Looking back on one month of blogging

I can't believe it's only been a month since I started this blog. My mum thinks that me writing this every day is hilarious, having fought a daily battle for many years when I was at primary school to get me to write a diary. Good writing practice, apparently. I'm sure she's right but it was a right royal pain in the arse at the time - and when I used to go to stay with my grandparents, my dad and I used to sweat for a good couple of hours at the end of the holiday trying to work out what I did each day so I could fill in the fortnight-sized blank in the book. I'm not sure she knows that, but since she doesn't have a PC or indeed internet access I think my secret's safe for now.

Those diaries are funny to look back at, but I really didn't enjoy writing them. This blog, however, I do enjoy. I didn't think I'd have the time to add another "thing to do" to my daily list, but I've discovered a rhythm, and thoroughly enjoy the 10 or 15 minutes it takes each night to put down a few thoughts. It's like therapy. But cheaper.

What I'm trying to work out now is how widely I publicise this blog. At the moment I know that a few people know about it (hello all, you know who you are...!), but I'm considering whether to add the link to my Facebook page, for example. I've got quite a few colleagues as friends on FB, so will I have to be really careful about saying anything about work? Since I'm enjoying work at the moment that shouldn't be too tricky, but I feel that the whole point is to write what I want, so I don't want to feel restricted. Having said that, surely the whole point of writing is to be read - blogging is the most immediate form of vanity publishing after all. I guess J.D. Salinger would disagree with me - he's rumoured to have written loads while living like a recluse and hasn't published anything since 1965. Maybe he's been blogging under a pseudonym for years, that'd be funny. Anyway, the issue remains - to publicise, or to keep quiet? On the plus side, publicing it would boost my usage stats, which might boost my standing in the running game of Google Analytics Top Trumps that Husbandio and I appear to have started. A victory of that sort might just make it all worth while......!

This month in stats:

• 84 visits from 35 unique visitors
  
• 132 page views
• 1 min 59 seconds average time spent on site
• Best day: 28 Jan, with 10 visits
  

They grow up so fast

I know, it's a terrible cliche. But that's the thing about cliches, they have usually become cliches because they're true. Actually, some time with children drags by terribly slowly, and then that makes you feel guilty (OK, strike that, makes me feel guilty). Breast-feeding at night is one example, which I think I've mentioned before - others include reading badly written stories, and playing hide and seek. I can manage two rounds, but that's about it.

Anyway, part of you feels the time dragging by and then, boom, they start school - how did that happen? There's a silver lining of course, in that as they get older they can do more stuff for themselves, like getting dressed. Isabel gets her school uniform on every morning with no help from anyone and it's marvellous - of course, to her it's a game of "I'm the winner at getting dressed and Daddy's the loser" - but whatever works is fine with me. She also thinks she can do her own hair - not quite so good at that though. "A" for effort though I think.


However, we're now working on cleaning. She loves our ostrich feather duster but I'm too worried about her sweeping vases and ornaments off shelves to let her go really crazy. This came a close second though.


Of course, wearing the right outfit adds to the enjoyment of these mundane household tasks.


See, that's a smile, honest! Where is the line between child exploitation and giving a sense of responsibility and ownership over one's environment? Answers on an e-postcard.....

Pushy parenting, or just encouraging?

It's a tricky balance. You want to encourage your child to do well, but equally you want them to turn out as a happy, relaxed, fun person to be around which is something that could be damaged if you push them too hard. It's an issue that's preying on my mind at the moment because Isabel seems to be really enjoying school, and is thriving, and I want to help her wherever I can. But it's early days, and I don't want her to feel that she comes homes from school only to have to do school stuff at home. At the moment I can get away with making it fun (playing "school", where she has to teach me, for example, or deliberately counting things wrong and letting her correct me, or asking her to count six apples into a bag in the supermarket). But she'll wise up to these tricks soon, so I need to work out a way to keep ahead, while still making sure she's engaged.

One of the reasons I'm thinking about this is that I already think she can do more at school than they're asking her to do. She's started bringing home reading books, but at the moment they have no words (I know, so they're not reading books, don't get me started....) - they're really discussion books where you have to discuss what might be happening. Seems at odds with what we're doing at home which is increasingly reading books with lots of words and sometimes no pictures at all. We just finished Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and are onto something by Dick King-Smith, who wrote The Sheep-Pig (aka Babe). She's loving them, and so are we, but it then seems odd to be going back to books with no words at all.

She certainly doesn't need help making up stories, that's her favourite game at the moment. Her response to me saying something like "come and put your shoes on, we're going out" is always "I need to finish my story!" - understandable, since it would be cruel to leave Barbie stranded and at the mercy of the dragon. Her response really reminds me of me as a child, whinging "I need to finish my chapter" when my mum was asking me to come and do something. It's the language that cracks me up as well - today I heard her saying "No I won't, retorted the prince" as part of a made up story. Retorted! Brilliant! A girl after my own heart.....

Like a rather fat duck to water

In my efforts to find something interesting to do in the afternoons when Isabel's not in school, we decided to go and check out one of the local swimming pools. I also wanted to arrange some swimming lessons for her, but I have to call in a couple of weeks when they'll be able to tell me how many places are available - I hope I can get her into something since I'd like her to start regular weekly swimming lessons. This is partly because I think having a couple of after school activities will be good for her (pushy parent, moi?) , and partly because it gives a nice structure to the week. And if there's one thing I love, it's a structured routine!

The pool turned out to be very nice and, even better, practically empty. One other mother was there with a 2 or 3 year old, and a dad with a 4 year old. There was a little slide which Isabel thought was just great (it was all of 2' long, but she did make a fairly satisfying splash). The changing rooms were nice as well, clean stone floors and very posh showers. It was more like a private club in some ways than just a local pool! Best of all, they offer aqua aerobics classes, so I may give that a go next week. I used to do aqua twice a week before I had Isabel but then found it hard to get back into afterwards - now I'm worried about struggling through Pumpkin's birth because of my lack of fitness, and that's a pretty good incentive to get back to doing something!

There was one downside about today's excursion however - my swimsuit felt quite snug as it struggled to accommodate me and the bump! But this was outweighed by the fact that I could actually breathe - the last time I took Isabel swimming I was still struggling to get rid of my chest infections and bring my asthma under control, and when I lowered my chest under the water it felt like my lungs were being crushed. Not good. But this time, having scored well on the peakflow test at yesterday's asthma clinic appointment, I felt brave enough to brave the pool again, and lo and behold, I could breathe! The inhaler I have to use morning and night is clearly now working well - marvellous stuff, steroids!

Bounty pack disappointment

Since Isabel finishes school at 12.30 each day at the moment, we have lots of time each afternoon to (a) drive each other crazy, (b) have some fun, (c) visit friends or (d) get some useful jobs done. Today was option (d) - I fear tomorrow may have to be (b) since I volunteered to help make spoon fairies. But I won't worry about that quite yet.

Today's list of fascinating jobs involved going to two tile shops - a lovely posh one in Amersham and the rather less lovely Topps Tiles. The Posh Shop had beautiful tiles that I drooled over, much to the consternation of the shop owner, and I only went to Topps to see if they had anything vaguely similar but cheaper - they didn't, needless to say. This is a classic example of what I would term my frugal nature - I believe Husbandio would refer to it as being cheap. Much of a muchness, if you ask me. We then turned the excitement knob up a notch with a visit to the dry cleaners, and cranked it up to full volume with a trip to Boots to fill a prescription and collect my Bounty pack.

The Bounty pack sadly has nothing to do with chocolate. It's a bag of freebies to console you for being up the duff. OK, it's really meant to be full of samples of baby stuff that you'd never heard of before all this pregnancy malarkey - I wasn't hoping for much, but even then I was disappointed. I'm sure I got more last time. This time I got a sachet of Ovaltine (yummy, but not thrilling), a pot of Sudocrem which is about as big as a 50p piece, a box of toilet wipes, and a Fairy non-bio washing powder sample. Why did I waste my time? They could have really sold me on so many other items (chocolate and pampering smelly creams to ward off stretch marks spring immediately to mind). A marketing opportunity missed.

The pregnancy whinge post

OK, you'll have to bear with me (or just stop reading - your choice really!), but when you're pregnant it tends to dominate your thinking, particularly as D-Day (which in my case is April 21) draws closer. So this one is not about how marvellous it is being pregnant, but just a little self-indulgent whinge about the less-than-marvellous side effects. As a caveat, it is lovely to be pregnant, and I am thoroughly enjoying it, so don't think I'm just being miserable about the whole thing - I've just got to the point where I'm not sure that all these side effects are truly necessary.

1. Itchiness. As your skin stretches, so it itches. At least mine does, so I've invested in shares in Palmer's, makers of the lovely cocoa butter. Rub all over at least twice a day to avoid itches so itchy that scratching 'til you draw blood is a welcome relief.
2. Hormones. I don't think I've been too bad this time (the comments may refute this, I accept!), but I am grumpier than normal, and more prone to crying. Neither of which is welcome.
3. Boobs. The one side effect I was looking forward to - I was promised big boobs while pregnant, and where are they? Never arrived. I've been robbed. Although Isabel poked one the other day and said "oh, I can feel a bone", so perhaps their texture has changed!
4. Dignity. Or lack of same. Gets worse as the pregnancy progresses - today's example was the midwife poking round me and saying "just yell when I hit your pubic bone". Oh, don't worry about that.....
5. Breathing. Or again, in my case, lack of same. Apparently, in one third of pregnancies the symptoms of asthma improve, in a third they worsen, and in a third they remain the same. No prizes for guessing which category I'm in.
6. Heartburn. 'Nuff said.
7. Loosening of joints and muscle connections, making it very easy to pull rib muscles when I had three weeks of chest infections.
8. The need to pee a lot. But only in small amounts, since by a certain point the baby is sitting on your bladder in such a way that you just can't have a satisfying pee that feels like you've actually finished properly.
   

On reflection, that's not too bad a list. Some people would also have to add bizarre cravings, piles, swollen ankles, and water retention. None of which I have - unless you count a craving for chocolate and McDonald's. Maybe I'm just using the whole cravings thing as an excuse....I figure there's got to be some benefits. See, this turned out to be a positive post after all!

Body clock, tick tock

Husbandio and I still have friends without children, and were earlier living vicariously through one of them. A friend had told him recently that she'd left her house after midnight to go out to a club. His reaction had been "ah yes, I remember the days... (sigh)", while mine was "after midnight? time to be in bed, surely!". It reminded me of the time when I knew my backpacking days were over - I saw a girl on the tube with a really big rucksack and instead of thinking "gosh, wonder where she's going?", I thought, "gosh, that looks heavy". I never backpacked again!

Even in my younger days, my body clock could manage with being out until about 2am, but that was really my limit, and if I wasn't in bed shortly after that, I'd just get tired, boring and grumpy. Then again, I'm almost never able to sleep past 8am, so I can't catch up by way of a lie-in. This is the complete opposite of Husbandio. For years this was great - he had some "me time" in the evening to play Playstation or whatever, and I had time in the mornings to watch Casualty, Holby City, ER and all of the other medical drama rubbish which I love. However, after Isabel came along this pattern turned around and bit me in the bum - my "me time" is now consumed by reading her stories and making breakfast, while his continues undisturbed while both she and I are in bed. How did this happen?! I've now become so pathetic in terms of staying up in the evening that I'm renowned for falling asleep on the sofa even when we have friends round, particularly if we put a movie on. I'm only awake now because I made it safely through the "danger period" of between 9-10pm by standing up and doing the ironing - I've never fallen asleep stading up, although I suspect there's always a first time. Just hope it doesn't happen with an iron in my hand!

Plans for getting more reading done

Thank goodness, I worked my way through The Hippopotamus, and have moved onto Stephen King's Duma Key. Still struggling to find time to get any proper reading in though -bedtime seems the only reasonable option so far, but I'm usually so tired by that point that I fall asleep, drop the book and lose my place. Maybe going to bed earlier might be a good idea!

I'm hoping that maternity leave will give me a chance to catch up a bit - I have a lovely mound of Christmas books to work my way through, and have just been lent four murder mysteries, all of which look really good. I can see an upcoming reading opportunity though and it's this: breastfeeding. Keep reading, this does make sense, I promise. When I was breastfeeding Isabel, I could never manage to have the telly on (she used to try to twist round, while remaining clamped onto me, in her efforts to see the screen - really quite painful), but I could always read. I used to glory in that 40 minute feed before bed time (it probably didn't need to be that long, but I loved it because it was just solid reading time). Night feeding is less fun, since I always did it in the dark because I didn't want her to think it was time to get up and play. 40 minutes of sitting in the dark staring at a digital clock I could do without, but I've realised that this could be an excellent excuse for me to invest in the iPod Touch which I've been craving for ages, and read an e-book. Or I could buy the audio book edition of whatever I'm reading in print, and carry on from where I left off! All this will take some planning I think....

One thing I am reading more of, while we're on the topic, is children's classics. Isabel's always been a book fiend (inherited from both Husbandio and myself, I think!) and we've now started going through the books which I kept from my childhood - longer books than can be read in a single sitting, in other words. We've spent the last week reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and it's just marvellous, beautifully written and she's been entranced. Once we finished, we watched the 1970s movie (with Gene Wilder) and will watch the Johnny Depp one soon too. Then it's on to Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, and then the world's our oyster. Suggestions for other books to follow are most welcome!

Having a cold

No, not me, thank goodness, the child. I don't usually mind having a cold, particularly the ones where you don't feel that ill, but under the weather enough to just take a day out of life and lie on the sofa watching some kind of guilty pleasure (i.e. one what you wanted to see but couldn't admit it to the other half, or indeed watch it in their presence).

But having a cold while up the duff is just no fun because of the lack of available medication. Paracetamol just doesn't cut it - I want Contac, but it's on the list of banned substances. When I was pregnant with Isabel I had a cold before I knew I was pregnant, and took two Contac, and then felt guilty for about six months. So no illicit drugs this time, and therefore much avoidance of people with colds. Also, colds always lead to coughs with me, and we've seen what then happens by way of chest infection and general inability to breathe. Not keen to repeat that either.

But of course I can no more avoid my own child and reject her hugs than I can lick my own elbow (feels like it should be possible, but just isn't. Unless you do a lot of yoga, maybe). So if I get her cold I'll just have to suffer through it. Since she doesn't seem at all bothered by it (lovely image of child with streaming nose wiping it liberally on her clothing, my clothing, the soft furnishings etc) maybe it'll just pass quietly without infecting the rest of the house. Here's hoping....

Soft play

Why weren't soft play centres around when I was a kid? The concept seems pretty simple - find a warehouse on an industrial estate, fill it with ball pits, bouncy castles, slides, padded floors and things to climb on, and then charge through the nose for small children to exhaust themselves while their parents relax with a well-earned cuppa.

We went to one of these this afternoon with a friend and her two girls, aged 4.5 and 1.5. Downside was that the parking was almost non-existent and there were lots of warning notices about clamping, but the upside was the comfy sofas once we managed to get inside, and the fact that it didn't smell of old socks, sweaty feet, and armpits, with an undertone of crash mats, which is what most of these places smell like. Isabel and both of the girls loved it, to the extent that Isabel emerged two hours later doing a remarkable impression of a cherry tomato - her face was glowing red, and she was like a little radiator. She even went on a big bumpy slide which terrified her for a good while, but once we'd been on it together (no sign banning pregnant women, so on I went!) she then abandoned me and did it herself about 40 times more. Good job, since climbing up there once was about enough for me - back to the sofas and a nice hot chocolate!

Also had time for a lovely chat with C, one of my best and oldest friends (I mean that in a nice way). Her little girl starts school in April and the school issue therefore dominated the conversation - Isabel has a uniform whereas her daughter won't. I think on balance, even though our uniform rules are very prescriptive (bottle green hairbands?! Goodness sake!) it does stop all arguments in the morning about what to wear, and no competition between the children about clothing. Isabel even now gets herself dressed in the morning which is just marvellous - making me even more apprehensive about starting again with Pumpkin in three months' time. Gulp.

Political post #2

Well, following on from my post on the US inauguration yesterday, I'm now turning my attention to a stalwart of the UK national psyche - the NHS. OK, so not strictly speaking a political institution, but funded by taxpayers' money so I'm counting this as a political post. Seems appropriate to try to be vaguely intellectual since the new presidency marks the return of intellectualism, or so they say - I think I'd rather call it revenge of the nerds. Sorry Mr Obama sir, not calling you a nerd.

I've had quite a lot to do with the NHS in the last few months, due not only to the pregnancy but to three chest infections and a flare-up of my asthma which I'm still working to bring back under my control (control-freak, me?). At one point I was visiting the GP's surgery at least once a week, what with GP appointments, asthma clinic and midwife. They must have been sick of the sight of me. But if they were, they didn't show it - in fact, the GP always greets me as if I were a long-lost friend, which is very kind since I've been a patient there for less than a year. And he did finally manage to knock the chest infections on the head, so I should thank him for that.

But what actually prompted this post was what happened today. I had to go to Amersham hospital for some routine pregnancy-related blood tests (one of the many joys of pregnancy - one day I'll write a post on pregnancy symptoms, and that'll put anyone off having a child ever again!). Usually doing this kind of thing fills me with dread because you never know how long you're going to have to wait - I took a book with me today (the new Stephen King, oh joy!), and was actually quite looking forward to sitting in a waiting room for a while, since I haven't read as much as I'd like thanks to working from home and no commuting. However, I turned up to find no queue at all, went straight in, and was back in the car about 10 minutes after I'd parked. Wonderful, and yet strangely disappointing.

So, this rather overlong post is to say that, in my experience, the NHS does a great job, and I'm proud to be living in a country with this kind of system. US healthcare bills are astronomical, and not having health insurance doesn't seem to be an option, far too scary. So to the Labour govt after WW2 - thank you. And a request to please not mess it up completely to any current and future governments!

They stole our national anthem!

Since I was at home this afternoon I watched the US presidential inauguration on TV.  I expect many also watched it at work - we even had a standing call cancelled today so that my American colleagues could watch it.  I was all geared up for an historic event, a moment to treasure, and Isabel watched it too, or wriggled through it, to be more accurate.  

However, the whole thing struck a few bum notes with me.  And I'm usually up for any kind of event or ceremony that will bring me to tears, especially in my current hormonal state (it'll be even worse after Pumpkin arrives - after Isabel was born I sobbed and sobbed over the medal ceremonies for that summer's Olympics!).  The only part I really liked was watching the reaction of the people in the crowd, people who had been up for hours, often driven hundreds of miles, and stood for hours in the cold to take part.  I bet they couldn't see the man himself, nor hear what anyone was saying, but I was impressed that so many were there - more than a million I believe.

Some of the things that bothered me were:

1. There were so many invited people there  - was this politics or entertainment?  On second thoughts, don't answer that.
   
2. That pastor fellow, Rick Warren, was very odd.  I've been reading up about him and he now seems even scarier than he did at first glance.  Actually, just the fact of his presence was odd - the US doesn't have a state religion, and there are no religious public holidays, so why should there even be room for a religious speech at a political occasion?
   
3. They stole our National Anthem!  I know Aretha Franklin warbled a bit, but the song sounded nothing at all like Star Spangled Banner and everything like God Save The Queen. Aha, just done some research on this too.  The woman who announced Aretha definitely said, "And now Aretha Franklin with the national anthem".  Anyway, she didn't sing Star Spangled Banner (odd, since this is the official national anthem).  Instead, we were blessed with My Country, 'Tis of Thee, which is apparently a US patriotic song which served as the US national anthem for much of the 19th century, and the tune was indeed derived from God Save The King (as it was then).   Wonder why Obama picked this instead of Star Spangled Banner?  More research reveals that it was used in an episode of the West Wing (and since Obama to my mind is Jimmy Smits in disguise, this seems a fair reason) - however, it's more likely because Martin Luther King quoted from it in his "I Have A Dream" speech.  I prefer the West Wing reason myself.

Nurseries

We spent this morning looking at a couple of local day nurseries for Pumpkin - a rather surreal experience since she's still three months away from being born.  The woman at the first nursery said "did you want to bring your baby with you?" to which we said "well, we did".  Anyway, both places seemed perfectly acceptable - one's a little further away than we might like but the facilities seemed good, while the other was very convenient, had a lovely room for the babies, but not much outdoor space for running about in.  Not that six month olds do a lot of running, but they don't stay stationary for long.  

Having said that, she doesn't have to stay at one place for ever - Isabel loved the nursery that she was in before she started school, so we could move Pumpkin there once she's old enough. Staying in one place has obvious advantages though.  So, as you can see we are not much closer to making a decision, although increasingly aware that we need to book a place somewhere since the good nurseries do book up very quickly, and a long way in advance.  

The other thing which always makes these decisions difficult, for me at least, is that it's not 100% what I want to do.  I certainly want to go back to work, but I'm not dreadfully keen on the idea of spending north of £650 each month on nursery fees.  That's a very depressing thought indeed.  In order to try to save on some of that we need to investigate childcare voucher schemes which is yet another administrative headache.  Still, baby steps (very appropriate) - let's find the nursery, then figure out how to pay for it.  Meanwhile, donations to the nursery fund always warmly received.   

Another classic Isabelism

We went to a lovely birthday party this afternoon for the three year old daughter of a friend of ours.  One of the reasons we enjoyed the party so much was because there were only 4 children there - the birthday girl (aged 3 tomorrow), her two girl cousins (aged 6 and 4 respectively), and Isabel, also aged 4.  This is the perfect number of kids at a party from Isabel's perspective - enough people to play with, but not too many to make it hectic.  They played Pass the Parcel, Simon Says, Pin the Tail on the Donkey (updated to become "Place the Sticky Horn on the Unicorn Poster" - maybe health and safety regulations now state that blindfolding small children and allowing them to walk around with a pin might not be such a good idea!) and other party classics such as blowing bubbles in the garden.  They all got on well, and played nicely together, and a general air of warmth and fun was felt by all.

The classic Isabelism to which I refer came about over the birthday tea.  Isabel tucked in with gusto, which surprised me somewhat since we'd had some lunch before we left (nothing worse than sending a hungry child to a party, never a recipe for success in my experience). Anyway, it was all good stuff, breadsticks and dips and carrots and suchlike, and then they all played some more before it was time for cake.  The cake was a delicious chocolate creation complete with little marzipan animals for all the kids, but I think Isabel found it a little rich (not me, I munched down a goodly slice - eating for two you understand....).  Anyway, she ate a couple of mouthfuls, clearly not too keen, and then turned to me and said "Mummy, can I have some pork pie with my cake?" - and then proceeded to eat a whole pork pie, and left all the rest of the cake.  Freak -could we really be related?  

Later in the afternoon she came up with another lovely phrase - the parents of the birthday girl have a very cute dog who was terribly excited to see all the girls, junped up and down all over them, causing Isabel to cry in anguish, "I don't want Sammy all over my party dress, I'm going to go home covered in dog teeth!".  Hey, she could always have distracted him with a pork pie if she hadn't already guzzled the whole thing.

When do people read?

In the last few weeks I've been working from home, and have been struggling to find any time to read.  I knew the commuting time was useful for something, and now it's clear what that something is: ploughing through some books.  I sometimes used to work on the commute, since it's about a 50 minute Tube ride from Baker Street out to the sticks.  And sleeping was also often a feature, of course - I'm a great sleeper.  I always used to say I could sleep on a clothes line, but then my husband trumped me by falling asleep at a Texas gig.  At the Royal Albert Hall.  In the second row.  On Valentine's Day.  No wonder I was swept off my feet.

So, back to reading.  All I've managed to get through so far this year is a book on the impact of texting on the development of language (more interesting than it sounds!) and now I'm half way through The Hippotamus by Stephen Fry.  I'm a massive Fry fan, read his autobiography (Moab is my Washpot) last year and loved it, but I'm finding this one really hard going.  The characters are unremittingly unpleasant, and do horrid things to themselves and each other, and sometimes to farmyward animals.  I kid you not.  I've only got about 80 pages to go, so can see the light at the end of the tunnel, but it's a hard slog.  

The combination of no commuting time plus not enjoying my book has really slowed me up - usually I'm on a couple of books a week, and I like it that way.  I need to carve some time out of the day specifically for reading but can't quite work out when - too busy in the morning and during the day, and too tired at night.  But it must be done, this slow pace can't continue - Husbandio has read more books than me this year, and that's not a state of affairs which I can allow to persist!  Some people get up early to go to the gym or walk the dog - perhaps I'll start setting the alarm for 6.30am to get some reading time in.  New baby, oddly, will help I think - not much else to do while breastfeeding other than read or watch TV - so that's something to look forward to! 

What's with all this pregnancy lark, eh?

When I was pregnant with Isabel four years ago, I only had one friend who was pregnant at the same time - we were seven weeks apart and it was lovely going through it with someone else.  However, I also felt like a bit of a loner since none of my other friends were pregnant or already had kids, at least until I was nearing the end of my pregnancy.

This time, it's all change.  At least five of my friends had babies last year (and in fact two of them had twins. That's IVF for you - no babies for ages, and then two come along at once).  And what's weird is that, in the aspect where I thought I might be a loner, I'm actually surrounded by friends.  I've been concerned that we waited too long to have Child #2, since there will be 4.5 years between them, and several of my friends who had children after I did already have two by now.  However, we're not alone in the size of the gap - two of the friends I made through baby groups when Isabel was little are either pregnant or have just had their second.  I'm also becoming increasingly pleased with the size of the age gap since I've been so enjoying talking about the new baby with Isabel, since she really understands what's happening and how long it will all take.  Well, luckily she doesn't understand quite everything - she knows the baby came from a seed, but thinks I swallowed it.  Don't think I'll disabuse her of this idea quite yet...

The beauty that is Amazon Prime....

I've always been an on and off fan of Amazon - at one point it brought me to tears, and I swore never to buy from the site again, but now I have been re-converted, which is no mean feat.

The reason it brought me to tears, before I go any further, is because a couple of Christmases ago I ordered Husbandio an Xbox360 from Amazon, and I ordered it in October, so felt I had done so in good time. I then, nearer to Christmas, went in to check that the delivery date was still OK, and it was (this was before the console had even been released, so it was a hard to buy gift!). As I did this, I realised I was paying for shipping, and my natural miserly nature meant that I decided to change to the free shipping option which I should have chosen in the first place. Unfortunately, I was unaware that this meant that my order was essentially then reset to that date, rather than my original order date, putting me to the back of the Xbox360 queue, and offering to deliver it in February rather than before Christmas. Not good, to say the least, especially since this meant I was referred to as "the Grinch who stole Christmas" for months afterwards.

Anyway, I've slipped back into the habit of using Amazon for two main reasons. First, I can earn Nectar points, which is always good, and second because I've now been offered a free month's trial of Amazon Prime, which means free next day shipping. After that you pay about £48 for an annual subscription to keep the free shipping option. This will stop me fannying about trying to get lots of purchases into one order, and then realising that one item being hard to get means that all the others will be delayed for weeks. And then taking that one thing out and having to get it somewhere else. It's very clever on Amazon's part: I'm not sure I ordered enough in 2008 to justify that £48 shipping fee, but I will certainly make sure I do in 2009, so from a customer loyalty perspective it's definitely achieving its goal.

So far I've done two orders in two days (oops - perhaps this won't be very good for the bank balance!) and both were delivered today. Very handy, since we have a three year old's birthday party to attend on Sunday and I don't have time before then to buy gifts. Charlie and Lola art kit and CD, via Amazon, to the rescue!

Out of the mouths of babes....

Isn't that a funny saying? The only things that came out of Isabel's mouth when she was a babe were screams and vomit. Anyway, taking the saying a little more loosely, I thought I'd report on a classic Isabel-ism which she came up with today.

In her school, as in her nursery, there's a reasonable percentage of Asian pupils (my little sister, aged 16, claims that Chesham is nicknamed Bangla-chesh due to the large Asian population, but I must say that I've not yet seen this reflected in the quantity or quality of curry houses). But I digress. Isabel today, on her return from school, said in a very considered manner, "I don't think I like brown boys, they smell funny. But I like brown girls, they smell of quiche."

After I had picked myself off the floor and recovered myself from the laughing fit, I was trying to work out the best way to respond. After all, saying something like this outside the privacy of our own home could get us all lynched! But all I could come up with was an "oh really?" I was almost more interested in why any grouping of individuals might smell of quiche. Thoughts on how I should actually have responded very welcome - I expect I'll come up with something brilliant in the shower tomorrow morning.

Musical Youth

Nope, not the popular 80s reggae combo, but a brief comment on the catholic, nay eccentric, musical taste which our four year old daughter is developing. She's always enjoyed music and dancing (she now takes ballet, tap and disco classes, very cute and, even better, surprisingly inexpensive, so far at any rate) but she's really developing an interest in a very broad repertoire of songs.

She likes her own music (mostly classic Disney songs, and a Charlie and Lola CD which she got for Christmas), but is also still young enough to like ours as well. This means that she's currently pinching my iPod to listen to Mauvais Sort, a Quebecois folk band which I saw at a folk festival in Nova Scotia last summer, and sometimes Lily Allen, but this worries me since the language isn't great so I tend to confine that to the car so I can skip over the inappropriate tracks!

She's also enjoying dancing with her Daddy to his vinyl collection, which includes The Quireboys, The Cult (her favourite song is Little Devil!), and the Grease soundtrack. I'm sure he'll be working his way through the rest of the collection over the next few years - at least until she starts to realise that by definition, as her parents, we are terminally uncool and should be avoided at all costs.

The mundanity of day to day life

I'm not sure why this is on my mind today. Perhaps it's a result of spending a lot of time at home, but I've found myself doing lots of jobs which are, to be frank, very dull! How do housewives stay sane?! In the last couple of days I have:

• Loaded and unloaded the dishwasher several times
• Tidied the playroom (with and without help!) several times
• Washed a lot of mud off Isabel's boots, turning them back to black from brown
• Tidied away the dry washing, several times
• Done the ironing
• Run the washing machine and done the laundry, several times.

The things I enjoyed doing most were those which I didn't do time and time and time again - no great surprise there. And you'll note that cooking isn't on that list - I've done quite a lot of cooking, but since I really enjoy that I don't find it too mundane. Even cleaning the girl's disgustingly muddy boots was fun in a way (won't be if I have to do it again tomorrow!).


Actually, thinking about it, one reason for this post has to do with holidays. I doubt we'll have a holiday this year what with a new baby on the way and the difficulties of travelling with a little one, but the thought of doing all these jobs day after day after day for the next 18 months without a break is quite dispiriting. Which I suppose is the point of holidays - a change is as good as a rest, as they say. Maybe we'll win the lottery and spend a few weeks in a luxury baby-friendly hotel - then again, since I don't play the lottery this seems unlikely! Perhaps we should just bite the bullet and go somewhere, since the thoughts of entertaining a 4 year old for six weeks of summer holiday in addition to all the mundane jobs of everyday life is not filling me with glee.

The relationship between children and food

Kids sometimes seem to be a different species entirely.  One example that's making me laugh at the moment is the way Isabel (and the as-yet unborn Pumpkin) react to food.  Isabel is a really good eater - she has a few things she doesn't like (tomatoes, jam, honey, fizzy drinks and what she calls "spicy food" - not that we keep trying to feed her vindaloos or anything!), but generally she'll eat most meals, and she's also good at trying new things.  Well, she's not keen on trying new things, but she knows it's a fight she'll lose if she doesn't try whatever it is, so she generally complies pretty fast.

The funny thing is the way she reacts after eating.  As an adult, the usual thing is to finish a meal, feel full, and sit, bloated, on the couch.  Maybe that's just me - perhaps there's a portion control lesson here.  But no matter how much the girl has eaten, she gets up and puts on a dance show, plays along with Wii Fit, or sets up a concert in the lounge - her natural reaction to eating is to leap about, rather than sit down.  When does this end, I wonder?  And did I do that?  Probably!

The other thing that makes me chuckle is that about 10 minutes after I've had something to eat, it must filter through into Pumpkin's temporary home, and she starts kicking about - she and her sister therefore both react to food by dancing.  Crazy girls!  When I was pregnant with Isabel she used to do the same - chocolate used to cause a particularly extreme reaction, and it's no different now with daughter #2!  Husbandio is clearly destined to live with a house full of chocoholics. 

More of a photo blog than anything else

Well, it's late, I'm tired, and I've just slept through quite a bit of what seemed like a very good movie - Stardust.  Maybe I'll see it again sometime, and catch the bits I missed.  I have a feeling I've slept through it once before as well - might have to be third time lucky.

Anyway, we went for a lovely walk in Wendover Woods today.  It was about -2C and the frost and freezing fog on the way there was beautiful.  And then the woods themselves were filled with snow, even though it hasn't snowed for about five days.  Weird.  So, below are some snaps of what we saw, some taken by me, and some by Husbandio.  Not sure which any more - to be fair, the better ones are probably his! 

It's bloomin' cold

One of the unwritten rules which I set myself when I started this blog was "Don't be a sad boring British person who goes on about the weather all the time".  Well, that rule's about to be broken since this post will be all about the weather, since it is absolutely brass monkeys, as they say.  Isn't that a funny expression?  Prize to anyone who can enlighten me as to where it comes from. 

Anyway, I don't think that the temperature here in sunny Bucks has gone above about 2C or 3C in the last couple of weeks, and several days have seen the thermometer stuck firmly at freezing point or below.  The other day it was -4C, and went up to a high of -2C in the afternoon, crazy! These may not sound like very low temperatures if you live somewhere like Moscow or Minneapolis (where one of my colleagues lives, and it was -24C the other day - I called him crazy for living there, and he said that there's no such thing as too cold, just the wrong clothing.  I'm not entirely convinced by this).

Last night there was what I believe is known as a "hard frost", which created the most beautiful effect on the trees - made them all look like they'd suddenly aged and gone all grey.  Even more impressive though were the spiders' webs, which, when covered in frost, looked like they were made of string rather than gossamer webs.  Amazing.  

Course, I'll be glad to see the back of the cold weather eventually, but actually I'm much preferring it to drizzle (plays havoc with my hair), gloomy clouds and mud.  I wonder if it's possible to go straight from freezing to high summer?  That'd be ideal, I can do without the whole business of April showers.

Keeping busy

Since having a child, four and a half years ago now, I seem to have developed a fear of not being busy, and not having things in the diary. This has improved recently as Isabel's more able to entertain herself, and indeed often prefers playing her own games to doing things with me! I feel it's important to try to engage with her properly every day, either through sitting and reading stories or painting (which we did today, with the table covered by an old shower curtain!).

This means that "me time", which I used to relish, now feels like wasting time which I should be spending tidying/cleaning the house, or working, or doing something with Isabel, or just spending some quality time with the old husbandio, who often gets shoved to the back of the queue by these other demands. (Apologies, husbandio....). This means that I'm often behind on watching the programmes I like (ones which we don't watch together anyway, which include Casualty, Holby City, and ER - I'm a sucker for a medical drama). So then I end up weeks behind, and my mum gets cross with me because she can't discuss them with me without revealing what's happened - adding even more pressure, which I just don't need.

I'm not sure why I'm writing about this except I think it's going to get worse over the next few weeks and months - at the moment because I'm working mornings so am also having to do some stuff in the evenings since that's the only time I can talk to my US colleagues. But I expect that the only thing to give will be my sanity, so it's unlikely that anyone will notice any changes!

Back to work with a bump

Just a short post today since it's already gone 10pm and my eyes are all prickly and tired.  Despite only theoretically working half days at the moment I seem to have done a really long day today - did my three hours in the morning, then took a train into town to attend a Board meeting of a trade association, followed by an evening reception for the same organisation.  The three hours in the morning was tiring because it's such a short period of time so I'm finding myself working very intensively, pausing only for a pee, a drink, or to turn the fan heater on (still very cold here!).  And then the Board meeting was three hours as well,  followed by just over two hours of standing around and hobnobbing and eating strange finger food.  So, rather more than a three hour day today I think!

That's the first way in which I feel I've come back to work with a bump - after 2.5 weeks off I could already do with a few days off, after only two days back.  The other way is to do with my pregnancy - I can't tell you the number of people who, after learning that I'm due in April, have said "gosh, you really aren't showing, what a small bump!".  I should really let this flow over me, partly because that's exactly what happened with Isabel, but it's getting to me a bit because, in my pregnant paranoid state,  it feels like people are suggesting that the baby is under-sized.  Actually, I think many are just jealous (I don't want to be a heifer for months, thank you very much!), but having been worried about not feeling much movement earlier on in the pregnancy I just feel like I don't need any suggestions, intended or otherwise, that there might be something wrong.  I guess that pretty much 100% of this is in my head, and that no-one is really suggesting that the baby is too small.  Maybe I need a t-shirt saying "No comments on size of bump please"!   

First day of the rest of your life

Well, what else could I possibly write about today?  It was Isabel's first day at school, a momentous event in any budding doctor's life.  (joking, I don't really want to force her to be a doctor!)  When I went in to wake her up this morning she was already awake but hid under the duvet, and then a little voice emerged, saying "I don't think I want to go to school today....".  Being a reasonably seasoned parent at this point (or at least usually able to talk a four year old round to my point of the view 8 times out of 10!), I of course was very caring and sharing, saying something like "But all of your friends and your new teacher will be so sad if you're not there".  Secretly, I was thinking "well, tough pants", followed shortly by "hey, welcome to the rest of your life, kiddo" - but I thought it best to keep those thoughts to myself.

Anyway, we got up, dressed and breakfasted with no dramas, and then into the car and away.  This could have been the tricky point, since it's very cold at the moment (saw a low of -4C today, and then a high of -2C!) but the new car defrosts well, thank goodness, and has handy 4 wheel drive which saw us safely up the drive and along the road to school.  

We got to school really early and could have parked very close by, but chose to park in the pub car park, which is about 5 minutes walk away, and enjoyed ourselves crunching and slipping along the path to the school.  Being greeted at the school by the headmaster was nice (how honoured we felt!) - he was sending everyone into the hall before school started because it was so cold outside.  I think usually we drop them off outside the Reception class playground but I was quite glad to be in the warm, and Isabel looked like Rudolph by this point so I think she was pleased too!  All the new parents were allowed to go into the classroom with the kids today and for the next few days to get them settled, which was good since I had 4 bags of things to drop off for her: wellies, lunch bag, book bag, and PE kit.  Not sure she could have carried all that herself!

She then saw lots of people she knew - our next door neighbour and several girls from her ballet class, and they showed her where to put her lunchbag and water bottle.  And then she kissed me goodbye, sat on the carpet with the others, and that was that.  Remarkably uneventful after all that - and neither of us cried, a major result!  I was proud of both of us.  My only worry is that she only had to time to eat her sandwich and 1 piece of cucumber before lunchtime finished - leaving her with an apple, squeezy yogurt and fruity stick thing.  Must teach her to eat faster since she clearly wanted it all, and polished it off at home while I had my lunch.  So, all in all an emotional and tiring day, but all went very well, so thank goodness for that.  On to day two....won't write this much about it every day, I promise!

Almost too nervous to write

Except when am I ever too nervous to write, or speak for that matter?  Finding myself lost for words is not a problem I have often, as those who know me will testify.  I sometimes wish I was more able to allow a comfortable silence to develop, on the grounds that other people might feel they have to fill it, and would then reveal something interesting about themselves, but usually it's me who's unable to keep my mouth shut.

But anyway, that's not what I'm writing about today.  Tomorrow is a momentous day chez nous, since it is Isabel's first day at school.  Ever.  While she's been at nursery since she was two, this seems far more momentous, particularly since she has a uniform (bottle green pinafore dress and a white shirt, plus green cardie/jumper, green tights or white socks, even green hairbands, which seems to be taking things a bit far).   Given the snow today and the low temperatures, I think we'll be going for tights tomorrow! I just hope it doesn't snow again tonight - I heard that schools in some areas were closed, and that would be a big anti-climax!  Plus I guess I ought to follow the rest of the world's example and get back to work, and I actually have an interview scheduled for tomorrow for a report which is due in a few weeks so I need to hit the ground running.  

I think this may be displacement activity more than anything else - distracting myself from worrying about whether she's OK!  For the first six weeks she's on short days though so I'm sure she'll be fine - since she's used to being in nursery from 8am - 6pm, being at school from 9am - 12.30pm will be a breeze!  And she knows several of the girls already, including our next door neighbour who will be in her class, so it's a reasonably easy introduction to the school system.  I think we're all ready for it - sandwiches made and in the fridge, all items labelled (with surname only, cunningly, since Pumpkin will hopefully be able to re-use a lot of these items in a few years' time!), PE kit clean and packed.  I'm bound to have forgotten something, it's like packing to go on holiday.  I just hope it's not something as vital as a passport! 

Making a list (not a Christmas list, more's the pity)

We've done so many jobs in the last few days that we've come to realise how much more there is to do on the house.  Husband even uttered the immortal phrase "we need to make a list" - now, I need no encouraging to make a list,  it's one of the things I'm best at, so I thought I'd make it on this blog, and then I could look back at it later in the year and either cheer at how much we've done, or groan at the fact that the list still looks pretty much intact.  Here goes:

1. Get the kitchen showroom to deliver the quote to the builder so that we can either accept it or squabble with it, and then get the new kitchen installed so that we're able to move out of the 80s timewarp we're currently living with (deadline: ASAP).
2. Get a new garage door installed, since the current one doesn't lock.  Anyone could just wander in and make away with our bikes, which would be rubbish. (Deadline: end Feb.  Arbitrary, but it works for me).
3. Replace the back door - it's the door we use for every day purposes, but isn't really secure enough. (Deadline: when we get the kitchen done). 
4. Replace the radiators which are not really up to the job so the house gets heated properly. (Deadline: summer, so we can try to get a good deal on the rads!)
5. Check out price of getting house better insulated, as is blinkin' cold. (Deadline: summer again, so is warmer for next winter).
6. Replace the two horrendously 80s bathrooms (deadline: 2010, or even later, in reality. Sadly.....) 
7. Decorate Pumpkin's bedroom with recently acquired Winnie the Pooh stickers and border. (Deadline: before the birth, so by end of March)
8. Remove rockery from the front, since I have no idea how to keep it looking nice, and it blocks the front of the house.  Plant an additional small tree out front as well. (Deadline: September)
9. Remove leylandii from right hand side of garden, liberating a good eight foot of garden which it currently takes up. And also replace fence behind leylandii which is in a terrible state but since we can't see it we haven't done anything about it. (Deadline: 2010 I think....)   
10. Fix garden door.  Like many other doors, it doesn't close or lock properly. (Deadline: end Feb, along with other doors).
    
11. Give birth to second child.  Keep both children healthy, happy, or at the least not malnourished. (Deadline: April, and then ongoing til I shuffle off this mortal coil.  After all, my mum still peels oranges for me, so I don't think this job is ending any time soon).

Good Lord, I really wish I hadn't written that now.  How scary.  I feel poor already.  Anyway, I can now look back at this post and update you all on progress (bet you can't wait!).  Don't hold your breath......

Christmas holiday jobs

It's amazing how every Christmas holiday follows the same pattern: 

• Finish work in blaze of effort, and spend 2 days slumped, gazing at unwrapped presents, and wondering how everything is ever going to get done
  
• Gird loins enough to go to Sainsbury's - however, once you arrive at the till you realise that while you have budgeted for all the pressies, you forgot the food bill.  And if by some miracle you remembered the food bill, it will be doubled by the bottles of wine/gin/port which you just "must" have over the holidays.  To be fair, this didn't happen this year - we used three years' worth of Nectar vouchers to do the shopping, and since I'm up the proverbial duff the alcohol bill was very low.  Although a bottle of port did slip its way in!
  
• Christmas Eve arrives and things start getting exciting....
• Following the festivities, the urge to do those end of year jobs creeps in somewhere around December 29th.  By which time you have forgotten the day of week, and, if things have gone particularly well, also your name. 

I'm now into full Christmas jobs mode, having been warming up for the last few days.  Today was a peak day, in which I:

• Did all of the filing from the last three months
• Emptied the desk drawers, re-arranged them, and even now have one which is half empty
• Emptied contents of chest of drawers in unborn child's bedroom, and allocated some to the loft, some to other cupboards, and lots to the bin and the charity shop
• Emptied wardrobes in spare room and put stuff back in such a way that there are no avalanches when you try to get something out
• Went to Focus to buy a new radiator shelf which husband put up, and which now holds all his PSP, PS3, XBox and Wii games.  How many consoles can one grown man own?  Well, more than this given half a chance - looks like the PS2 is departing the house, since the games he wants to keep can all be played on the PS3.  One down.....!
• Worked with husband to put up new clock (a gift from last Xmas which has been in the box ever since!) and pinboard in the spare room to create an office corner.

I think that'll do for one day, except that I have one further thing to do this evening, which is to write the thank you cards.  For Isabel, not for myself you understand.  One of the real banes of having children - next year I'll have to write two sets, oh hooray.      

 

Pros and cons of country living

It's been almost a year since we moved to rural (well, fairly rural) Bucks, so it seems to be a good time to look back on the pros and cons of having made the move out of central London.  

On balance I'd say we definitely made the right move - very friendly local community (we actually know all of our neighbours), the school seems really good (will be able to judge that properly when she actually starts next week, gulp!), we could afford a house with a garden, and the countryside is very beautiful.  We went on a lovely walk this morning along a bridlepath, through two woods (or copses, or whatever the technical term might be) and it was gorgeous (pic below), although very cold.  Well, cold for the UK anyway - I've got some colleagues who live in Minneapolis and go ice fishing, so I guess I can't really complain about the cold when it's only 2C.  As my colleague says, "there's no such thing as too cold, only the wrong clothes". I still can't imagine living somewhere where temperatures can fall to -24C, or more.  Ridiculous.

All of the downsides we've found so far have been fairly minor irritations: we're right at the end of the Tube line so the commute into town to go to work feels very long, particularly when the train crawls past our old station after about an hour of travelling.  And having to get timed trains, rather than any old Tube, takes some getting used to.   But the worst thing is the takeaway issue - Brent had great ethnic takeaway food (as it should - being white and English actually put us in an ethnic minority in Brent!), but Bucks is severely lacking in this department so far.  However, Husband is ordering Chinese tonight from a place we drove past the other day, and this may solve the problem.  Based on past experience with the Chinese places we've tried so far I'm not holding out much hope.  Will save a draft of this post for now, and update on quality of Chinese later on this evening! 

OK, the food has been ordered, collected and consumed, and the scores are in......and the results show that the Peking Empire scores a not particularly grand 6 out of 10.  Which still makes it the best place we've found in the last 12 months.  Taste-wise it was not bad, but not much sauce so it was a bit dry.  On the plus side, it actually tasted "right" - some of the others we've had have been so bad as to be inedible.....yuk.

First Post of Many?

On the first of the year, it seems timely to start something new.  Since I've been mulling the possibility of starting a blog for a while and, perhaps more importantly, blogging doesn't appear to be related to doing any exercise, I thought this might be a good thing to kick off.  We'll see how it goes.  For now, I think only a select few will be informed of this blog's existence - ideally non-judgmental types who won't laugh too long or too hard if it all falls through.

So, what will this blog provide?

1. Some frequent (note I didn't say daily!) musings, and just thoughts about what's happened in the day which tickled or intrigued me.

2. Comedy tales about funny things said and done by my daughter (well, I think she's funny anyway, so if you're anti-kid you may want to stop reading this now).

3. The occasional whinge/rant.  OK, these might be more than occasional - I'm thinking that this blog may be quite therapeutic!

And here, for your delectation, are today's offerings in the above categories:

1. It's hard naming a kid.  This is on my mind since I'm 5 months pregnant, and got the baby naming book down from the shelf the other day.  This proved 2 things: that I have no real preference as to a favourite name as yet, and that there are some very odd names out there.  I mean, we all know about the standard odd ones (Chardonnay springs to mind), but DeForrest?  Concepcion?  And the trouble is that the good names tend to be the popular ones which is also bad - when Isabel starts school there will be two Ambers in her class, and I bet their parents didn't expect that when having their naming discussions!

2. Isabel went to stay with my mum on NY Eve, but had a bit of a panic the night before that we were banishing her and would never come to get her back.  The moral of this story is that children will read much more into a movie or story  than you ever expect - she got this particular fear from The Tale of Despereaux, which we had taken her to see in the afternoon.  Took a lot of persuading until she believed that going away for the night would be a fun treat rather than the start of a lifelong punishment.

3. I've just finished the ironing, and it narked me for a multitude of reasons.  First, only about 20% of it was mine.  Second, the iron has turned into a communist with Alzheimer's: it went on strike several times with no provocation or warning, and kept dribbling all over everything.  Which made the fact that not all of it was mine better somehow.  Anyway, it's done, so that's something to tick off the list of jobs which must be done before going back to work next week.  

Future topics to be considered in another post (getting late now and am going to bed before my writing gets any more inane) include "what the hell do I cook for a kosher jewish couple whose son is dairy intolerant?", and "how did the movie Michael Clayton win any Oscars when it was SOOOO boring?".   And if that's not enough to hook you then I don't know what is.