It's summer, and my shoulders are burnt

Typical. I slathered Isabel in so much sun cream today that she looked like a Smurf (it's a blue sun cream!) but completely forgot to put any on me. Result - shoulders the colour of cherry tomatoes. I think I forgot to put any on me because I knew I wasn't going in the sun. And I didn't - I spent most of the morning sitting outside in the shade at my regular NCT get-together, and the afternoon in the shade in a neighbour's garden watching the kids splash around in the paddling pool. The only time I was in the sun was for the school run - clearly a dangerous business. Tomorrow I'm going to bravely try to walk Isabel to school - it's more than 1.5 miles, but I figure it'll still be a nice temperature at 8am so should be quite nice. Isabel sounded keen today - remains to be seen how she feels when I have to wake her up tomorrow morning! This time I shall definitely remember the sun cream though.....

I admit it, I'm a Grumpy Old Woman

I was watching Grumpy Old Women on telly the other night, and was quite concerned that I could find nothing to disagree with. There are several factors to indicate that I have definitely moved into Grumpy Old Woman territory:

• My fuse is short. Shorter than ever, if that were possible. If you plan on saying something foolish, prepare to have your head bitten off and spat back at you.
• I have to make sure all my jobs are done (packed lunches made for the following day etc) before I can sit down and relax.
• Any time after 10pm is, by definition, late.
• Many modern movie comedians do nothing for me, and can even infuriate me. I'm sure I've written about my feelings on Will Ferrell before; you can also add Jim Carrey and Seth Rogen and (sometimes) Jack Black to that list.
• I've just seen a photo of someone close to me smoking a cigarette and am totally shocked. I've never had one cigarette in my whole life (I know, I'm a sheltered soul) - somehow I'm more shocked at cigarette smoking than if soft drugs had been involved. Why is that I wonder?!
  
• I've happily avoided all coverage of Glastonbury. Not only do I never want to go, but even watching it on TV has no appeal.
• I don't care at all about Michael Jackson.
  
• And I don't really like Andy Murray.
  

Makes me wonder how much grumpier I will be when I'm the right age to be a Grumpy Old Woman officially! Oh dear....

Another day, another "first"

Life as a small baby is full of firsts, and today was no exception. After an episode of Grey's Anatomy (no better way to start the day, and the perfect length for a good feed) we went to get the small thing weighed (9lb 7.5oz, if you're interested, up 4oz on last week), then met friends for drinks in Starbucks, then home for more milk, then off to baby massage, then over to a house belonging to friends of my dad and stepmother (that still sounds really weird!). These friends have a large house and acres of garden and, most importantly, a pool.....yay! So, Emily's exciting first today was...swimming! I didn't get her too far into the pool, just bottom and legs, since it was an OK temperature for adults and excited four year olds, but a bit chilly for very little ones. But we wandered about in the pool for a good half an hour, and had a lovely time. And so nice to just lounge by the side of the pool and not have to rush into a grotty shared changing room. Even better, they said we could come round and use the pool whenever we liked, even while they're on their hols. Seems rude not to take them up on their kind offer.

Actually, Ems did experience another first today, but she didn't enjoy it quite as much. When she and Isabel were in the bath, Isabel asked for a drink of water, so I gave her a cup of water and she drank half, then poured the rest on Ems' tummy. Result: much yelling, from both of them (eldest child is very empathetic and often cries when other children cry. Also I think she thought she was going to be in trouble! We quite often pour water over Emily from that cup though, and I think eldest child had just forgotten that the water should be warm, not cold. Oops.

Kids' parties

I don't think I'd quite grasped the politics surrounding children's parties once they start school. Not that the kids themselves are political, it's the parents. Several people have invited the whole class to their child's party, which is all very well, but costs a fortune. If you have a party at a soft play centre, for example, it's around £10 per child, and extra for cake and party bags, so you could quite easily spend north of £300 entertaining the little tikes. If you do a joint party that works out OK, but if you're doing one on your own it's a bit more difficult.

Other parents have gone the other way and invited a small select group, but that lands parents of the invited children with the problem of accidentally saying to another parent, "Are you going to Little Jimmy's party?" only for them to say no. The questioner feels terribly awkward, and the questionnee wonders why their child hasn't been invited.

We're taking a middle road, and inviting about half the class to Isabel's party. I don't really want to mix school and non-school friends though, so we'll probably also have a birthday BBQ nearer the date, since it's slap bang in the middle of the holidays. And she wants to go to Legoland and McDonald's on the day itself - that's nice and affordable though, since we have annual passes to Legoland, phew! Oh for the days when she didn't really know it was her birthday, and we were able to get away with a picnic with some friends with similar birthdays!

Weighty matters

The health visitor came round this morning with the standard post-natal depression questionnaire. I was surprised that they do it so late (between 8-10 weeks apparently) - I'd have thought it would have been preferable to pick it up earlier than that. Maybe the crazy hormones situation post-pregnancy means that it's too hard to tell who's depressed and who's not any earlier than eight weeks!

The poor woman must think I'm mad though. I usually get Emily weighed on Fridays, but didn't take her today because of the health visitor coming. But she didn't have any scales, so I had to answer all her questions in about two minutes flat ("yes yes, I'm fine, perfectly happy, not hint of glumness, OK bye!") then sprint out the door to the baby weighing clinic. If I'd known she was scale-less I'd have gone earlier. I hope she doesn't think I'm trying to avoid the whole post-natal depression issue! Oh dear, if she does I'll have well-meaning people calling round all the time, full of social worker-type concern. Oops....

I was though much more concerned about Em's weight gain than about depression, which patently I do not have. I'm always this grumpy, particularly in the evenings. I'm going to be a really bad grumpy old lady in twenty years, that'll be fun. Anyway, Emily is now two months old, and only just over 9lb. She's really quite small (we're going with the word petite, sounds more flattering), Isabel was nearly 11lb at the same age. So I've been a bit worried, although she's not actually lost any weight. The GP and the health visitors have all said not to worry but it's tough not to. She put on 3.5 ounces this week, aiming for more than that next week. Wish us luck!

And I thought my brain would return post-pregnancy

While pregnant I often did stupid things, and invariably put it down to a recognised condition called pregnancy brain. I may have even blogged about this, but such is the continuing crappy state of my memory that I can't remember whether I did or not. Anyway, I digress. I've done some silly things recently as well (washing yellow dusters along with Isabel's school shirts and turning them all pale yellow was one example), but none as silly as the tale I'm about to relate.

One thing no-one wants straight after a new baby is another one. At least, Husbandio and I don't. The shop's shut as far as I'm concerned. However, that doesn't mean I want a permanent surgical solution, I'm quite happy to go back on the pill. So, at my recent six week check with the doctor I got a prescription and went to the chemist afterwards to fill it. I stuffed the little white bag with my three months' supply into the bottom of the buggy, along with other items of shopping. Walked home, up a big hill, and found, when I unpacked the buggy, that my valuable medication had disappeared. I figured out pretty quickly that it must have slid out due to the steepness of the hill, but I just didn't have the energy to walk back down. It was a hot day and I was pooped. However, when I drove back down about four hours later to collect Husbandio from the station I couldn't resist peering out of the window at the path I'd walked up earlier. And lo and behold, next to the zebra crossing at the bottom of the hill there lay a little white bag....so I slammed on the brakes, stuck my hazard lights on, leapt out, ran across the road and rescued them. Hey ho - shows that while I may be daft, at least I'm also lucky!

Tuesday is Jabs Day

Poor little Emily. Tomorrow she'll first discover that life can suck at times, and that when parents say "it's for your own good", they mean you have to endure something unpleasant, and possibly painful. Yup, having reached the grand old age of eight weeks, it's time for the poor little thing to get her first set of jabs.

While I'm not enjoying the event itself, I'm quite pleased in one way because once she's had her first few jabs I'll be happy to take her swimming, and I'm really looking forward to that. She's not going to enjoy tomorrow though, not least because injections hurt (really?), but also because she'll likely be feverish and miserable for a day or two afterwards. A mild dose of diphtheria (yes, that is spelt right, I just looked it up), polio, tetanus, whooping cough and pneumococcal infection all at the same time will do that to a girl. I think many cuddles and lots of sleep will be in order so I've got Series 2 of Grey's Anatomy already in position in the DVD player. It's a hard life....!

Flower Power Rules OK

This year, Isabel's school marks its 40th anniversary and today was a day on which some celebrations were planned. There has already been a formal black tie ball (Husbandio and I declined to attend on the grounds that Emily was only 3 weeks old at that point, plus the tickets were £55 each!) which was apparently great fun - today it was the kids' turn to have some fun.

The first thing they had to do was dress up in 1960s gear for the day - easier said than done. However, Isabel had a really psychedelic dress which I bought last year in H&M and this, worn over an orange t-shirt, did give the impression that she was a flower child from the late 1960s. We added to the look with some long strings of beads (also H&M), and two Hello Kitty tattoos, one on each cheek. Final touch was her hair - we plaited it into six small plaits the night before, and then took four of them out this morning to give a fantastic wavy effect. Flower Power Ruled in Bucks this morning! There's a pic below of her in the full outfit, and then a close up on the hair.



The parents were invited to go to the school for a country dancing display (how quite sure how this related to the 1960s, but never mind) and as we all sat down on chairs set out in the playground the heavens opened. In a very British way, we all kept going pretending nothing was happening, but after a while the reception class teacher did at least bring out all of the kids' coats. Meanwhile the parents shared brollies - shame that the only one I could find was Isabel's Winnie The Pooh one, very classy. Finally the rain eased, and we we able to enjoy the rest of the afternoon, including a picnic tea. After all that excitement, Isabel and I walked home (no mean feat, it's just over 1.5 miles), or rather I pushed the buggy and she scooted.

We both flopped on the couch after all that excitement, but there was more excitement to come - we had major amateur dramatics during and after bathtime trying to get a splinter out of her finger. After a two man effort (Husbandio pinned her while I got to work with the needle) we finally got the bloomin' thing out. It's been in there about a week but I thought it was close enough to the surface to get it out easily today. Not so easy to persuade Isabel of that unfortunately - very little peace and love going on in our house until it was out!

The first smile

Newborn babies, although they look cute and smell nice (or very bad, depending on what's going on down below), are actually fairly boring. Sorry if this shatters anyone's illusions of the marvellousness of early motherhood. But think about it - newborns sleep a lot (especially ours, she's closely related to the Dormouse in Alice in Wonderland), and when they're awake they're either feeding, having their nappy changed, staring aimlessly about, or failing to recognise anyone. This might be a bit harsh - there's always fun to be had watching different expressions pass across their faces while they're dreaming (what about I wonder? Must be bosoms, in Emily's case, since she knows little else...!). But trying to engage with a tiny creature who doesn't even recognise you can be rather tiring - even a new puppy knows who you are pretty quickly, and generally reacts with excitement. But it takes us humans a long time to do anything. How did we ever survive I wonder? After all, baby giraffes are up and walking within minutes of birth, while it takes humans a whole year to get this far.

However, from six weeks on everything gets a bit more interesting. Emily's vision must be quite different now from when she was born, and she clearly now recognises us. I think. At least, we have all now been blessed with the very occasional big smile. It's a rather piratical smile, looks a bit like she's saying "Aarrggh Jim Lad", but it is very cute. And I even managed to catch one on camera, yay!

Next step: potty training. I wish....!

Politics - why?!

It's been a day of elections today, but I admit to facing these with a fairly significant degree of apathy. The elections were for the local council and for the European parliament, and I realised as I strolled to the polling booth that I had no idea who our current local councillors were, and also no idea who our MEP is. Actually, I didn't even know who our MP was, but I had a quick look on t'internet so I do now.

I was however determined to vote, despite my ignorance, for two reasons:

1. I might at some point want to whinge about something the local council or the European parliament has done, and I don't feel I have the right to do this unless I've voted.
2. Lots of women fought hard for my right to vote, so I'd feel guilty for not casting my vote.

Having said that, I voted from a position of dreadful and shameful ignorance. I didn't even read the guff that came through the post box since it all sounds the same: "We promise to reduce crime. And lower taxes. And improve healthcare. And spend more on local services" - could be any party really couldn't it? I ended up voting LibDem in the local elections (which I've done for years, never did any bloomin' good though) and Green in Europe. Dear Mr or Mrs MEP: please can the UK have some flash recycling bins like they do in Spain, where you can recycle pretty much anything? Thanks.

One final thought on this topic: why are our politicians so pathetic? In this ridiculous expenses row, why couldn't there be someone who claimed for items like a Learjet or a private island instead of tins of catfood? Perhaps UK politicians need lessons from some of the more corrupt African nations - that'd liven things up!

It's been emotional

I joined a very small group this weekend - I am now an official member of the "I Have Attended More Than One of My Father's Weddings" brigade. I don't think I know anyone else who has been to the wedding of their own parent more than once, so I feel that this is a fairly posh and exclusive club to have joined.

On a more serious note, it was a really lovely weekend. My dad and his new wife have been together more than ten years so a wedding had been on the cards for some time, and I'm really pleased that they've finally tied the knot because they're so right for each other. If nothing else, they can have conversations about obscure topics like Italian renaissance architecture without either boring the rest of us, or making us look stupid because we invariably know nothing of the topic under discussion so we just nod and smile vaguely. We can't usually get a word in edgewise anyway.

The day itself was very low key - they'd had their house consecrated (that's the wrong word, but you take my point) so that marriages are allowed to take place - the ceremony was in the dining room and the wedding breakfast (why is it called that?!) in the garden. The weather was beautiful and the garden looked amazing, except for one plant which had gone crazy and had distinctly Triffid-like tendencies. Picture below of it trying to eat Isabel. I kept waiting to hear a scary ticking noise.

All of the girls had manicures and pedicures the day before (Isabel's hands pictured below!) and ate cake and drank champers, while the boys indulged in a day of sport (three matches, and thank goodness Chelsea won the FA Cup or that would have thrown a spanner in the works). And for a wedding gift, what else can you give two people who are now of an age when they need comfortable shoes but (drumroll please) - Crocs. With little hearts on, naturally. And they say romance is dead...!