I touched turned to poo - for example:

1. I knocked a hot iron off the ironing board and onto the carpet, where it immediately melted said carpet and tried to glue itself on. I managed to separate the two and cleaned the iron up, but there's a lovely iron-shaped crunchy section in the middle of our living room floor now.
2. I tipped Emily's bottle of antibiotics over at lunchtime and managed to splash noxious-smelling virulent yellow liquid over my trousers (new trousers at that!), t-shirt and cardigan. Wouldn't have been so bad had I not been in IKEA, and was therefore forced to walk around the whole shop looking like some kind of scummy bag lady. Washed all clothes as soon as I got home and I think the stain's come out, thank goodness.
   
3. Bugger - writing that last point has just made me realise I forgot to give Emily her antibiotics before she went to bed. Bugger.
4. To top the day off, Emily did a big poo in the bath, causing Isabel to scream and leap out, and meaning that I then had to extract a soggy pooey baby and clean the bath before either of them could get back in.

I quite fancy a hot drink but I don't dare, I'd probably pour it in my lap. On the plus side, Isabel came out with a classic line after I'd dropped the iron, and ranted and raved a bit. She said "Mummy, be sanguine" - which is what I'd told her to be when something doesn't go her way but it's not in her power to fix it. These phrases always come back and bite you on the arse one day. But she was right, and I felt better. Still got a crunchy carpet though, and a baby with only two out of three doses of antibiotics. Damn it.

I may need to eat my words

About 10 days ago I took Emily to the doctor's to try to get some insight as to why she's just a pipsqueak - 12lb 8.5oz at six months is pretty small, and at one point she fell off the bottom of the growth curve. I'd booked an appointment with the GP who is meant to be the baby specialist at the practice, but wasn't terribly impressed with him. He barely looked at her, and simply said that we needed to do a urine test since she might have a urine infection.

I went away scoffing at this patently ridiculous suggestion, since she had no symptoms to suggest that this might be the case, and cursing that I had to sit there trying to catch wee in a pot. But catch it I did, and today the results came back. Guess what? She's got a urine infection. Shows what I know then.

Having done some Googling I'm still a bit confused. The doctor said that a urine infection in a baby was quite rare and that there may be an anatomical reason for it (oh great....just drop that bombshell and leave me to wait for Monday's appointment for more details). But the internet seems to suggest it's reasonably common in young children and that, if not dealt with, could be serious e.g. by causing kidney problems, possibly even permanent ones if left for a long time.

So, all in all I'm glad I took her in - she's now on antibiotics so it should all clear up. Hopefully once it's gone her appetite and her weight will improve - that'd be nice! On the downside, I may need to do another urine test with her to make sure it's cleared up, oh hooray.

Sleep

Emily's been sleeeping through for a couple of weeks now, and I thought that this would mean I'd be able to reclaim my ability to sleep like a log for a good eight hours at a stretch. Not so, unfortunately. Problems which have been interfering with my sleep have been many and various, including:

1. Over-sensitivity to any slight noise coming through the baby monitor. She occasionally does a little mini screech and then goes straight back to sleep, leaving me poised for flight for at least half an hour.
2. Falling deeply asleep on the couch and then going to bed and not being able to get back to sleep for ages.
3. Eldest child waking me up because she has a sore bottom (no kidding, this kept her up for nearly two hours until we sat her in a warm bath. At 2am. Sheesh.) or has had a nightmare.
4. Waking up early in preparation for being woken, which is just ridiculous. My alarm's been set for 6.50am but I've been up before it every day for a week. I daren't not set it though!

Having the clocks change today didn't help - Emsy woke up at 5am, so I left her chattering hoping she'd fall back to sleep, which she did at about 5.30am. But I didn't. By about 6.15am I gave it up as a bad lot and decided to turn my light on to read my book - and she woke up again after I'd read a page and a half. She's clearly hard-wired to my actions! So, off to bed now to try to get a good few hours in, wish me luck!

Walk to school week - pah

It's Walk To School week at Isabel's school this week, and as far as I'm concerned it is a complete waste of time. In fact, it's a pain in the bum. Since the school she attends is in a small village, most of the kids come from a fair distance away - we live about 1.5 miles away, but some kids live up to five miles away from the school. Walk to School week is therefore a misnomer - it's actually "Park in the pub car park and walk to school from there" week. We have walked all the way in the past (well, I've walked and Isabel has scooted) but she's knackered when she arrives and, since I'm now trying to give two small people and myself some breakfast before we leave, trying to get out of the house by 8.10am would be well nigh impossible.

But, I appreciate the sentiment of giving them some exercise, and therefore we always park in the pub car park and walk from there whether it's walk to school week or not. However, now everyone's trying to park there and we couldn't get a space on Monday, which really got my goat. I ended up parking almost on top of a big pile of kindling (well, it's a 4x4, I figure it can handle this kind of thing). All Walk to School week has done is to make everyone park a few hundred yards further down the road, moving what is not really a great deal of congestion into another location. And getting in my way!

Ooh, rant over, that's better....!

My stubborn-ness knows no bounds

I've just finished reading a book which I've been struggling through for months. At least two months, and that's unusual for me since I'm normally a pretty fast reader. However, this book was 900+ pages, and I didn't really enjoy it. And reading 900+ pages of a book you're not enjoying takes some time.

For the record the book was Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. Many people have apparently loved it, if the reviews on the weRead FB application and on Amazon are anything to go by. And a few, like me, have hated it. I didn't enjoy it for several reasons - for one, a wince-inducing writing style with ridiculous descriptions. How's this for sheer annoying-ness: "She walked into Leopold's at the usual time, and when she stopped a table near me to talk with friends, I tried once more to find the words for the foliant blaze of her green eyes. I thought of leaves and opals and the warm shallows of island seas. But the living emerald in Karla's eyes , made luminous by the sunflowers of gold light that surrounded the pupils, was softer, far softer". Give me strength...

The other thing was made it a struggle was that I just hated the lead character. It's meant to be a sort of fictionalised autobiography, and I couldn't drum up any real empathy for a smack addict who escaped from prison, abandoned his daughter and family, and lived an essentially selfish existence for years on end. I did enjoy the bits of the book in which he suffered, but I don't think that was the point. And I'm not just being a prude because he was a criminal. I loved Papillon, for example, which was also about a prison break. The problem with Shantaram was that the lead character is essentially unlikeable - kind of Paulo Coelho meets the mafia. I don't like Paulo Coelho either, before you ask.

Perhaps it would have been more bearable with a decent editor. That would have got rid of the worst of the flowery prose and perhaps reduced its length by a good third. It felt like every little detail of the story was laid out, and a lot of that was just unnecessary. Every character, whether minor or major, was described in great depth, which made it very difficult to work out who was important and who wasn't.

So, why did I bother to finish it? Two reasons really: it was the book suggested by someone in a book group I've recently joined so I needed to finish it for the next meeting in November. Plus, I hate to give up on a book. I've only ever given up on one book and that was Vanity Fair - a bookmark still is in my copy, about half way through, so perhaps I can claim I've just paused, even though that was about 20 years ago. Next - a new Stephen King which I got for my birthday and still haven't managed to start. In fact, I'm off to bed and to start it now, in an effort to wash the taste of Shantaram out of my mouth!

Feet

Feet are not a topic I thought I'd ever be writing about, but here I am. I like feet, not in a dubious way, but I'm not one of those people who hate other people's feet. I've always been careful with my own feet, regular pumicing and moisturising, and have never really worn heels or tried to crush my feet into shoes which don't fit. My idea of a nightmare is to have worn new shoes to work and to then have to limp around all day.

As a result of this, I've always been careful with Isabel's feet - no tight socks when she was a baby, and only properly fitted shoes from Clarks or Start-Rite. But today I did something I didn't think I'd ever do - bought unfitted shoes (boots, actually) from a non-shoe shop. Worse than that, they look like Uggs. I did this for several reasons - first of all, they look comfy and certainly won't pinch. And they'll keep her feet warm. She probably won't wear them much since they're not suitable for school (they're purple...!) but they'll see her through the winter. And they were cheap. But I still feel slightly guilty....I promise to take her back to Clark's for new school shoes though!

Education, Education, Education

There have been lots of stories in the UK papers today about a new review of early years education which has concluded that children should not start formal education until they are six years old. I've read quite a bit about this recently and am starting to come round to the idea, although of course it's too late for Isabel now since she's already been sucked into the system. And the rate at which changes in education are made is so slow that it's probably too late to affect Emily too.

The problem, as with many other issues, is that you could argue both sides pretty effectively, and I think that in many cases it depends on the attitude and aptitude of the child. And even for one child you could argue the case either way. In Isabel's case, she's been quite enjoying the formal learning aspect - her reading is excellent and I love to see her enjoying reading simple books to herself. Her maths is pretty good too - she often challenges us to minor maths quizzes and was delighted the other day to have counted to 300. Husbandio and I were less delighted since it took about half an hour, and I felt like my brain had been sucked out slowly through my ears by the time she'd finished. But I kept on smiling! She's even quite enjoyed doing her maths homework once a week, although revising for a weekly spelling test is less fun (for all of us!).

Ironically, for Isabel at least, it's been less the formal learning and more the social aspect that she's struggled with. She's the youngest in the year and before she started school was always much more comfortable with adults than with children. At her nursery she always seemed to spend much more time on her own or interacting with the staff than with the kids, and while she has made friends at school, she's probably behind most of the other kids in this aspect of social skills. She's now in a position of having made one very good friend, but recently this friend has been trying to play with other children as well (quite understandably!) and Isabel is struggling to understand this. I told her she should play with some of the other kids too, and she occasionally does, but has recently been saying "but I don't want to play with anyone else". This is the stuff that just rips at your heart as a parent, because it's so difficult to help them with issues like this, other than offering advice and providing a shoulder to cry on.

So, if starting formal education later provides more time to help children develop social skills then I'm all for it. But learning to read provides so much enjoyment too - should we be delaying this for kids who are ready to read? Tricky. Whatever happened to personalised learning anyway? Shouldn't today's multimedia classroom be able to manage this?!

Tucking in like a champ

The most exciting thing that's been going on this week is undoubtedly starting Emily on proper food. I'm enjoying feeding her so much more than I did with Isabel, for a number of reasons:

1. I'm not nervous this time round. Child #1 is a good eater therefore the chances are Child #2 will be as well. And the first one now eats a good range of food, so we must have done something right last time!
2. Emily's's going great guns, and gulping down as much food as I'll give her. I'm being cautious since I don't want her little digestive system to explode, but we're already on three (small!) meals a day and we only started seven days ago.
3. She looks like she's really enjoying it, and it's always a pleasure to feed someone who's clearly relishing what they're eating.

I'm sure there will be some foods we'll come across that she won't like. Thus far we've only had pears, carrot, baby rice and creamy porridge. She's loved it all, barring the baby rice, which she tolerated but didn't look very enthusiastic about. Hardly surprising really, since it does taste like cardboard. Having said that, I mixed baby rice in with the pears this evening, to give it a bit of bulk, and that went down a treat.

It's so interesting watching her learn how to eat - I was too concerned with getting the food into Isabel to be able to really pay attention to how her eating developed. At first Emily didn't realise she needed to open her mouth quite wide, and tried to treat the spoon as a teat - she seemed to think that if she sucked the spoon more food would magically appear. However, now she's opening her mouth and sitting up straighter which is a relief - during meal 1 she plunged her face into the bowl in an effort to get the food in quicker! I guess that when they're only on milk they're used to a continuous stream of food, and having gaps in supply when they move on to solid food comes as a nasty shock!

Later this week she has the excitement of parsnip and then apple, and maybe even, if she's very good, butternut squash. Doesn't get much better than that - but I am going to make a resolution, in case things go wrong as we progress, which I am determined to stick to. And it's this: "I'm not going to take it personally when she spits lovingly-prepared food back in my face. This is not a sign that she doesn't love me. She's saying she doesn't like spinach, or whetever it is, not that she rejects me as a mother!". Now that I've written it down that looks silly - but I took it so personally when Isabel wouldn't eat what I'd cooked. I'm happy to spare myself the angst this time!

Labels are for idiots

No, I don't mean labels as in labelling someone, but in labels in kids clothes and on food. While I was feeding Emily this evening I glanced at her bib and, in big red letters, it said "KEEP AWAY FROM FIRE". No shit Sherlock, it's a child's bib. If you're the kind of person who plans to let a small baby play with fire, then perhaps child-rearing isn't going to be your thing.

Stating the obvious always gets my goat, but some labels make me chuckle rather than get cross, like the bib one did. I saw a great label on a bottle of chocolate milk the other day, and it said "Once opened, treat as ordinary milk". So I did. Makes a cup of Earl Grey taste really odd though.

Chapter 171: In which my heart almost leaps out of my chest.

It looked like being an uneventful day. I took Isabel to ballet in the morning while Husbandio put Emsy down for a nap at home, and after lunch we prepared for a trip to Sainsbury's. Oh, the excitement. We dropped Husbandio at the gym and we girls headed off for some supermarket fun and games.

Unusually, I decided to put Emsy in one of the baby seats in the supermarket trolley. I usually pick one of the trolleys with a space to put a car seat on top, but didn't this time since (a) she was awake and (b) those one with the car seat holder are dead annoying because you can't see where you're going and (c) I don't like her to spend too much time in the car seat if it can be avoided. So, off we went, and loaded everything in. Isabel still wishes she was smaller and could either ride in the trolley's seat or in the body of the beast with all the shopping, but there wasn't room so she kept jumping on the side and riding along that way. Made the trolley very heavy and difficult to maneouvre, but we successfully got to the checkout.

At this point it all went wrong. After all the shopping had been scanned and I was entering my PIN number I heard a crash, and turned to see the trolley on its side, Isabel crying and shouting about how it was an accident, and Emily still strapped in the baby seat but now only inches from the floor, and screaming her little lungs out. I dashed over, unstrapped her, grabbed Isabel, and tried to figure out if either of them were hurt. Fortunately Isabel had sidestepped quick smart as the trolley went over, and Emsy had been strapped in nice and tight and was only screaming because she'd got a nasty fright. As had Isabel and I, and most of the rest of the supermarket. Ems actually stopped crying before Isabel did (I think part of Isabel's tears were less to do with pain or shock and more to do with concern that I'd blame her for trying to kill her little sister).

The fact that neither of them was hurt was well nigh miraculous. We finished up and limped out to the car, and found when unpacking that the only damage done was two slightly cracked eggs. Which we used later that afternoon to make a carrot cake. Well, we felt we deserved a little comfort food....oh, and if anyone reading this knows my mother, please don't tell her this little tale. She'd have nightmares for the next 20 years (as may I!).

Back, after a short break, and it's all change!

I've been silent, blog-wise, for a few days (OK, nearly a week, sorry...) because life has just been hectic. Firstly, Husbandio, Emily and I went to Ireland for a few days so that I could go to a work conference, and since we got back on Tuesday night I feel I've been chasing my tail trying to catch back up with my life.

The trip itself was really good. Husbandio flew over on the Friday to spend a couple of days with his best friend, and Emsy and I then followed on the Sunday morning. This means that I flew alone with a five month old baby. At 7am. On a Sunday. It seemed a good idea when I booked it....! Actually it went fine - she woke up at 5am when we got to the airport, having had a bit of a doze in the car, and was then awake until the flight. That meant, luckily, that she was pooped by the time we took off, and slept all the way there, leaving me free to read my book, marvellous! The trip from the airport to the hotel was fine since I was met by a chauffeur, although rather than the baby car seat I'd requested I got a car seat suitable for a one year old, so it was far too big for her. And then we had the same seat on the return journey, despite complaining - most irritating!

The conference itself was really good. The event opened (after Emsy and I had taken a dip in the spa swimming pool, lit by Swarovski crystal lights!) with dinner in the Gordon Ramsay Signature restaurant and a motivational speech from an astronaut and climber of Everest. Emsy was by this point in her cot which fortunately fitted into the wardrobe area of the bedroom, and we hired a babysitter. The next day was conference sessions until 4pm, then a walk round the Powerscourt Gardens near the hotel, in beautiful sunshine. Yes, sunny in Ireland, whodathunkit? On the final day the conference finished after lunch, and we then met up with our friends in Dublin to meet their little girl, which was lovely, and then off to the airport and home. A speedy trip, but nice to be away from cooking and washing etc, and the room was beautiful. We warned Emsy not to get too used to it, but I fear she may now have high expectations of future hotel visits...!

Chillin' out in the style to which I intend to become accustomed

I was worried that she might be all shaken out of her routine by the time we got home, but she fared very well. So well, in fact, that the night after we got home she slept through for the first time, which was a great relief. She's done it two nights in a row now, fingers crossed that it continues. Course, I was awake from 4.30am waiting for her to wake up, but that'll soon end. That made it a red letter day in its own regard, but we went even further and started weaning, and have now done two days. She's eaten two ice cubes worth of pureed pear each day, with great gusto, so that's going brilliantly so far.

Pears, yummy!

And, as if that weren't enough, today she rolled for the first time. Not just from back to front, oh no, but also once from front to back. Isabel and I both saw the last roll, and just stared at each other open-mouthed! While it's all been very exciting, I think I need a quiet weekend to recover, possibly with the help of a take-away. And perhaps a G&T to wash it down.

Some things make it all worthwhile

Kids are fun most days, but sometimes they do something that goes beyond the norm. This isn't always a good thing - last week Isabel, my perfect and beloved child, stepped way out of character and drew on the couch with a biro (&^"%£&"^£*&^!!!!), but tonight she went the other way and just charmed me completely.

Isabel had her best friend home from school today, but she could only stay until 5.30pm since she had to go off for her Arabic lesson (just the thought of which makes me feel tired, that sounds hard....). I gave them their tea (fish fingers, waffles, peas, and strawberries and cream for pud) just before 5pm, whereas Isabel's used to eating at 6.30pm, so by the time I'd put Emily to bed and read Isabel her stories it was 8.20pm and rather than being tired, she was hungry. Not good! However, I tried to ignore her, read two stories, tucked her in and came downstairs. When she was still chatting away to herself half an hour later I went up and found her looking through her books with the light on. So I took up two plates with bread and butter and we had a "midnight feast" (OK, an 8.45pm feast!). She was thrilled! She chuckled through both pieces of bread and butter, couldn't stop giggling with glee, and then said "My first midnight feast! My cheeks hurt from smiling too much!" You can't buy that...

More evidence of the speed of growing up

Like every other parent on the planet, I often find myself saying "they're growing up so fast!". Although really, in the grand scheme of things, humans grow up unbelievably slowly - giraffes walk almost immediately after birth, while it takes us a year. But parents coo over every small developmental milestone, and I'm no exception.

Emsy's latest skill is the ability to sit up. Almost. Well, for a few seconds, until her head moves in one direction or another and drags her body inexorably after it. If she's gently propped though she can do pretty well, and is feeling justifiably proud of this acheivement.

Emily, sitting up

Isabel, on the other hand, is progressing into the role of schoolgirl at a rate of knots. She now has weekly maths homework and spellings to learn for a test every Friday, plus two reading books a week. She's expected to do 15 minutes of reading with us each night (not always easy to squeeze this in, but we're doing our best). I'm sure that when I was at primary school, in the late 1970s, we never had any homework at all. Going to secondary school proved quite a shock - now I'm just grateful for the years I didn't have any homework! She's also growing up in ways which weren't even thought of in my day. She now has her own Facebook account, and told her teacher today, as part of a discussion about which countries different foods come from, that she was growing dates on her Farmville farm on FB - I'd have loved to have heard the teacher's reply!

Getting the ice cube trays out again

Yup, it's that time for little Emily - getting ready for weaning. We went to a post-natal group meeting on weaning this morning which provided some useful reminders, and I'm starting to get quite excited about getting going. However, it may be a couple of weeks yet, since (a) the advice is not to start until they're six months old and that won't be until 18 October, and (b) we're off to the Emerald Isle this weekend, so I really don't want to get started until we're back. However, I'm preparing, both mentally and physically - I'm getting ready for the fact that she'll quite often reject the food that I've made (I will not take it personally this time!) and that it'll be messy. So, today I peeled, chopped, boiled and pureed five pears and filled an ice cube tray. We still don't have a high chair although I quite like a wooden one I saw in Asda so might get that - for the time being we'll be using the Bumbo chair since Emily's probably too small for a high chair yet anyway. Bless her, the little pipsqueak!

Repitition, repitition, repitition

I'm blogging while catching up with this weekend's X Factor, and it suddenly struck me how repititive it is. Obviously the format is repetitive, although they've made efforts to remedy that this year by holding the auditions in front of a live audience, but the voiceover is repetitive too, and it just doesn't need to be. I always quite liked Dermot O'Leary, but if I hear him saying "And no-one wants it more than Stacey from Dagenham", or whoever it happens to be, I swear I'll chuck something substantial at the telly. All of the contestants want to win, they all want to move out of their grotty flats and shed the detritis of their depressing lives - we know this, but none of them want it more than anyone else, stop going on about it!

Of course, the X Factor's not the only show guilty of this. After watching a series of Masterchef Goes Large I could pretty much do the voiceover myself. In fact, the only reality-type TV show that has studiously avoided this trap is Location, Location, Location - Kirstie and Phil are Gods of Property, and should be put forward as case studies at TV Presenter school. Sarah Beeny has her moments too, but she delivers her lines with a level of irritating smugness that Kirstie and Phil don't have. We know that they think the househunter in question is a moron, but in a friendly and non-offensive way. I may also have to take lessons, having thought about it - I think a lot of people are morons but I'm patronising about it, like Sarah Beeny, and thereby reveal my hand too early. Anyone got Kirstie's phone number?

When did weekends stop being relaxing?

Don't get me wrong, I've had a lovely weekend and thoroughly enjoyed it, but now I'm pooped! I remember the days when weekends meant getting up late (OK, I was never good at that, getting up at around 8.30am was always a lie-in for me!), watching several hours of TV which I'd recorded during the week, having an afternoon nap later on, and generally chilling out.

I know that the answer to my question is "when you had kids, you idiot, what did you expect?!", but I don't think I was prepared for the state of perpetual motion that weekends have become. This weekend was typical - took Isabel to ballet class from 11.15-12.15 on Saturday, with Emsy. Home for lunch while Emsy napped, then back into action - feeding, walk down the hill to the library, the chocolate shop and the park, more feeding, dinner, bathtimes and then general parental collapse. Today was slightly more chilled - quick trip to Sainsbury's, friends round for lunch with their toddler and small baby (9 weeks old and heavier than lil' Emily I think!), then homework with Isabel, dinner, bath and bed. Oh, and in amongst all this, Husbandio moved bunk beds from my dad's house to here, and a load of furniture to his sister's new place in London - this took him ALL DAY yesterday so he was properly shattered.

However, even though I'm tired I wouldn't have changed it - the girls have been lovely, I spent quality time with some good friends, I didn't spend too much money, and we have a tidy playroom. And a new bed for Isabel - she seems pretty chuffed with it, what do you think?

Good job I'm not (gulp) scared of spiders

There was an article on the BBC News site this morning saying that more spiders than usual are expected in the UK this autumn because we had a wet autumn last year and a reasonably cool summer this year - perfect breeding conditions apparently. And it's definitely true in our neck of the woods. Each night recently we've had pretty big chunky house spiders scuttling across the lounge floor (luckily I usually sit with my feet up on the coffee table!). Other than that I haven't found more webs than usual in the house, but the ones outside are just magnificent. Some are so thick that they're more like cotton threads than webbing. And several have big spiders living in the middle just waiting for dinner to be served - as shown in the picture below.


It's lucky that spiders don't bother me I guess - although even I jumped earlier this evening as quite a big spider scuttled up my arm as I was feeding Emily. What does bother me however is the thought of a spider scuttling across her face as she's asleep - now that's creepy. Since I'm not really bothered by spiders, Isabel isn't either - in fact, if she sees a spider she descends upon it gleefully, saying "Sidney, I've missed you!". I think she may be going a little too far the other way...!

She's a Sixties child at heart

Over the last few months we've been expanding Isabel's musical interests beyond nursery rhymes and Disney songs. So far her favourites are the Beach Boys and, in the last few weeks, the Monkees. She likes the Beach Boys so much that she'll watch the Beach Boys DVD we have rather than Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (yay!), but the Monkees are quickly catching up.

I always loved the Monkees, and even saw them in concert several times as a teenager, and I'd love to get her watching the TV shows as well. I was going to buy them from Amazon, but Series One costs £34.98, which is just madness, and Series Two isn't much better at £31.98. Why so expensive?! Must be because there's quite a lot of content and not a massive demand. I'm considering setting up a petition to get the BBC to broadcast the shows again! I fear I may be the only signatory. Oh, and Isabel, now that she can write her own name! All together now, "Hey Hey, We're The Monkees, People say we're monkeying around!"

Making friends

Isabel's now into her third term at school - she's settling into a group of friends, and even has a best friend. Interestingly, our neighbour's daughter, who is also in her class, is not in this group, and they don't really seem to interact at all at school. Both of them appear to have agreed that they are "home friends" but not school friends, and both are very happy with this. Strikes me as strange, but seems to work for them.

The issue which I'm thinking about at the moment is whether it's a good thing or not to have a best friend at this stage. I'm concerned that having a best friend may mean that Isabel doesn't interact as much as she could do with other children in the class, and that if the best friend relationship turns sour then she could be stranded without a network of other friends to fall back on. So far that seems to be a groundless fear since she does mention playing with other children (all girls, it should be added - boys don't seem to feature at all on her radar yet as potential playmates!). And I'm trying to encourage a range of friendships by inviting various children home for tea - we have one coming on Friday (sausages and mash for tea!) and another on Monday (macaroni cheese!). The best friend can come too of course, but a little later this term. Not quite brave enough to invite more than one child at a time - refereeing between two extremely over-excited five year olds is as much as I can manage at the moment.

I think the line I'll try to follow is to encourage her to have a best friend, but with the caveat that a group of friends can also be enormously valuable. As they say, "books and friends should be few but good".

Back to the good old days

Times are tough, that's no secret. Times are particularly tough when you're on maternity leave pay rather than a proper salary. For these reasons, I'm trying to be better about not wasting food. In the past, I admit, I've thrown away bags of salad which I'd meant to eat but hadn't got to before it got slimy (or which I'd rejected in favour of something more appealing like a packet of pink wafer biscuits).

So, at the weekend we had a roast lunch - nice large chicken, a bargain at only £4.99. Although I failed to boil down the carcass to make stock (come on, life's too short) I did make soup out of the leftover broccoli and cabbage along with some of the chicken. And it was actually really nice, much better than I'd expected. Isabel slurped it down with gusto which was great, and declared that it was just like leek and potato soup. Funny, since there were no leeks or potatoes in it.

And today I made what I always think of as a really seventies dessert. Yummy, and again a bargain. I bought a flan case, filled it with sliced strawberries, blueberries and grapes, then poured in Quick Jel. It set in about 20 minutes, and looked so nice that Husbandio insisted I must have bought it. Unfortunately we ate it so quickly that there's no picture of it, so you'll just have to take my word for it!

Breaking the habit

Emily is now in her own room, which is a momentous event for us, even if not for her. The joy of going to bed and reading for ten minutes before turning out the light, rather than creeping in under the cover of darkness, holding my breath and sliding silently under the duvet, then waiting in trepidation to see if I've disturbed her, can barely be overstated.

BUT. You knew there had to be a but. Ever since having a cold two weeks ago, she's developed a terrible habit of waking up at 1am to feed, and then she can't sleep much longer than about 5.30am. Feeding her twice in the night is not ideal, to say the least. Last night I managed to settle her again until about 6.45am, but just being woken up twice a night is really grinding me down. I'm OK all day until about 6.30pm and then I struggle through dinner, bathtime, final feed and stories for Isabel. After that, I only have enough brain power for an episode of the X Factor. And that's not much brain power at all. And it often makes me cry, which is pathetic. Can I still blame that on hormones? Anyway, apologies for weak blogging, I'll try to maybe write earlier in the day tomorrow when more than 10% of my brain still works...

Just don't add it up

Yup, it's that time of year again when the after-school activities get started, and this inevitably means parents forking out some hard earned cash. Isabel's doing a few things this year, but not too many (must keep remembering she's only five!). Even then, we'll be spending over £200 just between now and the end of the year. And that's even before you factor in buying equipment. Gulp. Should have taken my own advice and not added that up.

One thing which she's continuing with is ballet (and now, since she's older, the classes also include tap and modern). When she started, about 18 months ago, our neighbour's daughter and two other friends also did the class, but they've all slowly fallen by the wayside. Luckily, one of Isabel's classmates is trialling the class tomorrow - hope she likes it, as it's nice to have some friends there. Isabel's also continuing with disco on a Monday after school, and swimming on a Wednesday. Oh, and then there's French on Monday lunchtimes, and singing club on Thursday lunchtimes. But that's it, honest! I hope this isn't overloading her - will have to watch for signs of undue fatigue. But she seems keen to do it all, and in fact has turned down several other opportunities including judo, football, touch rugby and tennis. Perhaps competitive sport won't be the route she chooses to take in life - Husbandio will be disappointed, as he's hoping she'll win him an Olympic gold. Not setting our expectations too high then!

Online shopping brings out the worst in me

Understandably, I haven't been out much recently on any exciting shopping expeditions. No, Husbandio, Sainsbury's doesn't count. While I was still working I was pregnant so there was no point buying any new clothes, and now I'm skint since statutory maternity pay comes nowhere near my actual salary. Plus, shopping with kids in tow is not much of a pleasure. We went to the new Westfield shopping centre over the summer holidays which looks marvellous, but dragging small people round naturally curtailed the amount of time we could spend there.

Anyway, one really annoying habit which I have is that I am pretty tight with money. Or at least, I don't mind spending it, but it can take me ages to decide whether I definitely want to spend the money on something. And the more expensive the item, the worse the problem - it took me forever to finally get an iPod Touch although I really wanted one, and even then it was a birthday present! Anyway, online shopping only serves to fuel this because (a) I always feel I can get the desired item cheaper on another site and (b) it's really easy to prevaricate and ultimately fail to buy whatever it is, or find it's gone out of stock.

The latest thing is that I've seen a Boden coat which I really want but, despite a 12% discount voucher plus free P&P I just can't decide whether to get it. I probably will in the end, but I'll tiptoe around the decision for ages. We also need a highchair for Emsy and I've seen a great one, at a good price, in Asda, but I still can't quite press "Buy" - why is this? Maybe it's the worry that it won't quite be what I want and then it'll be a pain in the arse to return, or maybe it's just that I'm cheap. I don't really need any comments in response to that though....!

You can choose your friends...

I realised the other day that, while I very much enjoyed my university experience, almost all of my really close friends are either from school or from periods after university, such as when I was on a kibbutz for nine months. What happened to those uni friends? Where did they go? Was it something I said?

Having mulled this strange phenomenon for a little while, I've come to the conclusion that uni was probably such a melting pot that, while I was close to a lot of people while I was there, there can't have been that many people with whom I really had a lot in common. My school friends and I must have had more fundamentals in common, and it's those friendships which have endured. Kibbutz friendships have also proved very resilient - in fact, this very weekend I have two such friends coming for a sleepover, and I'm really looking forward to it. Actually, I suppose you could say three friends, since Husbandio is also a kibbutz friend, so it'll be a really nice mini-reunion. I thought being on FB would throw a lot more people at me whom I didn't really want to be in touch with any more - luckily that's not been the case. I hope I haven't spoken too soon.....!

Mobile living

Although I love a gadget, I've never been big into mobile phones. I just want a phone that allows me to make and receive calls, send texts and, if I'm really lucky, take photos that don't look as if the phone was hidden inside a pair of tights when the picture was taken. However, I don't like being ripped off, and when I realised last week that I was spending about £35-40 a month on half an hour of phone calls and 70-odd texts, while Husbandio spends £25 for bloody hours on the phone and loads of texts, I got cross. Of course, it's not in the mobile phone company's interest to put me on a better tariff if I haven't had the nous to notice that I'm getting stiffed, but that's not the point. It's just rude.

So, tonight I resolved to sort it out. With Husbandio's help of course - he's great at sorting out these kinds of things, and having him on speakerphone clinched me a better deal than I would otherwise have got. That, and calling the company in question just before their lines closed - the guy was desperate to go home! So, I now have a £25 monthly tariff discounted to just under £10, and a shiny new phone. Not a very exciting phone, but a new phone nonetheless. And I'm no longer being ripped off. So, while I have a bit of a headache from all the hard work involved, I'm feeling at peace with the world.

Twelve Years

Today is our twelfth wedding anniversary. Twelfth! I'm just not quite sure where all those years have gone. I have a reasonably clear recollection of the five years since Isabel was born, but that seems to now account for 90% of the time we've been married, while the previous seven years have shrunk to a meagre 10%. What on earth did we do before Isabel was born? It's all very hazy, but I think the answers are probably:

1. Worked too many hours for no extra pay. I used to think it was standard to arrive at work at 8.30am and leave at 7pm. Since my paid hours were 9.30am - 5.30pm this meant I was doing at least a day's overtime each week. How kind of me! Since I was working for my dad at the time, and very much enjoyed what I was doing, I didn't really mind, so I'm not whinging. But looking back, I wish I'd left on time more often and maybe done a course in something completely separate from anything I've done before, like carpentry or auto repair. Just to clarify - I also very much enjoy my current job, but work much more to the clock since having kids. Nothing to do with the job, just a re-balancing of priorities - if a small girl needs feeding then Mum's got to leave the office on time!
   
2. Just popped out for a quick drink, or dinner and a movie, without marshalling a small army of babysitters and other helpers. Again, I wish I'd done this more, but I think that finances may have prevented this!

I've just read a blog by a woman with two sons under five who decided, despite her kids and the fact that she's running her own business, to join the Clipper Round the World Race - she's sailing from the UK to Brazil over the next five weeks. While I'm not suggesting I want to do anything like this, I am looking forward to the day when I can carve out a little slot in my life to do something new and different, whether that's more travelling or just learning something new. However, unlike the sailor lady, I think I'll put this on hold for the next ten years or so, which should give me plenty of time to come up with something interesting! In the meantime, I'll set a short term goal - once Emily turns a year old, and breastfeeding is done with, I'll be getting back to aqua aerobics. Remind me of this next April to make sure I do it!