After Careful Consideration

Over and out

2010-08-01T20:59:00.002+01:00

Well, the time has finally arrived - our first holiday in two years. I'm not sure taking Emily to a work conference in Ireland for 3 days last year counts as a holiday, even though she did enjoy the pool down in the spa! This is going to be a proper unplugged holiday, spending time with the family and hopefully having time to made reasonable headway in my summer reading of choice, Stephen King's Under The Dome. Better be good, it's taken up half the case. The other half's nappies.

Packing will be sooo much easier once Emily's a bit older - taking a cot sheet, 2 sleeping bags, a booster seat, nappies, baby milk and various food stuffs has taken up a lot of space which, frankly, I could have easily used for more books or pedicure products! I admit to being a slightly neurotic packer, at least on Emily's behalf, and I've put in 2 cans of baked beans and some Weetabix, just so that I know she'll be able to eat something for the first few days at least. Pathetic. Her eating patterns are really most irritating - yesterday we went to Ask, and she not only ate the mush food which I'd brought for her, but also quite a lot of garlic bread, some of Isabel's pasta, a large portion of raspberries and a scoop of chocolate ice cream. And then today she turned her nose up at my roast chicken Sunday dinner, and would only eat it if I pureed it. Grrrrr! I was very tempted to pack the hand blender but didn't in the end, let's hope I don't live to regret it.

So, since this is an unplugged holiday the laptop's staying home. Farewell laptop, I wish I could say I'll miss you, but that would be a lie. But I may miss my faithful readers - back with photos and tales of various escapades in a couple of weeks.....

Down with the kids

2010-07-29T22:59:00.005+01:00

OK, I confess, I am not and have never been down with the kids. Even as a child I used to listen to Capital Gold (a now defunct golden oldies radio station), so sometimes it feels as if I grew up in the 1960s rather than the 1980s - I'm much better on 60s music than 80s! Husbandio will attest that I have terrible taste in music (Chicago, anyone, or a bit of Foreigner?) but I've got to the point of not caring. I like what I like, and I'm not that bothered if other people do or don't.

And one of the things I like is country music. My mum used to play Johnny Cash and others when I was a kid, and it's always stuck with me. One of her other favourites was Kris Kristofferson, and we went to see him play live last night at Cadogan Hall in London. It's the third time we've seen him, and this was without a doubt the best of the bunch. The concert really showcased the man's talent - it was just him, a guitar and a harmonica on stage for two hours, with a short interval. At times you could tell he was 74, but his voice hasn't really changed, like Johnny Cash's did as he got older. The only sign of age was when he occasionally struggled with the lyrics or with someone's name.

I think it's the the sheer poetry of his work which I like. The lyrics are just beautiful in many cases - how about "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. Nothing ain't worth nothing, but it's free"? And I like the humour as well - The Silver Tongued Devil and I is a clever song, and a funny one, but also one with a real message - people do change when they drink, and we all have more than one side to us. And I always loved the lines "Jesus was a Capricorn, he ate organic food. He believed in love and peace and never wore no shoes. Long hair, beard and sandals and a funky bunch of friends. Reckon they'd just nail him up if He come down again."

I felt sad when we left though since it seems unlikely that we'll see him play again - I wanted to freeze the whole thing in time, so that I could re-visit it whenever I want to. Guess I'll just have to keep listening to the new album to remind me of how much I enjoyed the evening. Thanks Mum, for introducing me to Kris, and taking me to see him one more time!

Two sides to every coin

2010-07-23T21:05:00.003+01:00

Many bad things happened today:

I took Emily to nursery, but she threw up half way through the afternoon and had to be collected early.
I put my phone down on the garden table unaware that I'd put it into a puddle of water, and it then stopped working.
I blew up 30 balloons for Isabel's party and now my fingers hurt from tying knots in the tops of them.
I spent 2 hours weeding the front and back gardens so that the house looks nice and tidy for the party, and none of those blinkin' kids is going to appreciate my efforts. Plus I got stung through my gardening gloves by a stinging nettle and it still hurts some 6 hours later. If only some of the weeds had been dock leaves.
I read Isabel a long chapter from the Pippi Longstocking book which was illustrated by Lauren Child, and that amount of reading out loud made my unfeasibly large mouth ulcer really hurt.

But then again:

Emily spent at least some of the day at nursery, enabling me to get on with some jobs like making party bags and wrapping pass the parcel with Isabel, and generally getting ourselves into the party mood.
My phone recovered after a few hours in the airing cupboard.
At least I blew the balloons up with a pump and not by breathing, thereby avoiding hyperventilation.
The garden does look very nice and tidy, and some of the mums and dads might notice, even if the kids don't. And it gave me some exercise, and some time outdoors.
The Pippi Longstocking book is marvellous, and the chapter was so long that Isabel fell asleep reading her own book afterwards, so I could creep in, turn her light out, and give her a sneaky soppy Mummy kiss and an I Love You.

On balance, I think we're even!

A letter to myself

2010-07-20T11:26:00.003+01:00

(with credit to Dooce, who also has a birthday around now, and wrote a post which inspired me to write this one)

Dear me,

Happy birthday! Since I'm not working in an office I've had many telephonic and e-mail and FB birthday greetings, but few in person, so I'm going to count this as one. It's funny, working from home on your birthday. I should have taken the day off I suppose, but instead I managed to arrange a meeting with the bank manager. How? Why?! Mystery to me. Anyhow, I do have a pedicure booked for later on, that's something to look forward to, and then a birthday tea with my nearest and dearest this evening, so perhaps for now I should enjoy the peace, and get some work done so as to be able to properly enjoy my evening.

Which brings me to my main point (and excuse the caps, but sometimes I need to shout at myself to make myself heard above the other voices, the ones which say"don't forget to order that repeat prescription" or "do you have enough hayfever tablets to take away on holiday with you?") - STOP AND SMELL THE ROSES!

Not literally, we don't have roses, and sunflowers aren't renowned for their aroma. No, the metaphorical roses. I need to pause, relax, stop rushing from one task to the next, and just enjoy my lovely children and gorgeous husband. Even my mother's started doing this (not enjoying my gorgeous husband, but counting her blessings!) - if she can learn to at the age of 66 then I can at the age of 38. In fact, if I'm doing it already, then I must be winning. Oh god, I'm competitive even when it comes to relaxing.

The busy dancer

2010-07-19T22:31:00.004+01:00

I've been trying to work out how to reduce the number of things Isabel does after school, but she seems to like them all and it's tough working out what to drop. She currently does ballet and tap on Saturday morning, disco and drama on Monday evening, swimming on Wednesday and tennis on Fridays. I think we'll drop tennis, but I'm thinking of taking her to Beavers instead on Fridays, it sounds really fun. It's like a precursor to Cubs and Scouts, and several of her friends do it already. Trouble is, she also wants to do trampolining on Sunday mornings. It's making me knackered just thinking about it!

I'd pretty much decided to let her drop the ballet and disco, but then she had her annual show in our local theatre on Saturday, and it was so good that I think I've changed my mind. She really seemed to enjoy it, and even though she was exhausted by the end it was definitely worth it. It's been a great confidence builder for her - she always skips into her ballet lessons while she's often reluctant to go into school. I think we'll just let the summer go by and see what happens, no real need to decide now. Only two more days of school and then she's off until September - yay! Mind you, we already have lots of plans with a trip to Canada and a couple of weeks going to Supercamps. Wish I had 6 weeks off too.....!

The Green Belt

2010-07-12T20:56:00.002+01:00

It won't be called the Green Belt for much longer, it'll soon be the Grey Belt if housing developments go on elsewhere like they do here. Since we moved in there's been a house built in the garden of the house which backs onto our garden , and now there's another one proposed for the garden on the other side of that. Now, granted they were big gardens, but now they're filled with such great big galumphing houses that both houses have tiny gardens.

We protested against the building of the first one but it went ahead anyway, and it's not actually too bad for us. You don't notice it unless you're in the corner of the garden by the veg patch, and you can also see it from our bedroom window. It's worse for our neighbours, who can see it every time they go up and down their stairs - that would drive me potty.

Granted, I suppose building in people's gardens is better than wiping out a few more fields, but one of the things I like about living out here is the sense of space, and that's going to disappear if this keeps on going. Someone told me that there might also be a problem with flooding - it won't affect us, since we're at the top of the hill, but if there's a lot of rain that can't soak into the ground (since the ground's covered in houses!) then it'll flow down the hill and flood the town. Not good. I'd like to say "Well, that's what planning laws are for, I'm sure they've taken account of this", but the cynic in me fears that isn't the case....

Fete Accompli

2010-07-10T22:01:00.002+01:00

There's nothing quite like a local fete for gathering both tat and bargains. We double-feted today, attending first Isabel's school fete, and then my dad's local village fete. Got some real bargains - lovely kids books at the school fete at 20p a pop (and adults' books for £1) = I spent a fiver and we're set for weeks to come. Also some excellent samosas and other Asian food, thanks to the large Asian community at the school, plus delish cakes, and an ice cream van. Who could ask for more?

The village fete also had its attractions - a Puma helicopter which we watched take off and fly away (very cool!) and Isabel managed to get my dad to buy her a doll in its own rocking cot with blankets. For a bargainous £7! The doll's a bit scary to my mind, but Isabel seems to like her. And Husbandio bought me a necklace, how kind - for 10p! We do love a bargain.

The only other thing I managed to get, unfortunately, was a touch of sunburn, so I think I'm off to relax with one of my new books - adieu!

A shocking statistic

2010-07-06T22:05:00.002+01:00

I spent the day at a meeting of educational publishers, much to Isabel's excitement - she made me promise to tell the woman from OUP how much she liked her Oxford Reading Tree books! More than I do, I could cheerfully chuck them out the window after two or three readings - thank goodness I don't have to listen to 30 children stumbling over Biff, Chip and Kipper's adventures!

Anyway, at the meeting we were presented with a range of statistics about the size of the UK educational content market, and one stat really hit home. I don't know why I hadn't really grasped it before, but it was to do with the percentage of school budgets which are spent on educational content each year in the UK. Hold onto your hats - it's less than 1%. LESS THAN 1%!!

The vast bulk of the budget, 85-90%, goes on staff, which I could have guessed, but I was shocked at the low level of spending on content resources. I think spending on staff's gone up recently because of the vast numbers of teaching assistants - we never had those in my day, and teachers had to make their own classroom displays. Just think of it! How put upon they must have felt. Anyway, from what I heard today, the days of the teaching assistant may be numbered given the level of budget cuts being demanded by the government - so if you're a teacher who relies on one, you might want to rethink this strategy!

Family, innit

2010-07-04T22:41:00.003+01:00

A grand annual event took place today - our family picnic. No, I don't mean just the four of us, since only allowing the children out for one picnic every year would be cruel - it was instead the annual gathering of my dad's side of the family, in which about 35 of us all descend on my aunt's house, bring our own picnics, and then the boys play football all afternoon until someone gets injured or they've all lost at least 2lb in sweat, whichever comes first. Cousin James was first blood this year, scalp wound, but apart from that everyone survived. We caught up with all the news - marriages, surgeries, bike crashes, trips to Glastonbury - it's been all go over the last year.

It's such lovely day every year, marred this year only by the loss of Husbandio's camera - it turned up in someone's car, where it had been put to keep it out of the rain under the misapprehension that it was someone else's camera. Still, we knew it had to be somewhere, since family doesn't pinch your stuff! Isabel had a great time, disappeared for hours on end exploring with my cousin's little boy who is a year older, and playing with the tortoises. Emily learnt a new word ("tortus!" she shouted with glee) and ate her own weight in cake, making her way through half a punnet of strawberries, a scone, a jaffa cake and two cup cakes during the course of the afternoon.

Only downside is the length of the drive, it's 100-odd miles each way - we ended up stopping in McD's for tea on the way home. It was the tudor effect McD's in Oxford, which I've driven past a million times and never been in before - disappointingly, it's significantly less Tudor on the inside than the outside. Hey ho.

So tonight I am feeling very thankful for a lovely friendly non-arguing family where we all love and support each other. Can't wait til next year!

A secret benefactor

2010-07-02T22:09:00.005+01:00

It's a mystery, but quite a nice one for the time being.

This evening, I quickly logged on to check my e-mail before putting two small girls in the bath. And soon wished I hadn't, since one e-mail was from Halifax, which always means I've accidentally gone overdrawn. And sure enough, when I checked, the letter said there hadn't been enough funds in my account, and so they'd elected not to pay my mortgage. Panic!

First things first though - I checked my statement because while I'm usually strapped for cash at the end of the month, I'm generally still fairly flush this early on, and able to pay important bills like the mortgage. My statement showed there had been plenty of money, quite enough to pay all of my regular debits. So I got on the phone to Halifax and they looked into it, apologised, blamed a system error, and said that they kindly wouldn't charge me for the letter. That nearly elicited a very sarcastic comment from me!

So, Halifax said they'd send the payment over to Nationwide, our mortgage provider, straight away if I could give them the right account number and sort code. So, I hung up and phoned Nationwide, and got the details. And then just asked them to check that they weren't charging me for failing to pay on time, since if they had charged me I wanted to get Halifax to pay it. The kind Nationwide lady checked the account, and said "but you have paid". "No, no", says I, "the money's still in my account". Still, the Nationwide lady remained adamant that I've paid, and yet the Halifax statement says I haven't. I was beginning to wish I'd never opened my mouth.

Now the question is, do I have a secret benefactor, or are Halifax just idiots? I think we all know the answer to that one. Perhaps a more important question is whether I decide to follow up next week with Halifax, or do I just enjoy having a very cash rich month? I think we all know the answer to that one too, but I will enjoy a cash rich weekend nonetheless!

Today's surreal moment

2010-06-30T21:07:00.002+01:00

Picture the scene: I'm parked on a double yellow line outside a train station with 2 kids in the car. It's the end of a hot day, and from the look on my face most people would assume that bothering me might not be the best idea. I'm clearly waiting for someone to come in on a train, so while I'm theoretically stationary on the double yellow, it's clear that I'm not going to be there long.

Enter stage right: a community support police officer. Smiling.

My instant reaction is to assume he's smiling because he's about to give me a ticket. He leans close to the open window, and says "would you like a pen and a pencil?"

"Is that slang for parking ticket?", thinks I.

But no, he really means it. He gives me a pen and a pencil bearing a British Transport Police logo. Then, he moves to the back window of the car and gives Isabel two packs of colouring pencils (suitably logo-ed).

He waves, gives us all a friendly smile, and goes on to foist his wares on the car parked behind me.

Bizarre......

Tapas

2010-06-29T22:52:00.003+01:00

Nothing very exciting to report about today, so I'm going for a bullet point list:

I was jealous of Isabel since after school she went round to some friends of my dad's, and they have a private pool.....
I had to go to a meeting in Chiswick which involved 5 trains and 3 tube lines - the journey was so complicated that I had to write the details down in my notebook for fear of making a mistake and ending up in Uxbridge (heaven forbid)
I had a very nice tapas lunch with a colleague. We ordered so many tapases (is that right?!) that we needed to ask the waitress to bring up an extra table. Now that's what I call a meal!
Husbandio and I have been debating how many of Isabel's class to invite to the party. We decided to invite 20 out of 30 but then Isabel made a plea for 2 others, and inviting 22 out of 30 seemed very unfair to the 8 rejects, so I think we'll have to go for a full house. Gawd help us...
I've been looking for a nice new Boden skirt but everything on the Boden site which I like is only ever available in an 8 or a 22. But I found a lovely Dorothy Perkins skirt today in the local British Heart Foundation charity shop. Total cost@ £3.30. Yay!
Isabel's got a cough, and tonight she coughed so hard she retched, and also made her nose bleed. Niiiiice. And Emily's nappy was put on wonky by someone at the nursery, leading to an escape of poo into her babygro and down her trousers. Again, niiiiiice. The joys of small children. Sigh....

And that's been the day so far. With luck, nothing else will happen other than some tooth brushing and a few minutes with my book. I need a calm end to the day!

Another working from home benefit

2010-06-28T21:11:00.003+01:00

You can actually enjoy the summer, instead of sweating away on the Tube, and then shivering in air conditioning all day. I moved out into the garden today, thanks to the judicious use of an extension cable, and the miracle of hands free phones. After a while (don't read this if you did get all hot and sweaty on the Tube today!) I even got a bit chilly because even though it was hot, it was breezy, so I ended up fetching a cardie and my crocs. My circulation isn't what it once was, clearly!

Isabel had her school trip today, to a local "environmental centre" - I think that means it's a shed in the middle of some woods and meadows. Anyway, it's only about 3 miles away, and the trip cost £16 each, which I thought was really expensive, considering they had to bring a packed lunch. She seemed to have a good day though, despite tripping over on the path on the way to the coach! Still, another child got stung on the neck by a bee so Isabel got away quite lightly, all things considered.

She also had a tricky moment when being dropped off at school. Apparently she missed me after I'd dropped her and burst into tears, so one of the teachers ran out to find me. I was out the gate by that point, and kind of wished she hadn't found me since I don't want Isabel thinking that I can be called back at her whim - she got kissed and dropped off as per usual, and had no reason for being upset, other than her own inner demons. Anyway, I calmed her down a little, and she went back to her classroom. Poor little thing - it happens quite often, and I have no idea what to do about it. Emily cries when being dropped off at nursery far less often than Isabel does at school. Sigh. Any ideas gratefully received.....

What's six weeks off between friends?

2010-06-27T21:50:00.006+01:00

I've had a small handful (OK, three) people in the last week comment that they've noticed I've stopped blogging. And I have. Or had, since here I am, tapping away. See, flattery will get you everywhere - all I needed was a little recognition, and some ego massage. How pathetic.

So, what's happened in the last six weeks? England are out of the World Cup for one thing, which got me to wondering why anyone is surprised. We've played badly in almost every match, and finally got what we deserved. IMHO. And to be honest, I'm glad it's all over - the desperate expectation which you know will remain unfulfilled becomes just too painful to watch after a while.

In other news, Emily is now walking. She looks like a small drunken zombie - arms often stuck straight out in front of her, and with a distinct list to the left. Very cute anyhow. Isabel's only got 3 1/2 weeks left in Year One, which is surreal since I'm sure she only started Reception about a month ago. And she learnt to ride a bike this weekend. Now she just needs to master starting my herself, stopping, and turning!

Anyway, I shall try to be a better blogger. It's tricky to get up motivation some evenings, since all I do is spend all day tapping away at the laptop - sitting down in my free time with the same laptop can be depressing. But since I enjoy reading other people's blogs so much, I'll do my best. Wish me luck!

In the meantime, here's some photos which represent the last six weeks....

We ventured East, and saw the Thames Barrier

Safely back in the west, at Donkey Derby!

We celebrated Fathers Day with some high fives...

One of us moved from babyhood to toddler status
We all enjoyed the hot weather!

A lazy Bank Holiday photo blog

2010-05-03T20:45:00.007+01:00

And what a lovely lazy day it was. After lunch, when Emily had gone down for her nap, I decided to have a bath rather than a shower since no-one could possibly disturb me and ask me to do anything in the bath, and it was marvellous! Don't worry, there's no pictures of it. But I did manage to finish my book (Alan Bennett's An Uncommon Reader, which I enjoyed more than I thought I would). Can't ask for much more than that.

In other news, we had a still life class....

...baked some scones (bear in mind that this is the size of the pile of scones after we'd all stuffed our faces - and that includes Emily, who ate a scone and a half!)....

...lazed in the garden under the neighbour's beautiful apple tree...

...and admired all the stuff that's coming up in our vegetable patch.

And now to catch up with Lost - not sure how much Husbandio is enjoying it, but I remain hooked!

Drool

2010-05-02T22:06:00.002+01:00

Not a title I thought I'd ever use for a blog post, but there we go.

I took Emily to the doctor's twice this week - once to check out her laryngitis and sore throat, and then again a few days later when she'd been for about 36 hours without doing a wee. Or doing very very small wees, and having extremely dry nappies - bit hard to tell with the quality of modern nappies. The GP was pretty worried and even phoned the on call paediatrician at Stoke Mandeville, but we took the decision to leave her overnight and even though she had a dry nappy the next day, she finally did a reasonable size wee when I changed her nappy. Maybe she just wanted a clean nappy!

She seems back to normal now, but I did have awful visions of kidney failure (looking on the bright side!). I think I've now figured out what happened. First she had a sore throat and was teething, and then a day later she also developed a cold sore - the amount of dribble which these three factors created was beyond belief. She was going through 3 or 4 bibs each day, and soaking her clothes. Each bib plopped into the laundry basket, so no wonder she wasn't weeing, she was probably dehydrated from all that drool - it was like living with one of those really dribbly dogs. And now her throat's better, the tooth's through, and the cold sore is on the way out, so the dribble is reduced and normal wee service is resumed. Thank goodness for that.

Let's hope we can make it through next week without gracing the GP's surgery with our presence!

Putting the squeak back in the squeaker

2010-04-27T14:34:00.002+01:00

There is a penguin in Toy Story 2 which loses its squeak - I'm sure you remember it. Well, even though Emily has not yet seen Toy Story 2, she did a cracking impression of that penguin over the course of this weekend.
I got her up on Saturday morning and when she opened her mouth to say "ba ba ba ba" or something equally intellectual, all that came out was a hoarse, high-pitched little croak. "Croak", she said, "croak, croak". She didn't seem desperately fussed but did look a bit confused. Over the course of the weekend her throat got more and more sore so we kept dosing her with ibuprofen - luckily the doctor says it hasn't progressed to the state of a throat infection, and she seems better today.
It didn't help that her second top incisor came through on Sunday, so she was croaky and dribbly. And when I say dribbly, I mean dribbly. She went through 3 or 4 bibs each day, and they were soaked - when I dropped one into the laundry basket it went "plop" - not really the noise I was expecting from a bib! Yuck.
And all this of course means that she's not keen on food. I fooled her into some weetabix and banana this morning but with some difficulty. However, she has discovered the deliciousness that is Angel Delight, so she'll have a diet of Petit Filous and Angel Delight until her appetite returns. I can't tell you how jealous I am.....

The Election Post

2010-04-21T22:12:00.006+01:00

I like an election. Mostly because there aren't too many of them, and the run-up isn't too long. I don't like elections enough to want one every day, you understand. And this one's a doozie since it's actually, for once, not apparent who's going to win. Exciting! I've been trying to do a bit of research so as to be able to cast my vote properly. After all, suffragettes and so on.

However, it's not as easy as it looks. First of all, until today we'd had no electioneering bumph from anyone through the door. And second of all, once you do get election bumph, you realise it all looks the bloody same - less crime, better health services, improvements in schools etc etc etc. I know there are differences e.g. over immigration, but they seem few and far between sometimes.

So I went to the BBC's election pages which are pretty good because they do at least tell you who the candidates are in your area, and what the results were last time. And in our leafy Bucks constituency, you'll all be shocked to learn that the winner last time was a Tory, with over 50% of the votes. Interestingly, however, the LibDems were in 2nd place, with just over a quarter of the votes. So in our area, it looks like a vote for Labour is the wasted vote, not a vote for the LibDems, as is traditional.

Anyway, I've decided to base my decision this year on the issue which really matters for me personally, at this point in time. Which is Education. I don't think Labour have a great record, but then again I think we're struggling with issues that all developed economies are struggling with - namely, that our education system was designed in and for the industrial age, and we're now deeply embedded in the knowledge economy, which our education system is clearly out of step with. I say clearly because so many employers are complaining that that kids coming out of schools aren't equipped for the workplace - they were, on the other hand, when most of them were going into manual labour.

Is this the right way to decide how to cast my vote? Is there a right way? After all, it's my vote, and I'll make my decision in my own way. I'm looking forward to heading for the polling station on 6 May, once I've finally made up my mind. I have a vision of the four of us, as a family, wandering down the road on a balmy Spring evening, and exercising our constitutional rights - now it'll probably pour with rain, and no-one will turn out, and it'll all be a damp squib. But I hope not!

She's turning one!

2010-04-17T22:20:00.002+01:00

Tomorrow is Emily's first birthday, and I can't believe it's here already. It's been one of the fastest years of my life, as opposed to Isabel's first year which was without a doubt the longest year of my life! I think this is partly because Isabel's at school - those terms shoot past awfully quickly.

We've not got Emily much for her birthday - a tunnel for the garden, and a couple of other toys, but we are having a little party as we did with Emily. Lots of other babies coming, about 10 in total, and a few token grown-ups of course. And a cake from Costco - where else do people get cakes for large numbers of people? Costco do a personalised cake which easily serves about 40 people, and it's £12. £12!!!! If you were to order a cake like that from a bakery it'd set you back about £80 - I know, I've investigated the options before.

Thank goodness we're predicted good weather, or I don't know where everyone would end up - today was glorious and tomorrow's meant to be the same, which is amazing for April. Isabel's been scooting around all day in a little summer dress and flip flops, and I've even painted my toenails for the first time this year. But this is what happened last year - April, May and June were nice, lulling us all into a false sense of security, and then the summer itself was a bunch of arse. This year we shall flee the country in search of better weather.

Anyway, here's to you darling Emsy - happy birthday for tomorrow! I hope next year goes a little slower though, so I get the chance to enjoy it as it scoots past.

Why do I put myself through it?

2010-04-14T22:13:00.008+01:00

I keep watching medical documentaries at the moment. I'm absolutely glued to them, particularly if they involve children. I inevitably cry at some point, and yet I keep watching. Why?

The first one that sucked me in was One Born Every Minute. I think I kept watching not only because it was just fascinating, but because since I know I won't be having another child I was oddly enjoyable to watch other women in labour, safe in the knowledge that I wouldn't be experiencing that again! It reminded me about my experiences, which were both very positive, although Isabel's arrival into the world did drag on a bit, and I did vomit in the birthing pool and then broke the hydraulic hospital bed. That would have made great television!

Then earlier this week Hubs and I watched an episode of Panorama called Spoilt Rotten, which looked at kids with preventable conditions. The programme featured a five year old who was so fat his mother had to wheel him around in a wheelchair when he got too tired, and several kids ages two and up who had to have their baby teeth removed because they were so rotten from eating too many sweets or permanently sucking on a bottle. Worst of all were the kids with glue ear - one of the parents refused to admit that his smoking was a contributory factor, and just blithely continued, while his son complained of deafness. This documentary rebounded on our kids, both of whom had their teeth brushed to within an inch of their lives today!

Finally, I watched Great Ormond Street, which was just amazing. The episode I saw focused on a cardic unit, and featured the discussions amongst the surgeons as they worked out who to treat, and how. Those discussions are usually kept very much behind closed doors, and were very moving. But again, I cried, since not all of the children survived, and even those that did had other problems. Sigh. Makes me very grateful for my two happy and healthy bundles of fun. I'm not tempting fate by rubbernecking, am I...?

Textbook, schmextbook

2010-04-14T21:57:00.004+01:00

I'm going to blame the lack of blogging on work. Not necessarily the quantity of work, but the fact that I've been writing my first report in my new-ish job role. Since it's the first report I wanted it to be right, clearly, and it's been pretty much dominating my working hours, which is a pity since I now have another big deadline which has crept up and which I only managed to start work on today. More slog tomorrow and Friday I think, but this evening I submitted the first draft of the report, and it feels gooooooood!

It's not the world's biggest report, at a mere 15,000 words, but after reading, thinking and writing all day, it's very difficult to pick up the laptop in the evening and carry on writing. Particularly since I've had 8.30pm calls on several evenings since it's difficult to find a time to interview people based in the US if your working day finishes at 3pm UK time. I suppose I could have photo-blogged, which isn't cheating, honest. But I simply left the laptop upstairs most evenings, and vegged on the couch. Not very productive. I haven't even finished the patchwork cushion cover I started for Isabel ages ago. Must do that.

But now I'm back, I hope, so here are the highlights of the last few weeks:

Isabel lost her two bottom front teeth in quick succession. One came out while she was asleep, causing me to panic that she might have inhaled it. Clearly she didn't - I'd have blogged that, after all!
Emily's a mean, lean, crawling machine. She's a proper crawler, unlike Isabel who only crawled on one knee. It looked very odd, and I now realise it means that all of the trousers she wore at the time, and which Emily now has, are worn out on one knee only. Sorry about that, Emsy. She's not put on much weight though, and is still under 15lb. We had an appointment with the nutritionist (or was she a dietician? and what's the difference anyway?) so everything Emily eats is now examined closely for calorific value, and if it's not high enough we dip it in cream or fry it in butter. And then make sure she's eaten plenty of chocolate and cheese. Lucky thing!
Isabel's been on Easter holidays this week and last, and this week has spent 3 days at Supercamps, a local activity day camp. She's loved it, thank goodness, since she'll be there for a couple of weeks in the summer as well. Funnily enough, she met a girl there who she was at nursery with, and loathed her. This girl was her nemesis, and her name lives on in our household. But Isabel got on well with her at Supercamps, and came home asking if this girl could come round one day for tea! Over my dead body.....
Husbandio has gone back to work, and once Isabel's back at school then we'll be back in a normal routine. That also means Emsy has started nursery properly - she did 3 days this week, from about 9am to between 4pm and 5pm. Long day for a wee one, but she's done fine - she'd rather be at home, but that report would never have got written then would it?
And my news is.... I've finished my report! What a sad reflection it is that this is the most exciting thing I can think of.

I'll try to write more often but can't promise anything. Since I'm on a roll tonight though, perhaps I'll draft tomorrow's post and save it!

I'm catching up with life, honest I am

2010-03-24T22:31:00.003Z

I feel like I'm running just to stand still at the moment. Work is, as it always does, expanding to fit the time available, and then spilling over wherever possible. That's reasonably easy to deal with as Husbandio is off work and therefore available for childcare should the need arise, but he's back to work on 1st April, so it could all fall apart then. To prepare myself, I'm catching up with everything else - I've just filed a backlog of photos dating back to last August, and spent 3 nights last week working my way through the ironing mountain.

The blog has suffered, inevitably. Part of this is because after spending all day in front of a laptop, the last thing I fancy in the evening is sitting in the lounge with the laptop open. After work, I tend to shut the machine down, and leave it upstairs in the office. If I don't, then people either Skype me or e-mail me, and frankly, after 9pm I just don't want to know any more.

I could also blame lack of blogging at the weekend on a small yet significant incident involving a cup of water, a 5 year old, and a laptop. It was not a good combination. To her credit, Isabel apologised profusely, using several plaintively written notes. Despite putting the machine in the recovery position in the airing cupboard, it was not happy the following day. Fortunately it turned out that the keyboard was the problem, nothing worse than that. Our outsourced IT company tried to charge me £260 to replace the keyboard, but I managed to get a cheap keyboard from eBay for £19, and then found a lovely laptop repair fellow in Amersham to fit it for £10. Bargain! Gawd bless local tradesmen. He saved Isabel's life, that's for sure....

I know they say time flies, but this is ridiculous

2010-03-15T20:58:00.002Z

Time is clearly flying by, since I have been less than assiduous about writing regularly. I will, as ever, try harder etc etc. What I need really is for this blog to become terribly successful, attract loads of advertising and sponsorship deals, and then make a full-time living out of blogging. Which would be great, because you have to do some reasonably interesting stuff in order to have things to write about. Alternatively, I should review more restaurants, get a reputation as a restaurant critic, and similarly move to full time blogging, this time with free food thrown in. In my dreams...!

Anyway, I was just skimming the BBC News web site and saw that David Schwimmer's getting married. I'm nosy, so I clicked through to see who he's marrying, and it turns out to be this girl who's 24, to his 45. Well done, that man. But that wasn't the shocking thing. The shocking thing was that the article said Friends had ended in 2004. That's SIX years ago (for those with poor mathemetical skills). SIX! That means that I seem to have lost six years in a bit of a haze. What happened? Oh yes, children, silly me.

While I'm depressing myself, this may be a good time to reveal that I left school TWENTY years ago (groan...!) and have been working for FOURTEEN in the same job. Well, for the same company anyway.

That's the trouble with blogging, some topics can really bring you down! Mental note: think of cheerier topic for tomorrow.

Teething

2010-03-09T21:26:00.003Z

Emily's been teething the last few days, and we've been eagerly awaiting the arrival of at least one of her two top teeth, but to no avail. Her gums were all puffy and sore for a couple of days, making her most grouchy, but the teeth seem to have decided that it wasn't the right time, and have settled back down where they were.

Isabel's got the opposite problem - losing teeth. She's just got her first two wobbly teeth - and it's the same as the two teeth than Emily already owns. If Isabel's come out before Emily's top teeth come in then they'll have a full set between them! I thought I'd be really squeamish about wobbly teeth, but I didn't feel too bad when I saw them yesterday. Well, other than the heart-wrenching knowledge that this is yet another step on the long road towards growing up - sob! I'm not surprised she's started with the bottom two teeth - all the thumb sucking over the years has pushed them into a funny angle, so she's probably loosened them. I wonder how long they'll take to come out. I can't believe my baby's nearly got adult teeth, to match her almost adult size feet!

Apologies...

2010-03-08T20:49:00.005Z

Oh dear, sorry - last week exploded and before I knew it the week was done, and then so was the weekend, and no blogging had taken place at all. Tsk tsk tsk. Must try harder.

It was a really crazy week. I drove 200 miles on Monday to Loughborough and back - and nearly didn't make it back since I drove over a pallet which a lorry driving ahead of me down the M1 had dropped. Husbandio was out that evening, and I was then out the following two nights. The first one (which I really did mean to blog about!) was to see Carly Simon perform live at the BBC's Maida Vale studios. It was very cool - she was accompanied by her son Ben Taylor, and he was excellent too. Turns out it was the only live gig she's ever done in the UK, so I felt very privileged. I'd won the tickets in a web site competition and was totally surprised to have won - perhaps I should have bought a lottery ticket that week as well!

Wednesday night was an evening down the pub with some of the mums of kids in Isabel's class. Managed to consume 4 Jack Daniels and coke, not quite sure how. Good night though, and some funny gossip. Which perhaps, this blog being a public forum, I may keep to myself!

Thursday and Friday were both spent in town all day which was knackering in itself. Went to lots of meetings with my boss who was over from California. He also took me to lunch at a curry place in Covent Garden which I love but haven't been to since before Emily was born. I ate far too much, and felt queasy all evening, couldn't even manage my dinner which is most unusual. Turns out it was less a question of too much curry, and more a question of a tenacious stomach bug which stuck with me for the next 4 days and is now plaguing Husbandio. Thought it was kind to share. Emily may have it too, since she was very sick on Saturday night and then again today. Wash the high chair jobs, both of them. Marvellous.

Despite the dodgy tummy I geared myself up for the first weekend we've had away for years. I think we've been away once or maybe twice for the weekend since Isabel's been born, but it's never really been something we do, somehow. Lazy, us? Maybe! Anyway, we went to stay with my cousin, his wife and her daughter in Bath, and went to a point to point race meeting with them and my aunt and uncle. It was great! Bit chilly, but Isabel loved the horses and the drama of hearing them thundering past. No-one other than my aunt won any bets, but it was a lovely day, really nice to be outside and to be doing something out of the ordinary.

By the time we got back yesterday afternoon we were all pooped. Some of us more literally than others. We'd stopped at Leigh Delamere services for some lunch on the way home, having tried and failed to find a pub which (a) didn't look rough, (b) served food and (c) wasn't fully booked. Thank goodness we were in the services, with its spacious and well-equipped changing facilities, since Emily took it upon herself to unleash the most unholy poonami the world has ever seen. She even managed to get Husbandio with it, and he had to change his t-shirt. Glad we had sets of spare clothes for everyone. I wish I'd been able to give her a bath - once I'd stripped her down I realised it was up to her neck at the back, and down to her knees elsewhere. Don't know if it was the bug or teething, but it was messy!

So, now we're all home, starting to recover from our exertions. Husbandio has a cold and the tummy bug at the same time, which isn't much fun, but he's bearing up well. Thank goodness for a quiet week, when the only place I need to visit is Slough. Come, friendly bombs, and all that!

Funny poo stories

2010-02-26T21:39:00.003Z

I caught up with my NCT group today, and one of them shared a really funny poo story, which then reminded me of one of my own, and another which may be apocryphal. So I hereby share the stories with you - if you don't want to read about baby poo, look away now....

Story #1
My friend's baby had a nasty tummy bug, and each poo had been vile and very explodey for several days. However, the baby recovered and there came a day when she had not pooed all day, so by the afternoon my friend decided to risk a trip to Waitrose. While she was wandering the aisles she smelt an ominous smell, looked down, and spotted the poo. Which had leaked onto the floor. And soaked up the baby's vest almost to chest level. She whisked the offensive child off to the toilets, changed her from head to toe, made her vaguely respectable, and returned shame-faced to her abandoned trolley. And the poo had magically been wiped away - that's what you get for shopping in Waitrose!

Story #2
When Isabel was walking but still in nappies and edging towards potty training, we went to visit some friends with a rather nice garden. Several other children of a similar age were there, so we de-nappied them and put a potty down. Rather hopefully as it turned out. But I only discovered this when my host for the afternoon pointed out Isabel crouching over a corner of the patio rather than the neighbouring potty. Wet wipes clean poo off a patio leaving little trace, FYI!

Story #3
Another one from the age of toddler-hood - a friend of a friend was in someone's garden with her daughter, who, after being quiet for a few minutes, approached with cupped hands. You guessed it - those hands contained a delightfully fragrant offering.

Kids eh, gotta love 'em!

Doomed to a life of blubber

2010-02-25T20:21:00.002Z

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. I've been bemoaning the fact that having a home office means I have reduced the amount of exercise I do each week from laughable to imperceptible. And it turns out I'm right, and that home working could send me to an early grave. Well, that's what I read into this blog post from the New York Times. For those of you so lazy that you can't even move your finger far enough to click on the link, it basically says that sitting is bad for you. And advocates a stand-up desk with a treadmill.

Now, this is clearly crazy talk. But it did worry me enough that I spent a 30 minute conference call earlier hanging out the washing and then pacing round the office in an effort to keep my metabolism going before it decides that life just isn't worth living. And it even made me leave the house to walk to school to pick up Isabel (it's a three mile round trip, and it was raining). The problem is that the article says that even if sedentary office workers make the effort to go to the gym regularly, that this still isn't enough. It's the sitting down for long periods of time which does the damage, whether you go to the gym or not. I read this to mean that there's no point going to the gym, which is great news. But I'll keep on pacing round the office, just in case. And maybe put a treadmill on my Amazon wish list, but marked as the lowest priority.

Two nights out in a row!

2010-02-24T21:22:00.004Z

OK, so one of those was a work do, but nonetheless, I'm back out there, getting the late night train back home, and generally getting myself out of the house. Goodness me, it's tiring. I'm knackered tonight after two late-ish nights, and may even have to retire to bed before the magic hour of 10pm. As an aside, why does it seem acceptable to go to bed at 10.01pm, and yet 9.59pm is only allowed if you're coming down with something? I digress.

Monday night was a social event - my mum bought theatre tickets to Six Degrees of Separation and we went for dinner first in Livebait (bit of a ripoff - expensive food, and mum found five bones in her fish pie, which is not really acceptable). The play was good - I'd seen the film with Will Smith years ago and think on balance that the movie was probably better. It was short though - 90 minutes and no interval - which I appreciated since the journey home from Waterloo takes a good 90 minutes. And there's nude men in it, one of whom waves his bits and pieces about quite wildly (cue very British giggles in the audience).

Tuesday was the work do - my company has an annual "Leadership Dinner" for the hoi polloi and bigwigs of our industry, so this meant a slapup meal which started with cocktails and was accompanied by a lovely drop of Rioja. But again it was a 90 minute journey home and I didn't leave the restaurant until 10.30pm. Dashing for, and missing, the Met line train at Wembley Park, and then successfully chasing the Chiltern instead at Harrow swept away the effects of the alcohol, but I spent the night dreaming of rich food and woke up so full that I couldn't manage my breakfast until after the school run.

Got another night out planned for next week too - I won tickets to Radio 2's session with Carly Simon, so will be chilling out at Maida Vale Studios which will be really fun. Unfortunately Emily's too young to be babysat by anyone if she's not fed and put to bed by either Husbandio or self, so I'm taking the stepmother (not stepmonster, luckily!). Need to get my Best of Carly Simon out to revise beforehand!

A joke

2010-02-21T21:04:00.003Z

Husbandio told me this the other day, and since I'm feeling a little brain dead after a busy weekend I thought I'd re-tell it here rather than thinking of something original to write. Apologies, but it is funny, so here goes.

Two Mexicans, Juan and Pedro, are lost and starving in the desert. Suddenly Pedro spots a tree, draped with rashers of bacon.
"Juan", he cries, "we're saved". He dashes over to the tree, but as he reaches it he is suddenly gunned down in a hail of bullets.
Juan rushes over to him and as he gets there Pedro cries out "Juan, run! Is not a bacon tree, is a ham bush!"

Boom boom! Feel free to regale your colleagues with this on Monday morning...

What's on TV?

2010-02-19T21:49:00.002Z

I'm a telly addict (no, not one of those sad z-list celebs on a dodgy quiz show with Noel Edmonds, just someone who likes an evening in front of the telly). I can usually only manage an hour, but I relish that hour and always get pissed off when I accidentally fall asleep while trying to watch something. Which happens more than I'd like it to.

Currently top of my viewing list is Brothers and Sisters. I can't believe I didn't notice Series 4 was starting and had to watch the first 2 episodes on 4oD. Anyway, we've now seen the first 4 episodes, and it's as good as ever, which makes it a crying shame that not many people seem to watch it. It's got a cracking cast and great story lines, makes both Husbandio and I laugh out loud, and has also been known to move me to tears. So start watching it, everyone! You can borrow Series 1 and 2 from me, for a small fee....!

Also jostling for attention on the Sky Plus are Glee (great for when I'm in a silly mood), Wallander (the one in Swedish with subtitles - only to be watched when feeling very awake, and not suicidal), and Relocation Relocation (good backup for when I want to do something like online shopping with the telly on in the background). I've also got The Good Wife, a new series with Julianna Margulies who I loved in ER years ago, but I've not started that yet so can't comment on how good it is.

Stuff on the upstairs bedroom Sky Plus is quite different - all stuff which I watch without Husbandio. This includes Casualty, Holby City, Lost (I haven't started the final series yet, so don't tell me what's happening, on pain of death), Desperate Housewives, the new Jo Frost (Supernanny) series, and One Born Every Minute. Don't watch this last show unless you've already had children and are not planning to have any more - it's childbirth, UK style, warts and all. Goodness I'm glad that's all behind me. If you'll pardon my phrasing.

Now that I've listed this lot out, no wonder I don't have time to do anything else. But what could I possibly drop? I just thank my lucky stars that I don't watch EastEnders anymore.

A confession

2010-02-14T22:33:00.002Z

OK, deep breath - here it is. My confession is...... that I like Valentine's Day. There, I said it. How unfashionable I am, in this as in so many other things.

The run up to Valentine's is always dominated by people jeering about how it's so commercial, and how they refuse to partake and line the pockets of Hallmark. And they whinge about how red roses treble in price, and you can't get a reservation at a decent restaurant for love nor money.

And to these folks I say - stop whinging! I too am not lining Hallmark's pockets, or buying hyperinflated red roses, and I don't expect anyone to do that for me. But what I do enjoy is someone caring enough to stop for a moment and show some love. Doesn't even require any money - in fact, cheap as I am, the less that is spent the better.

Most of the time I'm pretty cynical, but I like the idea that one day of the year reminds us to stop, look around, and tell our nearest and dearest that we love them. Our mantelpiece does look a little like an explosion in a card factory, I admit. There's three from me (one to Hubs and one each to the girls), three from Husbandio (one to each of us), and three from Isabel to her mummy, her daddy and her baby sis. We had great fun this morning with some red card and heart stickers, and spent hardly anything on the endeavour. And what I did spend went to the local craft shop and the local chocolate shop, so I was supporting local businesses too.

So I say, loud and proud, Happy Valentine's Day! And pass the chocs please....

I wasn't that busy, but somehow....

2010-02-09T20:58:00.005Z

When I went back to work at the beginning of January things were pretty quiet for a few weeks. I didn't get too many tasks coming my way - maybe people had forgotten about me while I was gone, and it took a while to realise I was back. And I wasn't going to stand up and wave my hand around for more work since I know how these things expand to fill the time available, whether or not you're already busy. So I kept my head down under the parapet, reintroduced myself to clients, caught up on my reading, and responded to all e-mails very promptly.

And this week, the tide turned. I have a new role, looking at educational publishing markets, which I think will be great, so I've been busy putting together ideas for reports to write, getting some articles under my belt, answering client queries, setting up meetings and getting right back into the swing. And having 8.30pm calls with folks in California, always a pleasure....! I now also find I have a bunch of new clients, so more intros etc. to be made. But that'll have to wait til later in the week.

And in addition to work, I've got things to do on the home front as well. Yesterday I packed up all of our baby clothes and things we weren't using to give to my sister-in-law, who is having her first baby in April - oddly enough, she's due on Emily's birthday. It was a massive pile - 5 carrier bags of clothes, a baby bath, a bath seat, two play mats, a bouncy chair, a sleeping bag, a Moses basket - so our house is free and clear and hers is brimming. Lovely to get rid of stuff which we WILL NOT BE NEEDING AGAIN but also a little sad - I admit to keeping a couple of little dresses and babygros. Couldn't help it, sentimental old fool that I am. As well as that I'm trying to finish a quilted cushion cover which I'm making for Isabel, and read a book quickly (The Little Stranger) because I can only have it out of the library for a week. I'm enjoying it, but finding it hard to find the time to read - luckily I'm off into town tomorrow which means a Tube journey so that'll help.

All of this activity has led me to where I am now. Blogging in the kitchen, standing up, while cooking fajitas. Now that's dedication.

OK, enough bugs now, thank you

2010-02-06T22:04:00.002Z

I think Emily is going to be one of those babies for whom a minor cold means loss of appetite for a good week afterwards. Which, given her pipsqueakness, is not a good thing. She's been off her food and her milk for what seems like ages but is in reality just a few days - today she actually ate up properly and it was a marvellous thing. Will have to wait for the next paediatrician's appointment in a couple of weeks to see what it's done to her weight.

But of course, Emsy's on the up so Isabel is struck down. She had a very exciting day yesterday - her class led the school assembly, which is always fun since parents are allowed to go and watch. And she was great - said her line very clearly, even the headmaster commented on it. Proud! And then in the evening it was her school disco which she just loved - painted her nails pink first and dressed her up nicely, and she had a lovely time.

It all turned in the middle of the night. She refused a slice of pizza when she got home from the disco claiming a sore tummy, but then ate a piece of garlic bread which made me feel as if I was being played. But then, when I went in at about 11.45 to give her a kiss before I went to bed, I could smell an ominous smell, and she'd been sick. In her sleep. Without waking up. I could see the headlines in my mind's eye - "local girl's death ruled as misadventure - chokes on own vomit". So, we woke her up, got her out of bed and into the shower, washed her hair, changed her sheets, and then were too worried to let her sleep alone so she came into bed with me while poor Husbandio was relegated to the couch. Good job too, since at about 2am there was an ominous burp from the other side of the bed, and the same thing happened again - she was sick, and it didn't wake her up. Thank goodness she sleeps on her side. So, did the whole routine again - into the shower, new PJs, change all the sheets (and even flipped the mattress, not easy since it's super king size). We managed about 4 hours sleep from 2.30am, and then Emily started chattering.

Poor Isabel spent the whole day on the couch watching TV - Strawberry Shortcake DVD from the library which she watched twice, thus proving how brain dead she must have been feeling. Ate some pitta, half a crumpet, a few mouthfuls of plain pasta and a bowl of jelly. Mind you, by the evening a long bath and a large does of Nurofen had perked her up no end, so hopefully that's the end of it. And on that note, I'll just pop up and check she's still breathing....

Watch a progamme when it's broadcast? Why?!

2010-02-03T21:21:00.005Z

I love my Sky Plus machine. In fact, I love both my Sky Plus machines and wouldn't be without them. I remember the bad old days of setting the video for the programmes I just had to watch, and then getting very confused about what episode was on which video tape. But no more - Sky Plus came to the rescue, and a very fine thing that was too.

But. There had to be a but. The trouble is, now that I never watch anything live and since I usually sprint through the ads, I never manage to find out when new series are about to start. So far this year we've missed the start of Glee, only caught Desperate Housewives by the skin of my teeth (started taping it five minutes after it started!), and now have to watch the first two episodes of the latest series of Brothers and Sisters on 4OD. Now, I'm a big fan of BBC iPlayer, since I usually download what I want to watch and then the quality is great. But you can't do that on 4OD and sitting through the first two episodes of Glee was pretty painful. Worth it, but not exactly a pleasurable viewing experience. But for Brothers and Sisters, I'll grit my teeth - and anyone offering any spoilers will be sent packing with a flea in their ear!

Getting in to the daily swing again

2010-02-01T21:42:00.002Z

It's much easier to blog when you do it every day. If you miss a day it seems easy to miss another, and then another, and then another. So I'm going to make a real effort to do this daily, since it's fun, and much more satisfying this way.

Not that I actually have much to say about today. Two friends of mine have either just got or are about to get puppies, and I have serious puppy envy. However, I don't think a puppy would be a great idea with a 9 month old since neither Husbandio or self have ever looked after a dog before, let alone house trained one. House training the kids is bad enough. Hopefully we'll be in a better position in a year or so. The other problem is that my mum has said she's not keen on babysitting if there's a dog in the house. I suppose I could shut myself and the dog into the office when she's there, that might work. Sigh - I don't even live with my mother any more so this stance seems unfair. Mothers - can't live with them, can't shoot them.

And on that note, I'm off to sort out some photos (for my mother, ironically!) while watching this week's Glee, currently the only programme I watch on the actual day of broadcast. It's a cracker...!

Fantastic Mr Clooney

2010-01-31T22:16:00.004Z

I mean Mr Fox, of course. Isabel was invited to a classmate's birthday party this afternoon - it was actually a joint party, and they took the whole class to see Fantastic Mr Fox at the local theatre (which also, rather confusingly, occasionally doubles as a cinema). Our darling girl has a tendency to get very involved in movies and usually gets quite frightened, mostly because she's so worried that things won't work out right. We tried to pre-empt any problems by reading her the book first, so she'd know that the story works out in favour of the foxes (sorry if that's a spoiler for anyone!), and I decided that I'd offer my services and selflessly see the movie with the kids.

OK, the truth - I LOVE going to the movies, and was very keen to go, I'd have elbowed several children out of the way if need be. And it was a great movie - George Clooney suitably smooth and charming in the title role, and Meryl Streep also very good as his wife. I think it was actually more of an adult's movie than a kid's movie, but they all seemed to enjoy it. And, true to form, Isabel ended up in my lap about three quarters of the way through, so I was glad to be there.

I forgot - she was actually in tears even before the movie started. I'd sent her along with six fun size of bags of Maltesers which I had left over from Christmas - I thought she might like to share them with her friends. And share them she did - so generously that she ended up with nothing, and then looked at me with tears in her eyes when I asked if she had any left for herself. I had to go out to the foyer and grab a tub of Minstrels which we split with one of the other mums, who also has a daughter who gets rather too involved in movies for her own good! It was very cute, but left me worried that she'll be such an open person when she grows up that she'll continuously be getting her heart broken. Oh no, now I'm the one in tears!

Oh dear John Terry

2010-01-30T21:49:00.004Z

I don't know why the recent revelations about John Terry are surprising. "Footballer has affair" is hardly a shocker. It's a bit like "French politician has affair" - it's expected, almost de rigeur. But Terry has always seemed like a solid and well meaning fellow, not necessarily bright but somehow honest. But even then he's a footballer, so I wasn't really surprised.

I started to understand, however, as the details emerged, why he'd wanted that injunction. "Footballer has affair" - fine. "Footballer has affair with wife's best friend" - ouch, slightly sordid. "Footballer has affair with wife's best friend who also happens to be said footballer's best friend's missus" - noooooo! Really? Yuk! How to destroy your life in one fell swoop - I wonder if the three strikes and you're out rule applies in this case.

And with that little judgmental rant over, herewith a couple of John Terry jokes which are already doing the rounds.

*******************
Latest scores: John Terry 1, Tiger Woods 12. Let me just stress that this is a latest score.

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For Valentine's Day Wayne Bridge had a model of his willy made out of Cadbury's chocolate for his girlfriend. It's a shame she prefers Terry's.

Baboom tsssccchhhhh!

I said I'd blog every day this week

2010-01-29T23:29:00.001Z

But I don't have much to say tonight - for a change! We've had a busy day - took Emily to weighing where we found she'd lost weight and gone back down under a stone (NOOOOOOOOOOOO!) but on the plus side we got a letter from the paediatrician saying all her blood tests were fine. Gives with one hand, takes away with the other. And then after school Isabel had a friend home from school - glad I asked her mother what she liked to eat since it turns out she doesn't like cheese. Cheese! All children love cheese, surely?! Isabel likes more cheeses than I do - she's a big brie and camembert fan, neither of which I like.

See, I told you I had nothing to say really. I've just managed to stay awake through Jonathan Ross (OK, I had a little nap first, so sue me...) and now that I've blogged I'm heading to bed to see if I can finish The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Or maybe I'll just nod off, book in hand, and wake up an hour later with the bookmark poking me in the eye. I think I know which is more likely...!

Do I want an iPad? Well, I wouldn't turn one away....

2010-01-28T20:22:00.003Z

I spent much of the day reading about the new Apple iPad and writing a piece on it for work. It's a pretty fun job sometimes. And while I love my iPod Touch and am a bit of a gadget geek I'm not sure that I want an iPad. Yet.

There's a few reasons for this. Firstly, I don't use my iPod Touch as much as I thought I would. Our Wifi signal upstairs isn't brilliant so while I would have liked to use it in bed the signal quality means that I don't very often. I used to use it a lot when I was still breastfeeding - it's a brilliant gadget to rest on the arm of a chair while feeding and catch up with something on BBC iPlayer, or check e-mail. Also, I want to do things with it that I can't do - for example, I'd like to copy DVDs onto it but haven't worked out how to do this. And since I'm not commuting any more, I don't use it much as a music player. I do if I'm taking Emily for a walk if I think she'll fall asleep, but if I want her to stay awake I tend to leave it at home so that I can chat to her (she's probably thinking "shut up mother, for goodness sake!").

So I'm worried that while I love the look of the iPad, I might not really use it. I use my laptop all day and most evenings, but usually I'm do a lot of typing which isn't really what the iPad is designed for. And if I want to watch a DVD or a TV show I'll use the TV (controversial, I know). And as for e-books - I still can't resist the feel of a print on paper book. Latent Luddite tendencies. Finally, I've never really been someone who buys into the first version of a new gadget - I usually dribble over it for ages, and finally get one in its second or third iteration.

So I don't think I'm an iPad customer yet. But I hope to grow up and become one sooner or later, and if anyone's got an iPad going spare I would be happy to take it off their hands....!

The medical saga marches onwards

2010-01-26T14:30:00.004Z

Emily's second hospital visit today - this time for an ultrasound on her kidneys. Since she had a urine infection last year, and we didn't know how long it had gone untreated, the paediatrician advised us to take her for a scan to make sure that the infection hadn't damaged anything. And, hooray hooray, it hasn't. I didn't think it had - she probably would have had some symptoms if that had been the case - but it was reassuring to have it confirmed. And she was so good during the scan - lay first on one side and then the other and then on her back, smiled at the ultrasoundist (I know that isn't a word, but it should be) and was generally lovely. And best of all, she didn't pee on me, which I was a bit nervous about since the ultrasoundist (there's that word again!) said she had a full bladder.

But that's not her only medical adventure this week - I've booked her in to have a swine flu jab on Saturday morning. I was a bit nervous about this having heard some rumours about the vaccine having been rushed out and not fully tested. Also, there's been nothing about swine flu in the papers for weeks and I think that number of cases has fallen dramatically. I don't think I'm the only one to have doubts -take-up of the vaccine amongst health professionals doesn't seem to have been very high. So I asked a doctor friend of mine what she was doing with her own twins who are just a few months older than Emily. She gave me very sensible and direct advice - better to have the vaccine than the disease, in her opinion it was safe, and her kids were having it next week. So, that's what we're doing too. I'm generally a great believer in vaccinations and don't have any qualms, but this one seemed a bit out of the ordinary. I suppose we live in extraordinary times.

The result of this week will therefore be that Emily is healthy and protected against nastiness - I guess we'll have to rely on her to nurse the rest of us if we all come down with swine flu though!

The family that Wiis together...

2010-01-25T14:42:00.003Z

It was my little brother's 15th birthday this weekend. Last year we all went bowling and for lunch at Wagamama's, which was really fun, but we didn't want to do that again, and we just couldn't decide what to do this year that everyone would enjoy. When I say "everyone", this had to include my dad and stepmother, Husbandio and I, my teenage brother and sister, and Isabel and Emily. It's a pretty wide age range - 9 months up to early 60s.

The Wii, however, managed to unite us. Watching us all play must have been like watching one of those annoying adverts with Ant and Dec or the Redknapps. We were eight in total - Dad, self, Husbandio, Isabel, little bro, little sis and her boyfriend, and a friend of mine who was staying for the weekend. Emily was deemed still a bit too small - she was the mascot though.

We played seven events in all - I even had to set up scorecards in Word and a spreadsheet in Excel to calculate the results! Surprises included a win for my Dad in the Javelin and a win for Isabel at table tennis. I won nothing (boo hoo!) but came second in the bowling. Once the final scores had been counted and verified, Husbandio had won overall, my brother was second, and Isabel was third! She may have had a little help along the way, but still a great result! She was very pleased, and we all celebrated with homemade cake. After all, we needed some energy after all our exertions....!

Pushy parent (in training)

2010-01-19T21:06:00.004Z

I don't think I'm a pushy parent, but I know I have the potential. I suspect that this is true of most mothers, maybe more than fathers since mothers tend to be more connected to the day to day details of their children's lives. That's not a criticism, but I think it's true. And this means that it's usually mothers who do the school drop off and pick up, talk to other mothers about their impressions of the teachers, and step in to fix things which they perceive as being broken.

And that's the situation we're facing at the moment. The teacher in Isabel's Reception year was brilliant - the kids loved her, the parents loved her, she communicated well with the parents, the kids were clearly learning and also having fun. What more could you ask for? Now that Isabel's in Year 1, it's not the same at all. I know that Year 1 is very different from Reception, which is really a bridge year between nursery and real school. There's a lot more structured work in Year 1, which has often caused Isabel to sigh, and say, "I wish I was back in Reception...". But she's managing the work with no problem so far.

The problem is, unfortunately, with the teacher. She's newly qualified, which I had hoped might mean that she would be really enthusiastic and up to date with teaching techniques. The latter may be true, but the former doesn't seem to be. And while she may be good in front of the class, which appears to be the case, she's woefully disorganised. She communicates badly with the parents too, and just isn't very personable. And some of the things they're being taught are just plain wrong - Isabel's writing a lot now, but isn't writing all of her letters correctly (e.g. starting an 'f' from the bottom instead of the top) and this will cause her problems when it comes to trying to do joined up writing. To combat this, I've downloaded some letter formation sheets and she's doing extra practice on three letters per night to try to correct the problem before it gets worse, or before it become ingrained and difficult to shift.

I've already been to see the teacher to ask her to move Isabel up to a new reading level (she ended up moving from level 2 to level 5, which is a jump large enough that I would have thought someone else should have suggested it before I did), and every week we either fail to get the homework, the spellings for the following week's test, or both. I spoke to her yesterday to find out why no-one's been hearing Isabel read (she's meant to read out loud to a staff member or "reading parent" at least twice a week) and was told that the reading parents only started this week after Christmas because of the snow, and also that she would from now on be hearing every child read once a week. So she should, she's their teacher! And then today Isabel said that the teacher hadn't heard her read, she'd forgotten.

This means I'll have to go back and speak to her again tomorrow. Is it usual to have to do this much pushing to get the basic stuff right? Should I see the headmaster, or is it just because she's new and finding her feet? I don't know whether I'm making too much of a fuss or not enough fuss - advice from anyone very much welcomed!

This is why I can never get a new job

2010-01-19T10:24:00.004Z

Not that I'm looking for a new job - I'm quite happy with the one I've got, especially the flexibility and the hours. No, the reason I can never get a new job is that I am a job interview virgin. That's right, never had a job interview in my life, ever. I've done plenty of jobs, just never been interviewed. In some cases that's been because I got the job through a temp agency - working at a cinema as an usherette was the best one of those, because it was while Pulp Fiction was on so I must have seen it about 40 times. Well, the first half up until John Travolta escorts Uma Thurman back to her house after nearly killing her and then saving her life, and he blows her a kiss - he was actually blowing a kiss to me as I left work, he just didn't know it.

In the case of one job, I went through a temp agency and was recruited to work in Westminster City Council's car parking division (off-street - far superior to on-street, donchaknow!) to replace someone who was on long term sick leave. And then she died. And I got the job. Hmm, not an ideal way to start a career! Luckily my dad's company was looking for researchers at that point so I ended up there. I'd done loads of work for them during university holidays so they knew me, and therefore didn't interview me. And I've been there ever since, although the business has since been acquired by a US company. I started in 1996, so it's been a fair while!

Anyway, I present below the real reason why I could never get another job. It's not that I'm frightened of job interviews, it's just that I'm frightened of job interviewers who might ask questions like these.....

What was your best MacGyver moment? —Schlumberger
How many tennis balls are in this room and why? —Yahoo!
How would you move Mount Fuji? —Microsoft
What should it cost to rent Central Park for commercial purposes? —Bain & Co.
If I put you in a sealed room with a phone that had no dial tone, how would you fix it? —Apple
How would you sell me eggnog in Florida in the summer? —Expedia

It's a tough market out there, boys and girls!

We've all done stupid things, but this takes the biscuit

2010-01-18T20:56:00.002Z

The FBI got caught out in a massive blooper recently - you've probably read about it. I'd somehow managed to miss the full hilarity of it however, until I read a TechCrunch post entitled "Nobody suspects the spanish politician". Great title! I could precis the post but it's very well written - I'd avise you to go and read the whole thing yourself. The element of the story that I liked best was that someone in the FBI had just gone off and used Google, as if they were some eight year old school child who has no way of evaluating information sources. I also liked the suggested search terms - swarthy foreigner, hee hee hee. Made me laugh particularly because a friend of mine pointed out something very peculiar in the new Boden catalogue - they've described their new Portofino collection with the words "Rejuvenating sun, fresh sea air, charming cobbled streets, and your bottom pinched by a swarthy Genoan". Or, if you're really lucky, by Osama Bin Laden.

So, that's the FBI goof of the day. Mine was (I didn't tell Husbandio this yet, so this will be a good test of whether he's reading my blog regularly!) leaving one of the car doors open when I took Isabel to school this morning. Oops......! And Husbandio's was making Emily a lovely lunch of lamb stew and courgettes, and then stirring creamy porridge into it. He mixed up the creamy porridge with the baby rice box. They are pretty similar, to be fair. And it probably didn't taste quite as odd as when he mixed pear puree into bolognaise sauce. He thought it said peas. Yes, I will be sending him to the optician with Isabel next time.

Speccy

2010-01-16T20:59:00.005Z

We took Isabel to the opticians yesterday and it turns out that she needs glasses. The school nurse had suggested in the summer that we take her to have her eyes tested, and at that point the optician had said that she was mildy longsighted but not to the extent that we needed to do anything about it. However, she's now +1 in one eye and +2 in the other, and I think it's that discrepancy which causes the problem - if one eye has to work harder the other then its growth might be affected. So, it's glasses for our little one.

She didn't seem terribly distressed, and since I wear glasses it's not an alien concept. We got some nice frames (not the NHS ones; sorry NHS, they were kind of manky even in this day and age) and we collect them next week. I'm disappointed and I hope it won't hold her back from running about with her friends, but I'm sure she, and they, will soon get used to them. I blame her grandpa for dodgy eye genes - his eyesight's terrible. And what are parents for if not to blame them for stuff?

Anyway, tonight we thought we'd experiment with some toy glasses just to see what they look like, and here are the results....

Emily was just a bit confused about the whole thing, but submitted to it with very good grace.

Confession - I'm a reading snob

2010-01-13T22:39:00.004Z

And I don't mean by that statement that I look down on what people read. I don't think I'd be allowed, given that I've read everything Stephen King's ever written (except the new one, which I am saving for a special occasion, don't want to just jump straight in after all!), plus a fairly hefty amount of Jeffrey Archer and Danielle Steel. And Jilly Cooper. And Jackie Collins. Oh dear....

So no, I'm not one to criticise people's book choices. What I find odd, and simply can't comprehend, is people who don't read fiction. Maybe I'm a story addict, but I feel really uncomfortable if I don't have a book on the go. I know several people who don't read, and most of them are pretty sharp customers. But what do they have on their shelves? And where do they go to escape from everyday life for a few minutes, or to experience someone else's life? What do they do in bed before falling asleep? OK, don't answer than last question. But I would feel bereft and believe my life would be the poorer if I weren't a reader. The only bad thing about being a reader is the knowledge that you'll never have enough time to read everything you'd like to. But I'll have to learn to live with that.

In the meantime, make me some recommendations. I've finished the BBC Big Read, and my dad gave me a list of his recommendations but I fear that seems rather unapproachable. Perhaps when I retire - I might be clever enough by then to attempt that. But what should I be reading now? On my "to be read" shelf I currently have:

Mudbound
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (these first two are both for a book group)
David Starkey's first volume biography of Henry VIII
2 Stephen Fry novels
Several Henning Mankells - the next few in the Wallander series
A Partisan's Daughter by Louise de Berniere
Pigtopia by Kitty Fitzgerald
A Pennorth of Poison (about a woman in the 1600s who murdered her husband - and she was a Worlock, which I am too. Or was, before I was a Rann)

But I always welcome more suggestions! So do your worst.....(can't be worse than bloody Ulysses!)

Oh bloody hell - that BBC Big Read link contains the Top 200, and I've only read the Top 100. Time to create another spreadsheet!

Laughing out loud

2010-01-12T11:39:00.003Z

I don't often laugh out loud when reading. There are exceptions of course - I can remember once having to get off a Tube train because I was laughing so hard at a Woody Allen book, and tears have streamed down my cheeks at some of Bill Bryson's exploits. But those notable comic writers aside, I don't usually laugh out loud when reading. I may smirk, I grant you, or perhaps the odd chuckle. Until today, when I came across this blog post by another mummy blogger (is that really what I am?) called More Than A Mother. It nearly made me wee myself. Which is apt, if you read the post....which you should, since I'm not writing any more tonight. Go on, go and read it. Stop hanging around here. Shoo. Begone!

They're both at the best possible age - how is that possible?

2010-01-09T22:17:00.005Z

Both of the girls have been an absolute delight today, in their own very different ways. When you mention to people that you have kids they always ask "what age?" and no matter what age you say, the reply is always "aah, that's the best age, isn't it?" And as a parent obsessed with your children, you naturally agree. But every age can't be the best age, can it?

Well actually, it can. Emily is a little delight at the moment, compounded by the fact that she's not ill, and therefore in good humour. The first delightful thing she's doing is sleeping past 7.30am every morning, which unfortunately for her will mean she gets woken up by me next week when school is (hopefully!) open again. But it's lovely at the weekend. Secondly, she's recognising certain words - she can splash in the bath on request, and I'm sure she touched Pooh's nose today in direct response to me asking "where's Pooh's nose?". But that may just be my overactive parental imagination. She also lies her head on one side in a very winsome manner if you say "sideways faces!" - don't ask me how this one started, I have no idea. Her third new trick, as of a few days ago, is blowing kisses, which is adorable. Apart from her habit of doing it mainly at mealtimes, when each blown kiss is accompanied by a small shower of pureed something or other.

And Isabel, while being an over-emotional five year old, is also delightful. I felt terribly guilty this morning because after we'd driven to ballet and found it closed (bloomin' snow!) I made her dash through the Sainsburys car park at -1C with bare knees because I didn't want to drive home for warmer clothes. I think she forgave me after I agreed she could have a pot of strawberry custard. And after her knees had defrosted. Anyway, the first of her three delightful things was sleeping until almost 8am. The two of them are really in sync about this at the moment. Secondly, she invited Husbandio and I to play a game of Monopoly Junior which we all really enjoyed - we're finally able to play games with her that we enjoy rather than just pandering to a small person (Wii Sports Resort also falls into this latter category!). The only dodgy moment in the game was where she had the opportunity to stitch over either Husbandio or myself - a tricky situation for a little girl. Sensibly, she decided that siding with her mother was the best bet. And the third delightful thing has been this evening. Husbandio went out with some local friends for a boys' night, so Isabel and I curled up in our big bed with Nutella crumpets, cups of water/tea respectively, and a chocolate Santa, and we watched and chomped our way through Mamma Mia. Neither of us had seen it all the way through, and we both thoroughly enjoyed it in all its glorious trashiness. Isabel even cried at the bit where the mother sings a slow song to her daughter, the sensitive little thing. And neither of us fell asleep during the movie, making it a massive success. She's only just gone to bed now and it's past 10pm, so here's hoping for another lie-in tomorrow morning...!

More snow? Really?

2010-01-06T22:02:00.003Z

I love the snow. I do - it's looks beautiful, and I love the way it turns everyone into big kids, throwing snowballs and generally larking around. But we've had quite a bit of snow in the last few weeks, and to be honest, it's wearing a bit thin. Yesterday, we still had a snow lump left over from a rather pathetic snowman in our garden before the current batch of snow came in, and that snow lump had been there since well before Christmas. And then last night it just snowed and snowed and then snowed some more. We had a good few inches overnight, and it carried on snowing for most of the day. Husbandio and a couple of our neighbours were out at lunchtime clearing drives and pathways, starting cars, and sweeping snow off windscreens. But no sooner had that been done that the snow started coming down again, and delivered another couple of inches.

We're actually able to deal with it pretty well - lots of food in the cupboard and fridge, and Husbandio's at home for three months now that I've gone back to work so no childcare issues. Isabel only had one day at school this week though - she was in on Tuesday but off today, and will be off again tomorrow. The road leading to the school will be treacherous, and it's not a major road so won't be gritted, so opening on Friday is doubtful too in my opinion. Since we're in the Chilterns it's pretty hilly, so we haven't even been down into town for fear of not being able to get back up the hill again. Still, we tried to make the most of it, threw plenty of snowballs, and enjoyed the peace and beauty of the garden. We'll be doing the same tomorrow, and possibly the next day, and for the few days after that if the weather forecast is right. Now the problem isn't more snow, it's that the temperature's too cold for anything to melt. My commute is just about OK though - big drifts half way up the stairs to my office though...!

Back to work, along with everyone else

2010-01-03T21:10:00.003Z

Tomorrow's the day that it seemed would never come - back to work. Although, since I'll be doing this along with everyone else after the Christmas break, at least I won't be alone. I'm actually quite looking forward to it even though I have very much enjoyed my maternity leave. For one thing, getting a proper salary at the end of each month will be marvellous, I've missed it. £450-odd quid in statutory maternity pay just isn't the same thing, doesn't even cover the mortgage.

Using my brain for more than planning the pureeing menu will also be good. While writing this blog has kept my writing muscle exercised to some extent, getting my teeth into some real writing and analysis will be great.

Finally, since my company has been very flexible and is allowing me to work 9am - 3pm from home every day, I'm hoping that I'll be able to achieve the mythical work-life balance. Although I have a concern that work-life balance may mean time for work and time for the kids, while Husbandio and I get dragged along in the wake. Even now, if I have five minutes free to read my book then I relish every second.

Which leads me on to my New Year's Resolutions for this year.

Use better language in front of Isabel (she said something was a real pain in the arse the other day, oops!)
Maintain a more even temper in the face of really irritating things (OK, this one may be beyond me, but I'll try, I promise)
Make time for me time, and for us time. This one I'm determined to get right! Wish me luck.....

An Emily update

2010-01-02T13:22:00.002Z

There's been a lot about Isabel in this blog recently, and not as much at all about dear Emsy. Course, she doesn't do as much - mainly sits, and takes things out of her empty Roses tin, before putting them back in again. What an Eeyore-esque way to spend a day. She seems to enjoy it though. And the tin also serves as a drum, which is good - the only downside is that if she leans on the side it tips up and bashes her in the face. Only one way to learn that though....!

It's lovely to see her sitting and playing happily however, since she wasn't very well before Christmas and it wasn't really until she was better that I realised that the Emily we knew and loved had been replaced for a few weeks by a clingy, whingy bundle. I think Christmas was saved by a trip to the GP on the morning of Christmas Eve. Emily had been getting increasingly out of sorts ever since having a cold in early December - she'd had a runny nose for about two weeks, and for about a week had been losing her appetite and throwing up after most meals. I had her paediatrician appointment coming up on 18 Dec though so didn't take her to the GP but then it snowed, and our appointment moved to the 22nd. So I didn't take her to the GP because I was snowed in, plus we had another appointment coming up.

But it snowed again, and in desperation I had to take her in to the GP on Xmas Eve since she'd thrown up in the evening on the 23rd and again on the morning of the 24th. "The calories", I kept thinking, "the calories! We need every ounce to stay down!" She'd also stopped being able to eat lumpy food - pieces of banana or half blueberries, which had gone down perfectly well a few weeks earlier, just made her retch. And she wouldn't drink more than about an ounce of milk at a time. Turns out (drumroll please....) she had tonsillitis. Thank God for that! At least it was diagnosable and treatable. I'd started to worry that this latest incident was all related to her failure to put on weight quickly, but it wasn't, luckily.

So, we came away with a prescription for antibiotics and Ibuprofen, and within a day or two she'd really started to brighten up. She finished the course yesterday and is a different child from a couple of weeks ago - smiling, happy, eating loads, sleeping well, and even drinking all of her milk which she hasn't done for a couple of months. Maybe the antibiotics dealt with something else as well. As the cracker joke goes - what do you give a man who has everything? Antibiotics!

In other Emily news, we also finally managed to get her to her paediatric appointment. The consultant said he could see no reason for her being a pipsqueak - he took some blood to do some further tests and she'll also have a kidney ultrasound to make sure that the urine infection didn't do any damage. But it seems as if she's just the size she is - and after all, my mum's 5' 1", Mark's mum only just scrapes in at 5', and his sister's the same. So, maybe she just won't be very big. Which is fine - small and healthy works for me. We've got a follow up in mid February and hopefully that'll be that. Meanwhile, back to that Roses tin, there's work to do!

A year of blogging successfully completed!

2010-01-01T20:42:00.005Z

I said when I started this blog that it would be a place where I could:

Muse and report on what's been happening in my life (check!)
Report funny things which Isabel has said (check!) - I think her saying "be sanguine" to me when I dropped the iron and burned a large iron-shaped mark in the middle of the lounge carpet probably takes the prize here.
The occasional whinge/rant (check!) - looking back on some previous posts, it looks as if struggling through the enormous and dreadful tome which is Shantaram, and then failing to get to the book group to vent my spleen about it seems to have been the thing which has annoyed me most this year!

I've been pretty chuffed with the progress I've made with the blog, though I say so myself. I started off being a very responsile daily blogger, but Emily's birth in April put paid to that. Since then I've probably blogged at least a couple of times a week, leading to a total of 222 posts for the year (61% of the available days - will try to do better next year!)

Over the year I've had 1,335 visits to the blog from 469 visitors. That seems like a lot - I certainly don't know 469 people. How exciting! These visitors have spent an average of 48 seconds on the site, which makes sense since I think people visit to read the current blog post, and then very sensibly go off and get on with their lives. What I can't tell is how much activity has taken place from people reading the blog through Facebook, but I must say that publishing it as an FB note is very rewarding, since I've had many more comments since linking the blog into FB.

Overall I've really enjoyed writing this, and hope that everyone reading it has been entertained. I'm looking forward to 2010. I'm even looking forward to going back to work on January 4th; stretch the brain a little, and, just as importantly, start replenishing the coffers. Husbandio's looking forward to the start of the year too I think, since he's off work now until April, looking after darling Emsy. I'd love to see him taking her to a baby singing group which I used to take her too but doubt he will - the playground in the rain may be more his style! Or perhaps some quality time in the lounge teaching her the finer points of Modern Warfare. Isabel's been having lessons in swordplay on Wii Sports Resort, so it must be time for Emily to start soon as well. So, a very Happy New Year to all - here's to a great 2010!

Happy Christmas y'all!

2009-12-25T21:41:00.005Z

My beautiful Christmas girls in their posh frocks

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

Early stocking opening!

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

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

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

The turkey she is a brining

2009-12-23T22:46:00.004Z

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

Our inspiration for the festive season!

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

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

It was all worth it in the end

2009-12-22T21:36:00.008Z

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

The table, before the hooligans wrecked it!

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

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

Our house in the snow

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

A photo blog

2009-12-19T21:13:00.007Z

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

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

Venturing out into a pristine, snow-covered garden.

Dressed for the weather.

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

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

See, she's laughing!

And so's her sister!

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

2009-12-18T22:28:00.002Z

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

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

The etiquette of Christmas cards

2009-12-17T20:59:00.002Z

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

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

Christmas Tree Etiquette

2009-12-14T20:41:00.006Z

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

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

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

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

The tree, with its oddly regular shape.

Still looks magical in the dark with its lights on.

And the elves are pretty magical too.

Baby food - the labels lie!

2009-12-11T20:54:00.005Z

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

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

Am I trying to squeeze too much in?

2009-12-08T21:17:00.002Z

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

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

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

Doin' the Twist and the Mashed Potato

2009-12-07T14:40:00.004Z

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

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

Keeping the tradition going

2009-12-04T21:48:00.004Z

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

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

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

Just don't tell my mother....

2009-11-30T20:44:00.002Z

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

2009-11-27T21:23:00.003Z

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

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.
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

2009-11-24T20:26:00.005Z

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

2009-11-23T20:39:00.004Z

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....

2009-11-21T21:13:00.003Z

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

2009-11-17T21:34:00.006Z

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

2009-11-15T20:30:00.002Z

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

2009-11-13T22:32:00.003Z

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

2009-11-11T20:40:00.005Z

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!

2009-11-10T21:22:00.009Z

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

2009-11-09T21:49:00.003Z

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?

2009-11-06T20:55:00.004Z

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

2009-11-05T21:52:00.003Z

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!

2009-11-03T21:46:00.007Z

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

2009-11-01T20:18:00.008Z

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:

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.
I read that a new piece of research has been done, which found that breastmilk is not only tuned to the individual baby's needs, but to their needs at specific times of day. So, if you express some milk in the morning for someone else to feed the baby in the evening, don't expect them to have a good night's sleep - in the evening they need bedtime milk. Very interesting, I thought, until I realised that this means that even my boobs are cleverer than me at the moment. Dear oh dear.

As one recovers, the other falters

2009-10-31T22:03:00.003Z

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

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

Sickness and disease....

2009-10-30T20:54:00.003Z

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

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

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

It was a day....

2009-10-29T20:47:00.004Z

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

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

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

I may need to eat my words

2009-10-28T21:40:00.003Z

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

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

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

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

Sleep

2009-10-25T21:44:00.004Z

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

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

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

Walk to school week - pah

2009-10-20T16:06:00.004+01:00

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

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

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

My stubborn-ness knows no bounds

2009-10-18T22:08:00.008+01:00

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

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

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

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

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

Feet

2009-10-17T21:39:00.004+01:00

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

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

Education, Education, Education

2009-10-16T20:54:00.006+01:00

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

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

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

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

Tucking in like a champ

2009-10-13T20:09:00.006+01:00

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

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

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

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

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

Labels are for idiots

2009-10-11T21:08:00.002+01:00

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

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

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

2009-10-10T22:11:00.006+01:00

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

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

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

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

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

2009-10-09T20:40:00.007+01:00

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

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

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

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

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

Pears, yummy!

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

Some things make it all worthwhile

2009-10-02T21:09:00.009+01:00

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

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

More evidence of the speed of growing up

2009-09-30T21:12:00.007+01:00

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

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

Emily, sitting up

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

Getting the ice cube trays out again

2009-09-29T20:56:00.004+01:00

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

Repitition, repitition, repitition

2009-09-28T20:51:00.005+01:00

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

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

When did weekends stop being relaxing?

2009-09-27T20:44:00.005+01:00

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

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

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

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

2009-09-25T21:25:00.004+01:00

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

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

She's a Sixties child at heart

2009-09-24T22:20:00.005+01:00

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

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

Making friends

2009-09-23T21:18:00.006+01:00

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

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

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

Back to the good old days

2009-09-22T20:56:00.003+01:00

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

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

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