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.