She's turning one!

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?

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

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

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

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

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...

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!