Bonjour, Willkommen, Hola and hello to you all. The children are in bed, the dishwasher is on and the wine is out so let the excitement begin.
I apologise for the delay in communication. Other than the usual dullness that keeps me apart from the written word, I have been struggling to write about my recent gallivanting. Although the happenings have been jolly, when I write them down in black and white, it all sounds particularly dull and not at all jolly so I have given up and gone to bed the last ten times I have tried to write to you. I have been suffering from severe Writer's Block if you will. However I have forced myself back on tonight as it has gone on for far too long now and I need to break the cycle.
So now. A LOT has happened in Nashville. But I don't want to bore you/ruin it if you haven't watched it yet so I shall keep that to myself. Not much has happened here. There have been lots of nice things like the bank holiday, a glimpse of the sun, the East Dulwich fair, My HAIR (obviously the best bit), Cybs learning to sleep ALL NIGHT and as a huge bonus we have also been treated to a good old dose of The Replacement's company which always makes things jolly and bright.
I shall begin with The Bank Holiday which was fabulous. Three whole days of good stuff. On Saturday The Mother who can't bear to live next to me (her new name) came up to visit Shiny Life Sister (I have also renamed the Newly Married Sister as she has been married for a whole year now and it occurred to us, on her last visit to mother's, that where my life is a bit haggard, 'well used' and rough around the edges, hers is still magnificently shiny, pristine and new with her fabulous flat, fabulous wardrobe, fabulous job etc etc) so I packed my non-shiny children in to our non-shiny car and drove to Millionaire's Row where Shiny Life sister resides. We had a gorgeous afternoon and just before we got ready to leave Bea was whisked away for an impromptu sleepover with My Brother in Law's niece. She had an amazing time in their lovely big house (with a pool which mightily impressed Bea) and returned the following day full of the joys of spring. We went straight in to a party at the local pub and then home for a BBQ with the gorgeous Replacement who came for a sleepover which is such a rare occurrence we couldn't quite believe our luck. Bank Holiday Monday was all things to all people and included the added excitement of the SUN. Bea tried horse riding for only the second time in her life at her best friend's party and I took the other three to meet her in the park for the tail end of the party and some quality bike time for the boys. In a scene reminiscent of something from The Simpsons almost the entire population of South East London also saw the sun in the sky and dropped everything for a slice of park life and within minutes the car park and road approaching it were jam packed with cars of all shapes and sizes all desperately trying to find somewhere to leave them and spend quality minutes under the hot stuff. Luckily I found it all very amusing and managed to find somewhere to park relatively easily but The Replacement was not so lucky and went down a dead end and got stuck there for twenty minutes, boxed in by other desperate people wondering if they might strike it lucky. She aborted her mission once finally free and headed for home. Understandably so.
The following week brought with it a day that was similar to Christmas in anticipation and excitement levels. It also started jolly early in the morning. 4.30am to be precise. I
thought I was hallucinating and kept blinking and looking at the time
again just in case it was really 6.30 and I was imagining the 4. I was not. Ted was awake and ready to go. I
managed to get him nearly back to sleep at around 5.15 when Cybs awoke
and needed my attention so then Ted woke up properly with the excitement
of the imminent arrival of 'his' baby. He greets her merrily every
morning by shouting 'My Baby!!' and smothering her with affection. His
love for her is one of his very greatest qualities. By 5.30 a.m Ted was
trying to discuss nipples with me. Who had big ones (me) who had little
ones (him and Cybs) why weren't Daddy's big and who can feed babies with them. Ten minutes later he had had an
argument with my phone and thrown it at the wall which woke up Bea. She
was happy to be awake especially early as she was so over excited about her imminent
school trip. G soon followed. He also had a school trip but his had the added frisson of K going along as an adult helper which meant the excitement factor was 310 and it wasn't even 6 a.m. Ted didn't have a school trip, but was being swept along by the tide of feeling from everyone else and was just happy that K was walking down to the school with us. So, with the early start and the unusually happy and willing children, the usual morning routine was accomplished in double quick time and so half an hour before we needed to leave they were all standing shod, dressed, fed and ready at the front door with their packed lunches and backpacks. It was about as thrilling as things get around here.
K returned triumphant but exhausted from his trip to a Nature Reserve. He had, by all accounts, been quite a hit with the children and had even been mistaken for a teacher and advised by G's teacher to think about a change in career to become a teacher. He was most pleased with himself. Although I'm not sure he could do it more than once. Not only did he fall asleep on the coach on the way back to school (much to the hilarity of the surrounding children and a few adults) he also collapsed on to the sofa as soon as he arrived home and fell asleep almost immediately for a further hour and a half. I had to nip and meet Bea from her coach which was delayed on its returne from the seaside and when we all returned (Bea beautifully happy and windswept and full of her adventures) all three males of the household were sound asleep and snoring on the sofa. It did make me ponder the battle of the sexes. I was thrilled and happy and, as a friend pointed out, had mentally awarded him numerous 'daddy points', for agreeing to take a day off work and going along with 90 children on a trip, so his sleep seemed like a fitting reward for his great deed. However, if for any reason I had managed to offload the younger two and had managed to accompany G in K's place I would have been up at 4.30, made breakfast, packed four lunches, ensured all four were dressed, loaded the dishwasher, left the house with all children, walked down to school, deposited smaller two somewhere, left eldest one at her school, gone with second one on the school trip, done the trip, returned home, gone back out to pick up Bea, cooked supper, fed children, cleared away, run bath and got some way/all the way through the bedtime routine before K came home and would have pronounced that he had had an exhausting day at work and no doubt complained about my lack of supper provision. I am NOT 'having a go' I am just saying.
Last weekend included the glory of having my hair done on a Sunday. Exciting. Doubly so as I left K with all four. I left the house free as a bird and enjoyed a fantastic two and a half hours with me, myself and I. Before K realised they needed feeding and dropped Cybs off with me and took the others for a fry up. Again, I awarded him many multiples of 'Daddy Points' for taking on all four until, once again, I examined the facts more closely and realised that the two and a half hours of childcare he had amassed were all I had done before he had even woken up. So this time around I didn't allow him a sleep on the sofa and made him get up and take us to the fair in East Dulwich. Cue lots of complaints about the price of putting three children on to a bouncy castle (£12 in case you were wondering) and fears for their whereabouts with so many people crammed in to a relatively small Goose Green. Still, is was again, jolly good fun and a great afternoon spent out of the sodding house.
I have been making a conscious effort recently to try and do a bit more at the weekends so we can end the weekend with a highlight and I can spend important hours out of the house. Today's was going to the Southbank to meet some school friends I haven't seen since I was 18. I took Bea and Cybs and we finally got to experience the joy of meandering along the Southbank with the added bonus of catching up with people I used to see every weekday for years on end (other than holidays) and then all of a sudden we left school and I haven't seen them since. It was so nice to nip on a train and have a beautiful afternoon with my girls. Which, got me thinking about the classic saying You Only Live Once - or Y.O.L.O, as I believe the youth of today abbreviate it to - it is used in entirely the wrong context. At the moment is seems to be used to convince yourself/someone else to do something they wouldn't normally do or to encourage them/you to act recklessly. However, if you think about it, it is entirely BECAUSE you only live once that you should be cautious and careful and NOT reckless. I remain entirely unconvinced by the idea of reincarnation or life after death so as this is really IT, it seems a little silly to risk it all for the thrill of a bungee jump or marathon run. Therefore I would officially like to change the meaning of Y.O.L.O from now on so that if you are planning to take up drag car racing, planning a skydive or thinking about swimming the channel, just stop and say to yourself, Y.O.L.O and do the sensible thing; Go home, turn on Nashville and have a cup of cocoa. You'll live so much longer.
See? It's not that exciting when all down in black and white. You were probably better off watching Nashville and having that cocoa. Still it has broken the back of my writer's block and I shall hope for something worthy of writing about as soon as possible. It is half term next week so maybe the Suffolk air will blow away my block and I shall be back with thrilling things.
Until then, stay safe; sit down. Adios xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sunday, 19 May 2013
Friday, 3 May 2013
An Acquired Taste
Well hello there. Welcome. I am on the wine. K has been paid so the cheap plonk is back in my glass and the fizz is back in the wine rack. We can all breathe a sigh of relief. The fridge, freezer and cupboards are all full of food and life feels an awful lot less tense. Things are so relaxed K is even promising to have the screen on my my ipad fixed - hoorah!! It has been so long since I've been able to use it - I think it must be approaching a year - that it will feel like a brand new toy all over again. I cannot WAIT.
So. Last time we met I was all full of sleep and sun. This time around I am blissfully sunned but sadly not slept. The flipping lurgy has returned and the youngest two are now taking it in turns to wake up and keep me awake throughout the night. Three hours is the most I've managed to get uninterrupted for about five nights now. However I shall not dwell. It is hopefully a passing phase and so I am ignoring it. This week has been lovely due to the sun being out. We have spent evenings in the park along with most of their school and I have spent many hours sitting outside in my friends' gardens. I spent a fabulous day with Events Organiser in her garden on Thursday. I was only meant to be popping in for a cup of tea and ended up spending all day sitting under her cherry tree as it snowed blossom and we drank tea and ate smoked salmon bagels. Bliss. Some days it is worth getting out of bed. The sun is so restorative. I feel so much better about almost everything. I am even eating less chocolate. I have lost two important pounds and I am hopeful of even more this week after a sudden burst of energy which has seen me transform the playroom and Cybil's bedroom. I am endeavouring to make the most of what we have and make the house feel less small and cramped and as the house would be almost entirely empty if all the toys were gone, I thought that would be a good place to start making changes.
The sun even makes the house feel bigger. Being able to get out and stay out means that the four walls don't seem so close together and the light shining in through the windows makes the dirt look less dirty and the walls look whiter. It is just in time as I was extremely close to giving up on SE23 altogether. Since half term I have been incredibly keen to sell up and move to the country to live 'the good life'. The long winter has seen my tolerance for city living reach an all time low and I have been hankering after a big house and garden somewhere in sunny Suffolk. Specifically in the peace and tranquillity of my mother's garden. She has a convenient plot of land with planning permission and I have been trying to enforce a compulsory purchase order and make her hand it over to me so that we can build a house big enough to fit us all in and have the added advantage of an on-site babysitter and the use of her garden (and I also wanted to put in an indoor climbing wall, a lego room/study, laundry chutes etc - it would RULE). It would also have the advantage of being possible without having to take out a mortgage or as near as damn it and I have to say this whole prospect was pretty tantalising during the last few months of rain and poverty. I had almost the entire move sewn up in my head - I was even researching schools and leafing through interior magazines trying to decide on the type of kitchen we would install. However, just as my excitement reached fever pitch, the few stumbling blocks I was encountering (both K and mum not being keen) became mountainous. I had assumed K would be far easier to bulldoze - after all he only wanted two children - but it turns out I was wrong. I ignored his protestations and carried on planning regardless. But then Mother became less and less keen about handing over her land until she finally said a definite no, and here is the sting, because I would be too difficult to live next door to. Hilariously I had been most worried about how I would manage to live in such close proximity to her, but clearly she thought I would be the tricky element in this scenario. So, with both main elements set against the idea I have had to admit defeat for now. All my dreams of a big garden and laundry chutes will have to be on hold until I perfect my bullying techniques.
The garden is a major thing for me. We have an outside space but it isn't really big enough to do much in. It does hold a paddling pool, a shed and a BBQ nicely so I mustn't grumble but it isn't exactly 'a dream' garden. There is no room for a trampoline or a climbing frame which I increasingly find myself hankering after. I have also been trying to afford to have decking put down on the 'crazy paving' part of the garden for around 8 years to spare all of our feet as much as to make it look nicer. It would be particularly helpful right now as Cybs is crawling over everything and putting anything she finds in to her mouth which means I have to be pretty careful about where I put her. She doesn't seem to have a discerning palate and is as happy chowing down on sand or an old crispy leaf as she is shovelling down pasta. Bea was the same - she was a nightmare at the crawling stage. She ate stones from the beach, sand and most notably she once ate used cat litter. And then screamed when I tried to prevent her going back for seconds. She also, and I am ashamed to say it, chowed down on half a Marlboro light. It was back in the days when I was still socially smoking on occasion and she was going through my bag as I sunbathed, when I suddenly looked up and found her with the pack and half a masticated fag. It was even worse as there was a family nearby who were looking on open mouthed. I hastily retrieved the pack and the fags and tried to fish out as much of the tobacco as I could. I asked Cupcake Sister - who was there and finding the whole thing hilarious - if I should take her to hospital. We couldn't be arsed and luckily she was fine. But the image still haunts me. Although the used cat litter turns my stomach more. Anyhoo she seems fine even with all the sand, cat litter and tobacco but I am trying to take a more diligent approach with C and prevent her from ingesting anything too revolting. She is to be my masterpiece of child rearing and so I shall try and keep her intestines pure.
And that, I'm afraid, is about that. Due to my new happy outlook I don't have much to chat about. Most of my complaints have to do with the children's bodily functions so I won't share to save you from having to imagine it. Instead I shall look forward to my fabulous bank holiday weekend filled with sun, family and friends. I can literally think of nothing else to tell you.
So I shall leave. Goodnight.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
The sun even makes the house feel bigger. Being able to get out and stay out means that the four walls don't seem so close together and the light shining in through the windows makes the dirt look less dirty and the walls look whiter. It is just in time as I was extremely close to giving up on SE23 altogether. Since half term I have been incredibly keen to sell up and move to the country to live 'the good life'. The long winter has seen my tolerance for city living reach an all time low and I have been hankering after a big house and garden somewhere in sunny Suffolk. Specifically in the peace and tranquillity of my mother's garden. She has a convenient plot of land with planning permission and I have been trying to enforce a compulsory purchase order and make her hand it over to me so that we can build a house big enough to fit us all in and have the added advantage of an on-site babysitter and the use of her garden (and I also wanted to put in an indoor climbing wall, a lego room/study, laundry chutes etc - it would RULE). It would also have the advantage of being possible without having to take out a mortgage or as near as damn it and I have to say this whole prospect was pretty tantalising during the last few months of rain and poverty. I had almost the entire move sewn up in my head - I was even researching schools and leafing through interior magazines trying to decide on the type of kitchen we would install. However, just as my excitement reached fever pitch, the few stumbling blocks I was encountering (both K and mum not being keen) became mountainous. I had assumed K would be far easier to bulldoze - after all he only wanted two children - but it turns out I was wrong. I ignored his protestations and carried on planning regardless. But then Mother became less and less keen about handing over her land until she finally said a definite no, and here is the sting, because I would be too difficult to live next door to. Hilariously I had been most worried about how I would manage to live in such close proximity to her, but clearly she thought I would be the tricky element in this scenario. So, with both main elements set against the idea I have had to admit defeat for now. All my dreams of a big garden and laundry chutes will have to be on hold until I perfect my bullying techniques.
The garden is a major thing for me. We have an outside space but it isn't really big enough to do much in. It does hold a paddling pool, a shed and a BBQ nicely so I mustn't grumble but it isn't exactly 'a dream' garden. There is no room for a trampoline or a climbing frame which I increasingly find myself hankering after. I have also been trying to afford to have decking put down on the 'crazy paving' part of the garden for around 8 years to spare all of our feet as much as to make it look nicer. It would be particularly helpful right now as Cybs is crawling over everything and putting anything she finds in to her mouth which means I have to be pretty careful about where I put her. She doesn't seem to have a discerning palate and is as happy chowing down on sand or an old crispy leaf as she is shovelling down pasta. Bea was the same - she was a nightmare at the crawling stage. She ate stones from the beach, sand and most notably she once ate used cat litter. And then screamed when I tried to prevent her going back for seconds. She also, and I am ashamed to say it, chowed down on half a Marlboro light. It was back in the days when I was still socially smoking on occasion and she was going through my bag as I sunbathed, when I suddenly looked up and found her with the pack and half a masticated fag. It was even worse as there was a family nearby who were looking on open mouthed. I hastily retrieved the pack and the fags and tried to fish out as much of the tobacco as I could. I asked Cupcake Sister - who was there and finding the whole thing hilarious - if I should take her to hospital. We couldn't be arsed and luckily she was fine. But the image still haunts me. Although the used cat litter turns my stomach more. Anyhoo she seems fine even with all the sand, cat litter and tobacco but I am trying to take a more diligent approach with C and prevent her from ingesting anything too revolting. She is to be my masterpiece of child rearing and so I shall try and keep her intestines pure.
And that, I'm afraid, is about that. Due to my new happy outlook I don't have much to chat about. Most of my complaints have to do with the children's bodily functions so I won't share to save you from having to imagine it. Instead I shall look forward to my fabulous bank holiday weekend filled with sun, family and friends. I can literally think of nothing else to tell you.
So I shall leave. Goodnight.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Tuesday, 23 April 2013
Sunny Side Up
The SUN IS OUT. I can, right now, feel the affect of it on my skin and on my spirits. Nothing lifts one quite like the sun being out. It was actually hot today. I know because all three children who are able to speak complained about it being too hot on the way home today. Et Voila - British Summertime has finally commenced.
So, on with the show as the great Miranda would say. Easter is well and truly over and the staycation in sunny Suffolk well and truly finished. Back to earth with a crash. And a truly crushing realisation that chocolate is a total Frenemy. It may look all nice and innocent and 'eat me I'll make you feel better'/ 'It's Easter'/'you deserve a treat' but then the sun comes out and you are forced to put on dresses you wore when you were heavily pregnant and you suddenly realise that that bastard was NOT your friend at all but actually secretly, silently and slowly making you look shocking whilst you innocently sat on the sofa eating all of the children's Easter Eggs! BASTARD. As it was I had to buy a new dress for the Christening. And from Debenhams. I felt so old. I initially went to River Island full of hope and naivety but I very quickly realised my mistake. I not only felt old but surprisingly poor as well - in my day it used to be cheap? Now it appears that whilst the products have not become any more luxurious the prices suggest that they have. It was most perplexing. Anyway, still smarting from my River Island experience I pushed the buggy in to the warm embrace of Debenhams. It was here I discovered all the various different clothing company sections and began to feel hope return. I was just admiring various items in the 'Coast' section and wondering why I didn't shop there more often, money permitting, as quite a number of the items seemed very 'me', when a rather unattractive youth and her boyfriend walked past, looked at something and then she uttered the words, 'oh hang on - we seem to have stumbled in to the old ladies section' and walked away. NOW - OUCH AND HANG ON. I am not OLD. I stared at her and to me she seemed of a similar age to me, but although it was hard to tell through her ugly, she was clearly not my age but quite young - in her late teens - and I have delusions of youthfulness. In the same way that I put an item back in M and S when I see an OAP pick it up and show an interest in it, she saw me and the 'old lady' clothing and recoiled in horror. YE Gods what has become of me.
I really must get a grip of myself. In this vain, upon our return to London I hastily arranged collection of a spare toddler bed and got K to do a lot of back breaking furniture movement so that Cybs could finally be turfed out of our room. I can now happily report that Cybs has her own room (Ted's old one) and Bea and G have an extra lodger in their room which is now affectionately referred to as 'the dormitory'. We still don't have anywhere to put Ted's clothes but for now the chair on the landing will have to suffice until I can face a trip to Ikea. This momentous occasion in our household history means that I have my room back to myself - hoorah! (I still have to share it with K but he draws the line at a toddler bed for him in the dorm room). This means that I am finally getting some sleep. Cybs has adjusted beautifully to solo sleeping and only has one feed a night now. Double Hoorah! Ted even sleeps better which doesn't make any sense - except that I wonder if he kept waking up in the night before because of his ADHD (not formally diagnosed just my own personal non medical diagnosis) which meant that he kept coming in to my room at all hours of the night, just in case he was missing anything exciting going on. Now he is in with the others he can clearly see that he isn't missing anything and it seems to have calmed his night time behaviour. Either that or his new bed is just more comfortable or something. Who knows. All I know is that I have a very large light at the end of my sleep tunnel and I can see life returning to normal which should, in turn, calm down my ADHD eating habits. I shall endeavour to stop complaining about my weight now. Although without tiredness and fatness to moan about I shall be rather stuck. I shall have to go back to moaning about money.
The money situation has been entirely dire actually. We are having a freak bad month (such is the up and down world of commission based jobs) which wouldn't normally be so bad if we hadn't had Cybil's Baptism party in the middle of it. Luckily the children received a huge number of Easter eggs which we have been living off in times of low food rations. They have found it most amusing that every time they moan about the lack of fruit I offer them chocolate in its place. It is just as amusing that the only alcohol I have to drink is Champagne so as I write to you about our temporary impoverishment I am supping a beautifully cold glass of champers. I am SO Marie Antoinette. Albeit in slightly less grand surroundings. Obviously I haven't been spending the children's fruit money on it, the bubbles were gifts, one bottle left from Xmas and one from the pub to apologise for the appalling bar staff who 'looked after' our party for Cybil's Baptism. One of them looked as if she was on day release and might have dropped dead if she broke out a smile. K complained and the owner donated a bottle to compensate. It is amazing how easy it is to placate me. Anyhoo, scary arsed bar staff aside the party was a great success due mainly to the fantastic weather. It was the first sunny day in about eight months and the pub has a great outdoor space and at the eleventh hour we WERE allowed a bouncy castle (phew) which kept the children entertained for three hours solid and there was food, cake and alcohol for the adults so on the whole it worked out nicely. Even my mother enjoyed herself. Even in SE23. (She isn't a huge fan - it's a bit of a culture shock). Oh and the Baptism itself went surprisingly well too - the children behaved (ish) throughout the entire hour long church service and Cybs was ok-ish at her part as well. She wasn't entirely thrilled by all the water being poured on her head and was quite keen to feed off me after it was over but as we were standing there being watched by the entire congregation I wasn't keen - so it was a bit of a wrestling match trying to keep her upright and in my arms. I did vaguely toy with the idea of trying to 'shove her on' as we stood there but I think it might have been a step too far - even the most ardent breastfeeder would agree that standing at the font in the middle of a Baptism service, might be pushing the boundaries just a tad. The Priest was also 'on one' that morning and decided to involve us far too heavily in the entire service which was a bit overwhelming for a non-catholic church goer, particularly the part where we stood en famille at the altar with him as he gave his final address and then made us walk out down the aisle as if we had just been married, then stand in the foyer being congratulated by the entire congregation as they departed. He also totally forgot the point of having your child baptised and failed to halt proceedings long enough for us to have photos taken at the font. Fool. So although the day all went to plan and was all very merry, we have no pictures of the all important Godparents and Cybil at the font. I did sneak back in after I felt we had been congratulated enough by the strangers and demanded the children stand for a photo. Ted was NOT keen in the slightest and had been asking for cake for the last hour so he didn't have a particularly photo friendly face on but it will have to do. Other than that I couldn't have asked for a better 'do' - I was massively relieved.
Other than the baptism party and bedroom move nothing exciting has happened. The children have returned to school for the summer term and I can't believe (as per usual) how fast the school year has gone yet again. It seems like only yesterday that I was buying them new school shoes in September and now those shoes are very battered and bruised and summer shoes need to be purchased. Children grow incessantly - it is one of their most annoying traits - so just when you think you have pants, clothes, pyjamas and shoes all in the correct sizes one of them will have a growth spurt and everything will be too small. Damned annoying. I tell them every night not to grow but they seem powerless to stop it. Cybs is growing at the rate of knots - she is properly crawling and walking around with the aid of furniture or a convenient box and eating everything in sight. Ted is keeping me regularly entertained. On the way back from Kent Sister's house on Sunday I decided to make up for some of my parental failures and popped Classic FM on the radio. It was a surprising hit and after Beethoven's Fifth Symphony finished Ted kept asking for 'the scary one' back on - I mentally congratulated myself and thought that I should keep it on in the car for the foreseeable future - when Ted kept laughing as the DJ spoke about Bach. I asked why and he laughed louder and said because 'that man keeps saying Fart'. He has also been breastfeeding his baby (Bea's doll) whilst dressed as Spiderman (so few super heroes have a breast feeding super ability and I think their programmes are all the poorer for it) and asking me 'who will look after you?' when he realised that he, Bea and G were all going to be at school for the first time in over three weeks and I would finally be alone (with just Cybs - clearly he didn't think she counted). G has lost his two front teeth (ridiculous excitement ensued) and declared me to be 'the bestest to cuddle as you are much wider than daddy' (nice). And finally Bea, who is the usual mixed bag of delightful little girl and 'tricky' 'tween age where she believes she knows better than us about almost everything and finds quite normal acts and requests 'totally unfair'.
And there you have it. That is us. I hope you have found it enlightening. I am off to luxuriate in the space and silence of my own room without having to worry about waking up the baby. Bliss.
A toute a l'heure. xxxx
So, on with the show as the great Miranda would say. Easter is well and truly over and the staycation in sunny Suffolk well and truly finished. Back to earth with a crash. And a truly crushing realisation that chocolate is a total Frenemy. It may look all nice and innocent and 'eat me I'll make you feel better'/ 'It's Easter'/'you deserve a treat' but then the sun comes out and you are forced to put on dresses you wore when you were heavily pregnant and you suddenly realise that that bastard was NOT your friend at all but actually secretly, silently and slowly making you look shocking whilst you innocently sat on the sofa eating all of the children's Easter Eggs! BASTARD. As it was I had to buy a new dress for the Christening. And from Debenhams. I felt so old. I initially went to River Island full of hope and naivety but I very quickly realised my mistake. I not only felt old but surprisingly poor as well - in my day it used to be cheap? Now it appears that whilst the products have not become any more luxurious the prices suggest that they have. It was most perplexing. Anyway, still smarting from my River Island experience I pushed the buggy in to the warm embrace of Debenhams. It was here I discovered all the various different clothing company sections and began to feel hope return. I was just admiring various items in the 'Coast' section and wondering why I didn't shop there more often, money permitting, as quite a number of the items seemed very 'me', when a rather unattractive youth and her boyfriend walked past, looked at something and then she uttered the words, 'oh hang on - we seem to have stumbled in to the old ladies section' and walked away. NOW - OUCH AND HANG ON. I am not OLD. I stared at her and to me she seemed of a similar age to me, but although it was hard to tell through her ugly, she was clearly not my age but quite young - in her late teens - and I have delusions of youthfulness. In the same way that I put an item back in M and S when I see an OAP pick it up and show an interest in it, she saw me and the 'old lady' clothing and recoiled in horror. YE Gods what has become of me.
I really must get a grip of myself. In this vain, upon our return to London I hastily arranged collection of a spare toddler bed and got K to do a lot of back breaking furniture movement so that Cybs could finally be turfed out of our room. I can now happily report that Cybs has her own room (Ted's old one) and Bea and G have an extra lodger in their room which is now affectionately referred to as 'the dormitory'. We still don't have anywhere to put Ted's clothes but for now the chair on the landing will have to suffice until I can face a trip to Ikea. This momentous occasion in our household history means that I have my room back to myself - hoorah! (I still have to share it with K but he draws the line at a toddler bed for him in the dorm room). This means that I am finally getting some sleep. Cybs has adjusted beautifully to solo sleeping and only has one feed a night now. Double Hoorah! Ted even sleeps better which doesn't make any sense - except that I wonder if he kept waking up in the night before because of his ADHD (not formally diagnosed just my own personal non medical diagnosis) which meant that he kept coming in to my room at all hours of the night, just in case he was missing anything exciting going on. Now he is in with the others he can clearly see that he isn't missing anything and it seems to have calmed his night time behaviour. Either that or his new bed is just more comfortable or something. Who knows. All I know is that I have a very large light at the end of my sleep tunnel and I can see life returning to normal which should, in turn, calm down my ADHD eating habits. I shall endeavour to stop complaining about my weight now. Although without tiredness and fatness to moan about I shall be rather stuck. I shall have to go back to moaning about money.
The money situation has been entirely dire actually. We are having a freak bad month (such is the up and down world of commission based jobs) which wouldn't normally be so bad if we hadn't had Cybil's Baptism party in the middle of it. Luckily the children received a huge number of Easter eggs which we have been living off in times of low food rations. They have found it most amusing that every time they moan about the lack of fruit I offer them chocolate in its place. It is just as amusing that the only alcohol I have to drink is Champagne so as I write to you about our temporary impoverishment I am supping a beautifully cold glass of champers. I am SO Marie Antoinette. Albeit in slightly less grand surroundings. Obviously I haven't been spending the children's fruit money on it, the bubbles were gifts, one bottle left from Xmas and one from the pub to apologise for the appalling bar staff who 'looked after' our party for Cybil's Baptism. One of them looked as if she was on day release and might have dropped dead if she broke out a smile. K complained and the owner donated a bottle to compensate. It is amazing how easy it is to placate me. Anyhoo, scary arsed bar staff aside the party was a great success due mainly to the fantastic weather. It was the first sunny day in about eight months and the pub has a great outdoor space and at the eleventh hour we WERE allowed a bouncy castle (phew) which kept the children entertained for three hours solid and there was food, cake and alcohol for the adults so on the whole it worked out nicely. Even my mother enjoyed herself. Even in SE23. (She isn't a huge fan - it's a bit of a culture shock). Oh and the Baptism itself went surprisingly well too - the children behaved (ish) throughout the entire hour long church service and Cybs was ok-ish at her part as well. She wasn't entirely thrilled by all the water being poured on her head and was quite keen to feed off me after it was over but as we were standing there being watched by the entire congregation I wasn't keen - so it was a bit of a wrestling match trying to keep her upright and in my arms. I did vaguely toy with the idea of trying to 'shove her on' as we stood there but I think it might have been a step too far - even the most ardent breastfeeder would agree that standing at the font in the middle of a Baptism service, might be pushing the boundaries just a tad. The Priest was also 'on one' that morning and decided to involve us far too heavily in the entire service which was a bit overwhelming for a non-catholic church goer, particularly the part where we stood en famille at the altar with him as he gave his final address and then made us walk out down the aisle as if we had just been married, then stand in the foyer being congratulated by the entire congregation as they departed. He also totally forgot the point of having your child baptised and failed to halt proceedings long enough for us to have photos taken at the font. Fool. So although the day all went to plan and was all very merry, we have no pictures of the all important Godparents and Cybil at the font. I did sneak back in after I felt we had been congratulated enough by the strangers and demanded the children stand for a photo. Ted was NOT keen in the slightest and had been asking for cake for the last hour so he didn't have a particularly photo friendly face on but it will have to do. Other than that I couldn't have asked for a better 'do' - I was massively relieved.
Other than the baptism party and bedroom move nothing exciting has happened. The children have returned to school for the summer term and I can't believe (as per usual) how fast the school year has gone yet again. It seems like only yesterday that I was buying them new school shoes in September and now those shoes are very battered and bruised and summer shoes need to be purchased. Children grow incessantly - it is one of their most annoying traits - so just when you think you have pants, clothes, pyjamas and shoes all in the correct sizes one of them will have a growth spurt and everything will be too small. Damned annoying. I tell them every night not to grow but they seem powerless to stop it. Cybs is growing at the rate of knots - she is properly crawling and walking around with the aid of furniture or a convenient box and eating everything in sight. Ted is keeping me regularly entertained. On the way back from Kent Sister's house on Sunday I decided to make up for some of my parental failures and popped Classic FM on the radio. It was a surprising hit and after Beethoven's Fifth Symphony finished Ted kept asking for 'the scary one' back on - I mentally congratulated myself and thought that I should keep it on in the car for the foreseeable future - when Ted kept laughing as the DJ spoke about Bach. I asked why and he laughed louder and said because 'that man keeps saying Fart'. He has also been breastfeeding his baby (Bea's doll) whilst dressed as Spiderman (so few super heroes have a breast feeding super ability and I think their programmes are all the poorer for it) and asking me 'who will look after you?' when he realised that he, Bea and G were all going to be at school for the first time in over three weeks and I would finally be alone (with just Cybs - clearly he didn't think she counted). G has lost his two front teeth (ridiculous excitement ensued) and declared me to be 'the bestest to cuddle as you are much wider than daddy' (nice). And finally Bea, who is the usual mixed bag of delightful little girl and 'tricky' 'tween age where she believes she knows better than us about almost everything and finds quite normal acts and requests 'totally unfair'.
And there you have it. That is us. I hope you have found it enlightening. I am off to luxuriate in the space and silence of my own room without having to worry about waking up the baby. Bliss.
A toute a l'heure. xxxx
Thursday, 11 April 2013
Easter, illness and anniversary
Well hello, hello, from finally sunny Suffolk. K has been and gone and left me with the laptop so I am able to write to you en vacances chez maman. How exciting! And a much better way to pass the evenings than desperately trying to find something I want to watch on TV with only freeview channels available or/and eating myself yet fatter with the abundant and seemingly never ending supply of tasty treats tantalisingly within reach in the kitchen. I am also stuck here with mother in control of the free channels and right now I am being subjected to 'Maggie and Me' - a documentary about the late Margaret Thatcher. And there is a Poirot on. I can't believe it.
Where were we? The end of term - had we got that far? Well it was fairly unremarkable besides the final evening with The Extra Child. I think I may have forgotten to say that TEC stopped being an only child during the last half term and is now a proud big brother to a bouncing baby boy. The excitement of his safe arrival in to the world is only slightly marred by the fact that his mother is now on maternity leave and recovered enough from the Cesarean and early baby haze to take back the reigns and pick him up after school herself. So, after nearly three years we shall have to readjust for the summer term with no after school visitor. Ted has never known a life without him coming home after the school pick up - he has become a very definite part of the family and it will be a distinctly odd world without him every day. Obviously a little easier as well - on occasion being a part of the family meant that he was another sibling for someone to fight with or get over excited with but I shall feel a bit like I'm cheating with only four after school. If anyone knows a child or children who need after school care then I am available. And cheap.
On to the holidays. Boringly and rather sadly they have been plagued with illness. I can't help but feel that we came down from the big smoke like war refugees riddled with disease (although mercifully not nits - a cousin had had an earlier bout so we were worried but luckily we were more likely to give her an illness than for her to give us the dreaded nits). The final weekend of term Bea developed a terrible bout of tonsillitis (had I told you? do stop me if I repeat myself - I can't check without an awful lot of fuss and bother). I had to use the out of hours service to get her to a GP which was remarkably efficient and she got her first ever course of penicillin - which is pretty good going for eight and a half - with very little fuss or bother. She finished the course before we got down here but by Easter Sunday (we arrived on Good Friday) she was complaining an awful lot about the pain in her throat again so I rang the NEW 111 service which has been implemented up here. I hope I'm not raining on anyone's excitement but it is crap. I am no politician, medic, or indeed genius but I am wondering how clever it is for me to spend quite a long time answering questions that they assured me were 'important to answer even though they might seem irrelevant'. Ok I said. 'Has she been bleeding bright red blood? No, she has a sore throat. Has she lost consciousness in the last hour? No, she has a sore throat. Is she able to make sense when speaking so that you can understand her? Yes, she just has a sore throat. When you touch her sternum and abdomen, do they feel hot to the touch? Not particularly, she is quite hot as she is wrapped in a blanket and on the sofa as she has a sore throat. Can she lower her chin? Yes as her sore throat doesn't stop her ability to move. Is she sensitive to the light? Does she have a rash? NO NO NO - she does not have meningitis, she has not severed a limb, drunk mercury or banged her head. She has a sore throat.' They were absurd - and there were more. I wish I could remember them all. Anyway, at the end of all the questions the operator informed me that I should make an appointment with my local GP to 'aid continuity of care'. I informed her that that was a bit of a rubbish answer to the twenty five questions I had helpfully answered as it didn't help my daughter and her sore throat. So, she typed in to the 'system' that I disagreed with the advice and asked a nurse to ring me. The nurse rang, spoke to me, spoke to Bea and finally agreed that I should see the GP. Another person rang to inform me of an appointment time. I got to the out of hours GP where Bea was the only patient and saw a lovely GP who gave her another course of antibiotics within minutes. I don't really see the point of the preceding three phone calls as we only needed the nice GP for a few minutes and we were in and out and home in the same time it had taken the three phone calls to take place. Still, I obviously am a bear of little brain so clearly the system is brilliant and I am just failing to see it. I suppose in the end I did get to see the GP so it did sort of work however the 'old system' in place in London was far easier to navigate and it is a little concerning to think we might have to go the 'new way' in the future.
So, Bea had her throat infection, Cybs had her terrible chesty cough and Ted had a terrible asthma day on Easter Monday, needing his inhaler almost hourly - it was so bad all the blood vessels burst around his eyes so he looked particularly haunted. It was horrid. G began complaining about his ear on the same day and by Tuesday morning it became clear he had yet another ear infection so we were at the GPs with the rest of the world after a four day weekend. He was also sick three times over two days. It was seriously as if we were plagued. We are now finally medicine and illness free nearly two weeks after we arrived - although there are still a number of snotty noses around. I have even been struck down with a terrifically bad cold. I don't usually rate a cold as a 'proper' illness but I would be wrong. By Thursday my head was throbbing with congestion, my throat was like sandpaper and I had a hacking cough. It was truly horrid. Particularly as K had come down to see us and to celebrate a milestone anniversary.
Friday the fifth of April marked ten years since K and I walked down the aisle (although actually the stupid children made me watch our wedding video and it would appear that i actually waddled back down the aisle swaying from side to side in a most peculiar fashion. I have no idea why - it must have been the weight of the dress or something - I looked like a weeble. ) Anyway, ten years on K came down to celebrate with me. Luckily we don't have very much money and a small baby so we had no big weekend away or anything fancy planned which was merciful as there is nothing worse than being ill and missing out on something terrifically exciting. I had booked a table in a pub but luckily it was easily cancellable and not something I had had my heart set upon. For many years I had imagined what would happen for our ten year anniversary, how it would feel to reach such a milestone, what we might do, how I might look, where we might be, how we would celebrate etc I had even planned the rather momentous gift of 'changing my name'. Oh I know that most women usually do that the day they get married but I am much more circumspect about such things. I thought it best to hold on to my maiden name until I was more certain about it. I have, over the years, had to use my married name for things like the doctors, or at the children's schools - anything to do with the children in fact, but everywhere else I have stuck very firmly to my maiden surname. It is the name I grew up with and one to which I am firmly attached - I am incredibly reticent to let it go. However, I have to concede that ten years in, and four children down, it might be time to actually stop all the confusion and just go for the one name fits all option. It does involve an awful lot of pratting about with banks, passports, driving license etc but I think this is the year that I shall do it to mark the ten year milestone - it is a bit of a shame that time ran away with me and I didn't get to do it in time for the actual day. I was also planning to finally create the wedding photo album and present it to K as a gift although I never got around to that either. And so it was that after all the years of wondering, planning and imagining, it turned out that K arrived late afternoon, we exchanged cards, I gave him a Wispa easter egg as a gift and we spent the evening with my mum watching crap on TV whilst I coughed and spluttered and moaned on the sofa. We did share a bottle of champagne which was the only hint to the celebration aspect of the day. This was not the triumphant and exciting celebration I had envisaged. I was a lot thinner in my imaginings and I was wearing much nicer underwear. It has occurred to me that even though Cybs has reached her 8 month milestone, my rather unattractive maternity pants (K refers to them as 'apple catchers' due to their vastness) are still in my underwear 'rotation' . The thing is a. I don't really go 'shopping' and when I do I don't have much spare cash b. I was planning a miraculous weight loss so didn't want to waste money c. there is no joy in buying 'fat pants' and d. I actually quite like the full coverage the maternity ones offer, especially with a still large stomach and the need to flash it at times when I am trying to release the boob for feeding purposes and ditto for the bottom issue - when bending over it is nice to know that you have a very full pant to cover all the essentials. So, after all those years and imaginings, ten years of marriage culminated in an ill me wearing giant fat pants, lying on a sofa, watching TV with my mum and not a celebratory gift in sight - K is a very lucky, lucky man.
I even spent the night with Cybs and not K as she wasn't fully grasping the idea that she was in the middle of being sleep trained. I love how 'sleep training' sounds so entirely innocent. It is not. What it means is that there is an awful lot of crying involved. Hers and Mine. Mainly hers. I tend to get angry. However needs must and I am getting bored waiting for her to work it out for herself so I am forcing the issue. The space at mum's means I can do the 'controlled crying' method of trying to get her to sleep through without keeping all the others awake. I really need her to sleep independently. She has mastered falling asleep perfectly at bed time but from then on it is anybody's guess what will happen. So, I am attempting to 'train' her sleeping in to being reliable. She retaliated at first, spending longer and longer each night awake and crying but I think we finally have a break through and life should start to return to normal at long last. I think at some point I might also have to get her off the boob as well. I know for those who don't ever breast feed, or do so for a very short time, eight months seems like a 'good innings' but actually I still feel a bit guilty about giving up. I am waiting for a time when the guilt is outweighed by my desire to keep my boobs to myself again. I am sure it cannot be too much longer.
It is also making finding a dress incredibly tricky - not only do I need one that is non-clingy due to fat, flattering due to fat, cheap due to poverty and with sleeves due to fat, but I also need something that can reveal my chest at a moment's notice due to feeding Cybs. I mention it as I have spent the last week dress hunting in order to have something to wear at Cybil's Big Baptism Bash on Sunday. It has all been organised in a typically haphazard way by yours truly - it is in three days time and I still have no confirmation that the food is going to be available when we get to the pub or indeed, if we have the exclusive use of the pub that I thought I had formally agreed with the pub manager. Still, Perfect Mother is making the cake and the sun is going to shine so at the VERY least we will eat cake and sit in the sun and as it is in a pub we will not go thirsty. Cybil's head will be wetted regardless of any laissez-faire organisation on my part. So, I shall re-connect with you after that event and give you the ins and outs. I have just been informed that the bouncy castle I was assured I could erect in the beer garden is actually not allowed so I have no idea what we are going to do to entertain 40 children for several hours, but I shall just hope they know how to play hopscotch and eye spy. I HATE organising things. How events organisers do it for a living is totally beyond me. I try to do as little of it as is humanly possible. I cannot wait for it to be over so I know it went well.
I shall leave you with Bea's new hit song. It is sadly addictive and it is now stuck in my head - the main lyric is "I'm turning on my microwave, the micheal jackson way..." I have no idea where or why but there it is.
Ta Ta for now and I'll see you back in the big smoke. Hopefully free of illness and happily the other side of the big bash. xxxxx
Where were we? The end of term - had we got that far? Well it was fairly unremarkable besides the final evening with The Extra Child. I think I may have forgotten to say that TEC stopped being an only child during the last half term and is now a proud big brother to a bouncing baby boy. The excitement of his safe arrival in to the world is only slightly marred by the fact that his mother is now on maternity leave and recovered enough from the Cesarean and early baby haze to take back the reigns and pick him up after school herself. So, after nearly three years we shall have to readjust for the summer term with no after school visitor. Ted has never known a life without him coming home after the school pick up - he has become a very definite part of the family and it will be a distinctly odd world without him every day. Obviously a little easier as well - on occasion being a part of the family meant that he was another sibling for someone to fight with or get over excited with but I shall feel a bit like I'm cheating with only four after school. If anyone knows a child or children who need after school care then I am available. And cheap.
On to the holidays. Boringly and rather sadly they have been plagued with illness. I can't help but feel that we came down from the big smoke like war refugees riddled with disease (although mercifully not nits - a cousin had had an earlier bout so we were worried but luckily we were more likely to give her an illness than for her to give us the dreaded nits). The final weekend of term Bea developed a terrible bout of tonsillitis (had I told you? do stop me if I repeat myself - I can't check without an awful lot of fuss and bother). I had to use the out of hours service to get her to a GP which was remarkably efficient and she got her first ever course of penicillin - which is pretty good going for eight and a half - with very little fuss or bother. She finished the course before we got down here but by Easter Sunday (we arrived on Good Friday) she was complaining an awful lot about the pain in her throat again so I rang the NEW 111 service which has been implemented up here. I hope I'm not raining on anyone's excitement but it is crap. I am no politician, medic, or indeed genius but I am wondering how clever it is for me to spend quite a long time answering questions that they assured me were 'important to answer even though they might seem irrelevant'. Ok I said. 'Has she been bleeding bright red blood? No, she has a sore throat. Has she lost consciousness in the last hour? No, she has a sore throat. Is she able to make sense when speaking so that you can understand her? Yes, she just has a sore throat. When you touch her sternum and abdomen, do they feel hot to the touch? Not particularly, she is quite hot as she is wrapped in a blanket and on the sofa as she has a sore throat. Can she lower her chin? Yes as her sore throat doesn't stop her ability to move. Is she sensitive to the light? Does she have a rash? NO NO NO - she does not have meningitis, she has not severed a limb, drunk mercury or banged her head. She has a sore throat.' They were absurd - and there were more. I wish I could remember them all. Anyway, at the end of all the questions the operator informed me that I should make an appointment with my local GP to 'aid continuity of care'. I informed her that that was a bit of a rubbish answer to the twenty five questions I had helpfully answered as it didn't help my daughter and her sore throat. So, she typed in to the 'system' that I disagreed with the advice and asked a nurse to ring me. The nurse rang, spoke to me, spoke to Bea and finally agreed that I should see the GP. Another person rang to inform me of an appointment time. I got to the out of hours GP where Bea was the only patient and saw a lovely GP who gave her another course of antibiotics within minutes. I don't really see the point of the preceding three phone calls as we only needed the nice GP for a few minutes and we were in and out and home in the same time it had taken the three phone calls to take place. Still, I obviously am a bear of little brain so clearly the system is brilliant and I am just failing to see it. I suppose in the end I did get to see the GP so it did sort of work however the 'old system' in place in London was far easier to navigate and it is a little concerning to think we might have to go the 'new way' in the future.
So, Bea had her throat infection, Cybs had her terrible chesty cough and Ted had a terrible asthma day on Easter Monday, needing his inhaler almost hourly - it was so bad all the blood vessels burst around his eyes so he looked particularly haunted. It was horrid. G began complaining about his ear on the same day and by Tuesday morning it became clear he had yet another ear infection so we were at the GPs with the rest of the world after a four day weekend. He was also sick three times over two days. It was seriously as if we were plagued. We are now finally medicine and illness free nearly two weeks after we arrived - although there are still a number of snotty noses around. I have even been struck down with a terrifically bad cold. I don't usually rate a cold as a 'proper' illness but I would be wrong. By Thursday my head was throbbing with congestion, my throat was like sandpaper and I had a hacking cough. It was truly horrid. Particularly as K had come down to see us and to celebrate a milestone anniversary.
Friday the fifth of April marked ten years since K and I walked down the aisle (although actually the stupid children made me watch our wedding video and it would appear that i actually waddled back down the aisle swaying from side to side in a most peculiar fashion. I have no idea why - it must have been the weight of the dress or something - I looked like a weeble. ) Anyway, ten years on K came down to celebrate with me. Luckily we don't have very much money and a small baby so we had no big weekend away or anything fancy planned which was merciful as there is nothing worse than being ill and missing out on something terrifically exciting. I had booked a table in a pub but luckily it was easily cancellable and not something I had had my heart set upon. For many years I had imagined what would happen for our ten year anniversary, how it would feel to reach such a milestone, what we might do, how I might look, where we might be, how we would celebrate etc I had even planned the rather momentous gift of 'changing my name'. Oh I know that most women usually do that the day they get married but I am much more circumspect about such things. I thought it best to hold on to my maiden name until I was more certain about it. I have, over the years, had to use my married name for things like the doctors, or at the children's schools - anything to do with the children in fact, but everywhere else I have stuck very firmly to my maiden surname. It is the name I grew up with and one to which I am firmly attached - I am incredibly reticent to let it go. However, I have to concede that ten years in, and four children down, it might be time to actually stop all the confusion and just go for the one name fits all option. It does involve an awful lot of pratting about with banks, passports, driving license etc but I think this is the year that I shall do it to mark the ten year milestone - it is a bit of a shame that time ran away with me and I didn't get to do it in time for the actual day. I was also planning to finally create the wedding photo album and present it to K as a gift although I never got around to that either. And so it was that after all the years of wondering, planning and imagining, it turned out that K arrived late afternoon, we exchanged cards, I gave him a Wispa easter egg as a gift and we spent the evening with my mum watching crap on TV whilst I coughed and spluttered and moaned on the sofa. We did share a bottle of champagne which was the only hint to the celebration aspect of the day. This was not the triumphant and exciting celebration I had envisaged. I was a lot thinner in my imaginings and I was wearing much nicer underwear. It has occurred to me that even though Cybs has reached her 8 month milestone, my rather unattractive maternity pants (K refers to them as 'apple catchers' due to their vastness) are still in my underwear 'rotation' . The thing is a. I don't really go 'shopping' and when I do I don't have much spare cash b. I was planning a miraculous weight loss so didn't want to waste money c. there is no joy in buying 'fat pants' and d. I actually quite like the full coverage the maternity ones offer, especially with a still large stomach and the need to flash it at times when I am trying to release the boob for feeding purposes and ditto for the bottom issue - when bending over it is nice to know that you have a very full pant to cover all the essentials. So, after all those years and imaginings, ten years of marriage culminated in an ill me wearing giant fat pants, lying on a sofa, watching TV with my mum and not a celebratory gift in sight - K is a very lucky, lucky man.
I even spent the night with Cybs and not K as she wasn't fully grasping the idea that she was in the middle of being sleep trained. I love how 'sleep training' sounds so entirely innocent. It is not. What it means is that there is an awful lot of crying involved. Hers and Mine. Mainly hers. I tend to get angry. However needs must and I am getting bored waiting for her to work it out for herself so I am forcing the issue. The space at mum's means I can do the 'controlled crying' method of trying to get her to sleep through without keeping all the others awake. I really need her to sleep independently. She has mastered falling asleep perfectly at bed time but from then on it is anybody's guess what will happen. So, I am attempting to 'train' her sleeping in to being reliable. She retaliated at first, spending longer and longer each night awake and crying but I think we finally have a break through and life should start to return to normal at long last. I think at some point I might also have to get her off the boob as well. I know for those who don't ever breast feed, or do so for a very short time, eight months seems like a 'good innings' but actually I still feel a bit guilty about giving up. I am waiting for a time when the guilt is outweighed by my desire to keep my boobs to myself again. I am sure it cannot be too much longer.
It is also making finding a dress incredibly tricky - not only do I need one that is non-clingy due to fat, flattering due to fat, cheap due to poverty and with sleeves due to fat, but I also need something that can reveal my chest at a moment's notice due to feeding Cybs. I mention it as I have spent the last week dress hunting in order to have something to wear at Cybil's Big Baptism Bash on Sunday. It has all been organised in a typically haphazard way by yours truly - it is in three days time and I still have no confirmation that the food is going to be available when we get to the pub or indeed, if we have the exclusive use of the pub that I thought I had formally agreed with the pub manager. Still, Perfect Mother is making the cake and the sun is going to shine so at the VERY least we will eat cake and sit in the sun and as it is in a pub we will not go thirsty. Cybil's head will be wetted regardless of any laissez-faire organisation on my part. So, I shall re-connect with you after that event and give you the ins and outs. I have just been informed that the bouncy castle I was assured I could erect in the beer garden is actually not allowed so I have no idea what we are going to do to entertain 40 children for several hours, but I shall just hope they know how to play hopscotch and eye spy. I HATE organising things. How events organisers do it for a living is totally beyond me. I try to do as little of it as is humanly possible. I cannot wait for it to be over so I know it went well.
I shall leave you with Bea's new hit song. It is sadly addictive and it is now stuck in my head - the main lyric is "I'm turning on my microwave, the micheal jackson way..." I have no idea where or why but there it is.
Ta Ta for now and I'll see you back in the big smoke. Hopefully free of illness and happily the other side of the big bash. xxxxx
Sunday, 24 March 2013
The dentist, the bitch and the programme
Stupendously glad tidings to one and all. I am desperately resisting the urge to annihilate our chocolate, biscuit and chocolate biscuit supplies so I am taking to the keyboard instead.
On Monday I discovered I had put on 2lbs, then I took G to the dentist who was very welcoming, asked if he knew me already and then asked me if I was pregnant. I said 'No' I had just had a baby which was in fact, in my arms right in front of him. He (who was quite portly himself) then apologised and said it was because he thought I had been to him before, however it was quite clear he was mistaking me for someone who was pregnant. To make it worse he then continued by saying that it took his wife a year to lose her baby weight. Which just confirmed the fact that he thought I was fat. I don't mind or take it to heart because I am fat and am acutely aware of it. However, imagine if I was 25 stone post pregnancy and had in fact lost a SHED load of weight and was now the thinnest I've ever been - it could have been incredibly upsetting. He shouldn't assume just because I am fat now that I wasn't fatter before - although admittedly it isn't easy to phrase that either. I think all in all unless a woman makes a point of saying she is pregnant NEVER ask her. It doesn't usually end well.
On Thursday morning as we cuddled in bed chatting Ted said "I hate that bitch". I asked him to say it again. He said it slower, but perfectly, I hate that bitch. We were in the middle of talking about his nursery and how he was having the day off but would go back tomorrow and see his beloved Marianna (his key worker) and more importantly Be Good. The day before I had been to his nursery for his parent teachers and yet again, was told that Ted's behaviour was erratic. It seems he has teamed up with a like minded party-starter and they feed off each others mischief and get themselves in to terrible trouble. So, as you can imagine this wasn't the ideal start to his 'new leaf' of good behaviour and I was worried that he was angry at his key worker for telling me about the bad behaviour and getting him in to trouble. I also mentally berated myself for allowing him to watch '12' Certificate DVDs - which in my considerable defence is because it seems all the superhero films seem to be a '12' - all four Spiderman ones, Captain America, Fantastic Four etc (and yet Coraline, where the protagonist is asked to gouge out her eyes and sew buttons in their place is a PG????). I decided to talk around the subject to discover his use of this new word. I asked what he was talking about and why he felt that about her. To my great relief it would appear that he has developed an interesting lisp and what he actually meant was 'I hate that bit' which referred to the day before when Marianna had insisted he tidied up for tidy up time. The relief I felt was, as you can imagine, momentous. There is a vast difference between the odd 'shit' and 'bloody' absorbed from his mother but at the age of three to refer to his nursery key worker as a bitch really would have concerned me greatly.
So, back to last week (my timeline is all out for this one but I can't be bothered, so just try and keep up). I survived, Cybs survived and even K survived the Actual Night Out. It was a stunning success. I will admit I had a wobbly moment about leaving as I was putting her down in the cot but once I was in the car and off I felt quite excitable. It was all jolly lovely and the pizza was deeeeelish. And huge. Just how I like them. Cybs stayed beautifully asleep for my entire venture over the river and back and I got to catch up with all my old school friends - it was a fabulous turn out. I even made it home in time to catch the local mothers at a birthday booze in the tapas bar round the corner. They hadn't eaten so were well away by the time I arrived at 11 and it hit me instantly how much more fun 'drunk' is when you are the one who is actually enjoying its effects. So, on my first Actual Night Out I got to two events, Cybs didn't suffer and I was in bed and ready for sleep by midnight. I shan't be doing it again any time soon but just to know that I have done it is quite enough for now. Especially as that was one of the last times she did sleep well - ever since my night out we (I say we but actually I mean I - K takes over in extreme circumstances but it is me who does it 99% of the time) have been suffering from nightly screaming of around an hour and a half which is making me slightly crazy.
I hate to admit it but I am not particularly good at coping with non sleeping babies. She is usually ok in the evening but once you reach 10 o'clock it enters 'the danger zone' and she could wake at any point and then cry on and off for around an hour and a half. But on Thursday night it didn't stop. I tried everything, in the bed with me, in her cot, feeding, dummy, ignoring, cuddling etc etc. In the end I gave up and put the pillow over my head and ignored her cries which left K to take over. Mercifully so, as by that point Bea and G had also been woken up and the cries were reaching epic levels. He took her downstairs and away from me. Bea was sobbing by this point. It was a horrid night. My thoughts towards my youngest were uncharitable at best and potentially fatal at their worst. It seems totally 'other wordly' in the cold light of day, that I could ever have felt such horrid things. I know I am going to be eternally damned for just 'thinking' these things but I also said some pretty mean things to her and I wasn't exactly gentle and loving. I felt hideously bad about it all of Friday morning - particularly when I read a blog from a woman who had lost her son at a year old and then listened to a woman on the radio, quite by chance, speaking about the loss of her son who was nearly two. I took both of these things as signs that I should be nicer to poor C and have been so ever since. Luckily, she has also slept better.
I don't read parenting books or have a particular 'style' - I am most definitely not an Earth Mother (see above), Yummy Mummy (too fat, lazy and poor), Working Mother or a Gina Ford regimented type either. I have decided that my 'style' should be summarised as The Haphazard Parent - this is for two reasons - the 'hap' part stands for happy - on the whole I am quite happy to do it and my children are quite happy and due to my laziness and laid back approach to almost every aspect of my life they don't seem to have any major anxieties or tense, worrying behaviour and seem generally ok. However the downside to my haphazard school of child rearing is the 'hazard' part. Not having a hard and fast method of getting babies to sleep through the night, believing my 3 year old might refer to his Nursery key worker as 'that bitch' due to the crap I let him watch on TV, putting off going to the dentists for too long so that G has severe decay in two teeth and although the dentist assures me that some teeth are more prone to decay than others and it is actually more to do with genetics than a lack of oral hygiene, ultimately even if the decay was not entirely my fault, I should have taken him to the dentist far more often than I did. So there is the hazard part. There are many other hazards obviously but these are the most recent.
On the plus side of life is my new TV Heaven - Nashville - a better concept of a programme that doesn't take place in a hospital I cannot think of - country music, bitch fights, fit men, children, marriage, deceit - all bundled up in a fab one hour segment. Brothers and Sisters was good but I think this may just top it. Luckily there is only one programme a week or I might get stuck on the sofa again like I did with the Real Housewives. Now Cybs is bigger and requires far less feeding, my beloved sofa and I are spending huge expanses of time (relatively) away from one another. I have to snatch the odd ten minutes here and there in order to try and get through all my dramas. I have now downloaded the Nashville album and it is making kitchen time far more enjoyable and as luck would have it, Cybs finds my country mum dancing frickin hilarious. I am now desperate to talk 'country' on a full time basis and go round talking/singing about my feelings and my head and my heart and my heart and my head and refer to a group of people as y'all. I can use 'honey' as a term of endearment and refer to myself in the third person as Mama without attracting too much attention so I am going to start off with that.
I have also hit upon a genius idea to boost the morale of the country at the moment - well actually just the people with children but that is a vast number of them so I still stand by it - my idea is 'Parenting Certificates' - something to help give us a little lift after all the crappy weather, potential loss of child benefit, tax credits, shutting down of local hospital A and E departments etc etc etc. It would be relatively inexpensive but very effective so a real vote winner. I think it could work something like this; you would be able to nominate yourself or nominate others for a piece of parenting that you think is deserving of an award. It doesn't have to be groundbreaking or ambitious - I came up with the idea after my night out when a friend told me of her night fixing a tyre on the side of the road at three in the morning with her daughter in the back of the car, after spending the evening helping her very sick mother try and get the hospital care she needed and still made her important business meeting with Harvey Nichols the following day. The spectrum for brilliant parenting certificates (and I haven't worked it all out yet but I think there should also be a medal system for really outstanding feats) is wide and diverse, coping with chemotherapy and still making a child's school assembly; having a newborn and still throwing a fabulous birthday party for the older sibling; managing to feed the family when you have no money; making cakes for the school cake sale even though you have the flu - that kind of thing; getting a lovely shiny certificate through the post as a validation for your extra special effort or coping ability would be a real bonus. Especially if you weren't expecting it.Kids get certificates and rewards all the time - they love it and I am convinced adults want the same as well but are too grown up to admit it. To be honest, if they gave me a printer, some stamps and a website I'd probably offer to set up a Govt department from the comfort of my sofa. I could do with some more reasons to sit on it.
Righty ho I have to get going, sorry, this is all a bit bitty. Oh well, life is a bit bitty. Bit crap, bit good, bit happy, bit sad. Sometimes you want to go around hugging people, sometimes you want to go around punching them in the face and then kneeing them in the crotch. Such is life. That's it for now. Y'all go and enjoy yourselves. I'm off to bed to cope with a screaming Cybs.
Tarahhhh xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
On Monday I discovered I had put on 2lbs, then I took G to the dentist who was very welcoming, asked if he knew me already and then asked me if I was pregnant. I said 'No' I had just had a baby which was in fact, in my arms right in front of him. He (who was quite portly himself) then apologised and said it was because he thought I had been to him before, however it was quite clear he was mistaking me for someone who was pregnant. To make it worse he then continued by saying that it took his wife a year to lose her baby weight. Which just confirmed the fact that he thought I was fat. I don't mind or take it to heart because I am fat and am acutely aware of it. However, imagine if I was 25 stone post pregnancy and had in fact lost a SHED load of weight and was now the thinnest I've ever been - it could have been incredibly upsetting. He shouldn't assume just because I am fat now that I wasn't fatter before - although admittedly it isn't easy to phrase that either. I think all in all unless a woman makes a point of saying she is pregnant NEVER ask her. It doesn't usually end well.
On Thursday morning as we cuddled in bed chatting Ted said "I hate that bitch". I asked him to say it again. He said it slower, but perfectly, I hate that bitch. We were in the middle of talking about his nursery and how he was having the day off but would go back tomorrow and see his beloved Marianna (his key worker) and more importantly Be Good. The day before I had been to his nursery for his parent teachers and yet again, was told that Ted's behaviour was erratic. It seems he has teamed up with a like minded party-starter and they feed off each others mischief and get themselves in to terrible trouble. So, as you can imagine this wasn't the ideal start to his 'new leaf' of good behaviour and I was worried that he was angry at his key worker for telling me about the bad behaviour and getting him in to trouble. I also mentally berated myself for allowing him to watch '12' Certificate DVDs - which in my considerable defence is because it seems all the superhero films seem to be a '12' - all four Spiderman ones, Captain America, Fantastic Four etc (and yet Coraline, where the protagonist is asked to gouge out her eyes and sew buttons in their place is a PG????). I decided to talk around the subject to discover his use of this new word. I asked what he was talking about and why he felt that about her. To my great relief it would appear that he has developed an interesting lisp and what he actually meant was 'I hate that bit' which referred to the day before when Marianna had insisted he tidied up for tidy up time. The relief I felt was, as you can imagine, momentous. There is a vast difference between the odd 'shit' and 'bloody' absorbed from his mother but at the age of three to refer to his nursery key worker as a bitch really would have concerned me greatly.
So, back to last week (my timeline is all out for this one but I can't be bothered, so just try and keep up). I survived, Cybs survived and even K survived the Actual Night Out. It was a stunning success. I will admit I had a wobbly moment about leaving as I was putting her down in the cot but once I was in the car and off I felt quite excitable. It was all jolly lovely and the pizza was deeeeelish. And huge. Just how I like them. Cybs stayed beautifully asleep for my entire venture over the river and back and I got to catch up with all my old school friends - it was a fabulous turn out. I even made it home in time to catch the local mothers at a birthday booze in the tapas bar round the corner. They hadn't eaten so were well away by the time I arrived at 11 and it hit me instantly how much more fun 'drunk' is when you are the one who is actually enjoying its effects. So, on my first Actual Night Out I got to two events, Cybs didn't suffer and I was in bed and ready for sleep by midnight. I shan't be doing it again any time soon but just to know that I have done it is quite enough for now. Especially as that was one of the last times she did sleep well - ever since my night out we (I say we but actually I mean I - K takes over in extreme circumstances but it is me who does it 99% of the time) have been suffering from nightly screaming of around an hour and a half which is making me slightly crazy.
I hate to admit it but I am not particularly good at coping with non sleeping babies. She is usually ok in the evening but once you reach 10 o'clock it enters 'the danger zone' and she could wake at any point and then cry on and off for around an hour and a half. But on Thursday night it didn't stop. I tried everything, in the bed with me, in her cot, feeding, dummy, ignoring, cuddling etc etc. In the end I gave up and put the pillow over my head and ignored her cries which left K to take over. Mercifully so, as by that point Bea and G had also been woken up and the cries were reaching epic levels. He took her downstairs and away from me. Bea was sobbing by this point. It was a horrid night. My thoughts towards my youngest were uncharitable at best and potentially fatal at their worst. It seems totally 'other wordly' in the cold light of day, that I could ever have felt such horrid things. I know I am going to be eternally damned for just 'thinking' these things but I also said some pretty mean things to her and I wasn't exactly gentle and loving. I felt hideously bad about it all of Friday morning - particularly when I read a blog from a woman who had lost her son at a year old and then listened to a woman on the radio, quite by chance, speaking about the loss of her son who was nearly two. I took both of these things as signs that I should be nicer to poor C and have been so ever since. Luckily, she has also slept better.
I don't read parenting books or have a particular 'style' - I am most definitely not an Earth Mother (see above), Yummy Mummy (too fat, lazy and poor), Working Mother or a Gina Ford regimented type either. I have decided that my 'style' should be summarised as The Haphazard Parent - this is for two reasons - the 'hap' part stands for happy - on the whole I am quite happy to do it and my children are quite happy and due to my laziness and laid back approach to almost every aspect of my life they don't seem to have any major anxieties or tense, worrying behaviour and seem generally ok. However the downside to my haphazard school of child rearing is the 'hazard' part. Not having a hard and fast method of getting babies to sleep through the night, believing my 3 year old might refer to his Nursery key worker as 'that bitch' due to the crap I let him watch on TV, putting off going to the dentists for too long so that G has severe decay in two teeth and although the dentist assures me that some teeth are more prone to decay than others and it is actually more to do with genetics than a lack of oral hygiene, ultimately even if the decay was not entirely my fault, I should have taken him to the dentist far more often than I did. So there is the hazard part. There are many other hazards obviously but these are the most recent.
On the plus side of life is my new TV Heaven - Nashville - a better concept of a programme that doesn't take place in a hospital I cannot think of - country music, bitch fights, fit men, children, marriage, deceit - all bundled up in a fab one hour segment. Brothers and Sisters was good but I think this may just top it. Luckily there is only one programme a week or I might get stuck on the sofa again like I did with the Real Housewives. Now Cybs is bigger and requires far less feeding, my beloved sofa and I are spending huge expanses of time (relatively) away from one another. I have to snatch the odd ten minutes here and there in order to try and get through all my dramas. I have now downloaded the Nashville album and it is making kitchen time far more enjoyable and as luck would have it, Cybs finds my country mum dancing frickin hilarious. I am now desperate to talk 'country' on a full time basis and go round talking/singing about my feelings and my head and my heart and my heart and my head and refer to a group of people as y'all. I can use 'honey' as a term of endearment and refer to myself in the third person as Mama without attracting too much attention so I am going to start off with that.
I have also hit upon a genius idea to boost the morale of the country at the moment - well actually just the people with children but that is a vast number of them so I still stand by it - my idea is 'Parenting Certificates' - something to help give us a little lift after all the crappy weather, potential loss of child benefit, tax credits, shutting down of local hospital A and E departments etc etc etc. It would be relatively inexpensive but very effective so a real vote winner. I think it could work something like this; you would be able to nominate yourself or nominate others for a piece of parenting that you think is deserving of an award. It doesn't have to be groundbreaking or ambitious - I came up with the idea after my night out when a friend told me of her night fixing a tyre on the side of the road at three in the morning with her daughter in the back of the car, after spending the evening helping her very sick mother try and get the hospital care she needed and still made her important business meeting with Harvey Nichols the following day. The spectrum for brilliant parenting certificates (and I haven't worked it all out yet but I think there should also be a medal system for really outstanding feats) is wide and diverse, coping with chemotherapy and still making a child's school assembly; having a newborn and still throwing a fabulous birthday party for the older sibling; managing to feed the family when you have no money; making cakes for the school cake sale even though you have the flu - that kind of thing; getting a lovely shiny certificate through the post as a validation for your extra special effort or coping ability would be a real bonus. Especially if you weren't expecting it.Kids get certificates and rewards all the time - they love it and I am convinced adults want the same as well but are too grown up to admit it. To be honest, if they gave me a printer, some stamps and a website I'd probably offer to set up a Govt department from the comfort of my sofa. I could do with some more reasons to sit on it.
Righty ho I have to get going, sorry, this is all a bit bitty. Oh well, life is a bit bitty. Bit crap, bit good, bit happy, bit sad. Sometimes you want to go around hugging people, sometimes you want to go around punching them in the face and then kneeing them in the crotch. Such is life. That's it for now. Y'all go and enjoy yourselves. I'm off to bed to cope with a screaming Cybs.
Tarahhhh xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Thursday, 14 March 2013
Mother's Day and out
Bonjour, hola, hello and welcome. I have been trying to catch you up for ages - sadly every time I put it down on virtual paper it all sounds ridiculously dull - I keep trying to 'sex it up' to make it more appealing for you guys but that has meant that it hasn't got written so I'll just say it 'as it is'. Sorry.
I went OUT. YES OUT. I exited the house in a gay fashion totally alone. Alone I tell you, alone. Toute seule. It was fabulous. I mean I only walked down the road to the school to sit on a child's chair at a child's table and answer quiz questions based on the children's curriculum but still, it was a night out of the house with no actual children and no one wanting to feed off me. I met Cybil's Godmother there and we merrily caught up, drank a lot of wine and attempted to answer questions and it was all treeeeemendous fun. I even surprised myself by knowing the answers to about ten questions which was thrilling, although sadly I was not believed for half of them which was fair enough as I didn't know I knew half of them. I even knew a character called Rainbow Bright which is amazing as I have no recollection of her or from where she hails. So strange. Anyway - the night itself was a huge success however the Cybil aspect of the equation was not as successful - having promised K I would be home by 10.30, the final round of the quiz began at five to eleven and I felt that I really did need to see it through to the end however at around the same time I received a text from K telling me that Cybs had been awake for half an hour and was incredibly unhappy and that Bea had awoken due to the noise. I asked, via text, if I needed to come back. K replied, 'no, you stay as long as you like'. I, being ever the hopeful drunk romantic, assumed that he was willing to suffer the noise and annoyance so that I could finish my first night out in a bloody long time and continued to help with the last quiz round on film music (I got one wrong and one right so I cancelled myself out and may as well have left). I texted him to say thank you and to officially approve any actions he wanted to take as regards Cybs. Eventually the reply arrived and it involved the 'f' word. It turns out he had chosen a very inopportune time to try sarcasm in a text. Upon the receipt of the 'f'ing' text I grabbed my coat and hurried home to silence the mewling infant.
The following day I felt the full force of my first night of over indulgence and by 7.30 am I was sat cross legged in my beloved onesie on the floor of Bea and G's bedroom with my head in my hands and started to wail about how on earth I was going to get them up and out. Mercifully Bea was being kind and helpful and after I had some tea and toast I felt well enough to get me dressed and the children fed. I also knew that I was aiming towards sitting in the hairdressers for my first hair cut since November which helped considerably. I deposited the big two with their respective schools and dropped Ted with a kind friend to play with her son. My baby childcare fell through at the last minute but luckily Cybs was either very tired or slightly drugged from the drinking I did the night before as she sat very happily on me and drifted in and out of sleep for hours. It was glorious. The only slight issue was that it was costing money we don't really have. Should you be someone who is contemplating giving up work forever I must warn you that getting your hair done will be a bone of contention for the rest of your life. For some reason, and I don't know why, K having his hair cut once a month is a 'necessity' but me having my hair done every few months is a 'luxury'. I don't know if this is true for every household but it certainly is in ours. It is a major issue and I will admit to having a rather large, hungover style paddy on Friday a.m when the subject of payment reared its ugly head once again. To be fair if he had lots of money he wouldn't grumble and is quite generous however when money is tight it is incredibly irritating when I know full well that he will leave the house and think nothing of buying an extortionately priced pack of flipping cigarettes but has a major issue with me getting my lanky hair cut and coloured for an extremetly reasonable price. GRRRRRR. And so it is that the downside of not having your own income is a. your wardrobe is crap and b. your hair and make up are not deemed necessities however there will always be money for fags and booze however tight the budget.
Mother's Day. Now I should imagine your day was ever so slightly marred by my lack of contact. I know it is now traditional for me to spend the afternoon alone and writing to you guys but this year I broke with tradition and decided to surprise my mum with a round trip to Suffolk. It would have made a fantastic surprise too if it wasn't for my beautiful but slightly moronic nephew who misinterprated my text asking what 'mum' was doing for mother's day and assumed I meant his mum and not mine. The ensuing conversation I had with him was clearly at cross purposes too but we didn't realise our misunderstanding until I was on my way down to Suffolk first thing Sunday morning and my mother rang. It would appear that the beautiful nephew turned around after our conversation and informed my mother that I would be coming down to Suffolk but that I would definitely NOT be coming to see her and that I was instead planning to spend the day with my sister. It didn't occur to the beautiful boy that it might be a tad hurtful to callously inform his grandma that I would be driving for nearly four hours in a day and coming to within five miles of her house on mother's day but not bothering to even drop by and deliver my missing card. It seems quite hilarious now but obviously at the time I was a trifle annoyed as it was meant to be a fabulous surprise for her and indeed be her 'gift' as I hadn't even remembered to post her card in time so this was really meant to make up for that. I haven't spent time at mum's without more than one child for over six years. It was remarkable to see what it it is like when we're not there and it is quiet. It was lovely. I had planned for us to do something 'grown up' like going out for a long walk up to visit dad's grave or even go in to town but when I arrived mum was half way through a Sunday Roast for my nephew and niece who was also over. I clearly enjoyed the benefits of this roast and even had time to eat it as mum held Cybs so it was well worth the long car trip. Unfortunately mum was worried about the cost of my Diesel so she also gave me money for my return journey. I think I may be the only adult who ended up making her mother cook for her, cost her money and inadvertantly caused her distress for the night preceding mother's day. Still, it all worked out in the end - I arrived home to find the big three in bed and K cleaning the kitchen. I also got some lovely home made cards - Ted got very in to it and I had about four from him. All in all it worked out beautifully, both mothers visited and acknowledged and I got a rest. Perfect.
Other than that very little has happened. Expressing milk is a total no go. I have no idea how people do it. Or when. I tried to have a go at the weekend in the evening after Cybs had gone to bed (she does that now, finally - it is all very exciting) and I got just over one ounce of milk from both boobs. It was massively disheartening - especially as she just gagged on it when I tried to introduce her to it via the bottle. I then tried again a few nights later and got absolutely nothing. Not even a drop. Which reminds me yet again why I hate expressing so much, because even in the face of quite obvious successful breast feeding I began to worry that I wasn't actually producing as much milk as I thought. I am giving up on the whole expressing idea - especially as there is an awful lot of faffing involved with it. I am attempting to leave the house once again tonight for the Actual Night Out I started all this sleep training/expressing malarkey for in the first place so I am very hopeful she will sleep peacefully and allow me to inhale my pizza without worry. Mercifully there is no drinking tonight as I will be driving. I don't think I could live through another hangover with this many children and this little sleep behind me.
So, that is it. Not sexed up and a bit matter of fact. But at least you know what has happened. I must go and pick up Ted and attempt a restful afternoon before all the excitement tonight. I may finally have got Cybs to sleep in the evening but I still struggle to stay awake. Not only was last Friday a nightmare for me but I also ended up going to bed at 7.30 which was a good three hours after I wanted to go to bed. I am definitely not young anymore.....
Until the next time. Au Revoir. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I went OUT. YES OUT. I exited the house in a gay fashion totally alone. Alone I tell you, alone. Toute seule. It was fabulous. I mean I only walked down the road to the school to sit on a child's chair at a child's table and answer quiz questions based on the children's curriculum but still, it was a night out of the house with no actual children and no one wanting to feed off me. I met Cybil's Godmother there and we merrily caught up, drank a lot of wine and attempted to answer questions and it was all treeeeemendous fun. I even surprised myself by knowing the answers to about ten questions which was thrilling, although sadly I was not believed for half of them which was fair enough as I didn't know I knew half of them. I even knew a character called Rainbow Bright which is amazing as I have no recollection of her or from where she hails. So strange. Anyway - the night itself was a huge success however the Cybil aspect of the equation was not as successful - having promised K I would be home by 10.30, the final round of the quiz began at five to eleven and I felt that I really did need to see it through to the end however at around the same time I received a text from K telling me that Cybs had been awake for half an hour and was incredibly unhappy and that Bea had awoken due to the noise. I asked, via text, if I needed to come back. K replied, 'no, you stay as long as you like'. I, being ever the hopeful drunk romantic, assumed that he was willing to suffer the noise and annoyance so that I could finish my first night out in a bloody long time and continued to help with the last quiz round on film music (I got one wrong and one right so I cancelled myself out and may as well have left). I texted him to say thank you and to officially approve any actions he wanted to take as regards Cybs. Eventually the reply arrived and it involved the 'f' word. It turns out he had chosen a very inopportune time to try sarcasm in a text. Upon the receipt of the 'f'ing' text I grabbed my coat and hurried home to silence the mewling infant.
The following day I felt the full force of my first night of over indulgence and by 7.30 am I was sat cross legged in my beloved onesie on the floor of Bea and G's bedroom with my head in my hands and started to wail about how on earth I was going to get them up and out. Mercifully Bea was being kind and helpful and after I had some tea and toast I felt well enough to get me dressed and the children fed. I also knew that I was aiming towards sitting in the hairdressers for my first hair cut since November which helped considerably. I deposited the big two with their respective schools and dropped Ted with a kind friend to play with her son. My baby childcare fell through at the last minute but luckily Cybs was either very tired or slightly drugged from the drinking I did the night before as she sat very happily on me and drifted in and out of sleep for hours. It was glorious. The only slight issue was that it was costing money we don't really have. Should you be someone who is contemplating giving up work forever I must warn you that getting your hair done will be a bone of contention for the rest of your life. For some reason, and I don't know why, K having his hair cut once a month is a 'necessity' but me having my hair done every few months is a 'luxury'. I don't know if this is true for every household but it certainly is in ours. It is a major issue and I will admit to having a rather large, hungover style paddy on Friday a.m when the subject of payment reared its ugly head once again. To be fair if he had lots of money he wouldn't grumble and is quite generous however when money is tight it is incredibly irritating when I know full well that he will leave the house and think nothing of buying an extortionately priced pack of flipping cigarettes but has a major issue with me getting my lanky hair cut and coloured for an extremetly reasonable price. GRRRRRR. And so it is that the downside of not having your own income is a. your wardrobe is crap and b. your hair and make up are not deemed necessities however there will always be money for fags and booze however tight the budget.
Mother's Day. Now I should imagine your day was ever so slightly marred by my lack of contact. I know it is now traditional for me to spend the afternoon alone and writing to you guys but this year I broke with tradition and decided to surprise my mum with a round trip to Suffolk. It would have made a fantastic surprise too if it wasn't for my beautiful but slightly moronic nephew who misinterprated my text asking what 'mum' was doing for mother's day and assumed I meant his mum and not mine. The ensuing conversation I had with him was clearly at cross purposes too but we didn't realise our misunderstanding until I was on my way down to Suffolk first thing Sunday morning and my mother rang. It would appear that the beautiful nephew turned around after our conversation and informed my mother that I would be coming down to Suffolk but that I would definitely NOT be coming to see her and that I was instead planning to spend the day with my sister. It didn't occur to the beautiful boy that it might be a tad hurtful to callously inform his grandma that I would be driving for nearly four hours in a day and coming to within five miles of her house on mother's day but not bothering to even drop by and deliver my missing card. It seems quite hilarious now but obviously at the time I was a trifle annoyed as it was meant to be a fabulous surprise for her and indeed be her 'gift' as I hadn't even remembered to post her card in time so this was really meant to make up for that. I haven't spent time at mum's without more than one child for over six years. It was remarkable to see what it it is like when we're not there and it is quiet. It was lovely. I had planned for us to do something 'grown up' like going out for a long walk up to visit dad's grave or even go in to town but when I arrived mum was half way through a Sunday Roast for my nephew and niece who was also over. I clearly enjoyed the benefits of this roast and even had time to eat it as mum held Cybs so it was well worth the long car trip. Unfortunately mum was worried about the cost of my Diesel so she also gave me money for my return journey. I think I may be the only adult who ended up making her mother cook for her, cost her money and inadvertantly caused her distress for the night preceding mother's day. Still, it all worked out in the end - I arrived home to find the big three in bed and K cleaning the kitchen. I also got some lovely home made cards - Ted got very in to it and I had about four from him. All in all it worked out beautifully, both mothers visited and acknowledged and I got a rest. Perfect.
Other than that very little has happened. Expressing milk is a total no go. I have no idea how people do it. Or when. I tried to have a go at the weekend in the evening after Cybs had gone to bed (she does that now, finally - it is all very exciting) and I got just over one ounce of milk from both boobs. It was massively disheartening - especially as she just gagged on it when I tried to introduce her to it via the bottle. I then tried again a few nights later and got absolutely nothing. Not even a drop. Which reminds me yet again why I hate expressing so much, because even in the face of quite obvious successful breast feeding I began to worry that I wasn't actually producing as much milk as I thought. I am giving up on the whole expressing idea - especially as there is an awful lot of faffing involved with it. I am attempting to leave the house once again tonight for the Actual Night Out I started all this sleep training/expressing malarkey for in the first place so I am very hopeful she will sleep peacefully and allow me to inhale my pizza without worry. Mercifully there is no drinking tonight as I will be driving. I don't think I could live through another hangover with this many children and this little sleep behind me.
So, that is it. Not sexed up and a bit matter of fact. But at least you know what has happened. I must go and pick up Ted and attempt a restful afternoon before all the excitement tonight. I may finally have got Cybs to sleep in the evening but I still struggle to stay awake. Not only was last Friday a nightmare for me but I also ended up going to bed at 7.30 which was a good three hours after I wanted to go to bed. I am definitely not young anymore.....
Until the next time. Au Revoir. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Tuesday, 26 February 2013
Still nothing particularly interesting I'm afraid
I am back and full of vim and vigour (slight exaggeration but at least able to keep my eyes open) after my half term staycation chez mother. I was a tad concerned that the temporary lodger she has taken in (my teenage nephew) might adversely affect the service, but mercifully not - all was normal and I got to recuperate after the exhausting month that preceded the break.
This Winter has gone on for far too long. I am desperate for Spring to arrive and hopefully bring with it an end to the constant coughs and colds with which we are currently plagued. Also C seems to be teething which is making life rather hellish. She is, at this precise moment, trying to gum her way through a Top Trump card. I am too tired to stop her as it is keeping her quiet. She managed to gum her way convincingly through an entire piece of Margarita pizza over the half term. I took Bea and G out with their cousins for a meal and after rejecting the crust C spent half an hour devouring her first taste of pizza. I have no idea what the 'official' meal plan is for a 6 month old but I heartily recommend introducing pizza from Frankie and Benny's. Far nicer than cottage cheese and papaya which I have heard is the preferred choice of the yummy mummies. I wouldn't eat that shit so I have no idea why I expect my baby to. Ditto with baby rice - what the hell is the reason for it? It is tasteless crap - you are far better off mashing potato and adding fruit and veg to it or giving them some bread. I am still unable to understand why it is peddled as the best thing to wean a baby on - it is so dull and as far as i can make out it's just a sort of cereal mush which is fortified with vitamins they don't particularly need if they are getting them elsewhere. Food is a huge love of mine and I consider it a total disservice to introduce new human beings to the amazing world of food with one of the blandest non-specific crap created by man. Sorry - I have become ranty - you get the message.
Valentine's - K surprised me with a spectacularly good looking bunch of flowers and a funny card. I was shocked. I didn't even do a card. Well we don't tend to. As I have explained before I don't really believe in it. Even so, I was so shocked and pleased with my surprise valentine that we decided to make an occasion of the evening with a Micheal McIntyre DVD, champagne and good food. It was an entirely surprising day. In recognition of his effort, when he arrived at my mum's that weekend I offered to slip in to something a bit more comfortable for him.......... I came back down from my bath in my new, navy blue, Tesco onesie. He is such a lucky chap. I look like a developed Cabbage Patch doll in it, but I care not a jot. It is beautifully comfy and the children and I can now all wear one and they think it's hilarious. I did take a sneaky peek in the mirror and it wasn't too horrifying if you like cabbage patch dolls (which I do) but I was struck by how excess weight really does block out the light. If I look in the mirror I am stealing all lighting from behind me as there are no gaps between my arms and main body, or in between my legs, so I am just a block of light stealing, onesie wearing, 'special' looking adult. Anyhoo. It acts as a great form of contraception which can only be a good thing.
My allure wasn't much better during my teenage years. Whilst away I discovered my old diary in my bedroom and low and behold my weight was making me pretty miserable 20 years ago as well. Funnily enough my writing style was very similar and my foreign language skills were as developed. And my attempts at procuring a boyfriend were laughable. My favourite entry, alongside many moany entries about my hideous family, was the following. "Went to Center Parcs with Nell. Rang Anton to ask him out. He said No. I'm not surprised as Nell had only just dumped him. Oh well. Bibi says he thinks I'm a weirdo. That hurt." My total and utter lack of finesse with the opposite sex is quite incomprehensible. They are easy creatures - look pretty, flirt, smile and don't ring up the day after they are dumped and ask them out on a date. I was a hopeless 14 year old. The only male I regularly had contact with up until my 16th Birthday was my dad. All other information I learnt about males was from the TV or books. And for some inexplicable reason my favourite reading matter at the time was Take A Break magazine. I was a most peculiar child. It does explain why I didn't have a boyfriend until I was 17 though.
Anyway, back to the half term. I managed to make a rather fabulous costume for Bea to wear on World Book Day, thanks to mum's endless reserves of 'stuff'. She manages to pull almost anything you need out of a cupboard or a drawer - even I am impressed with the costume I managed to produce from an old skirt and a netting bed canopy, but her ability to produce the materials needed is far more impressive. I would defy anyone to arrive at the house, ask for something obscure and for her not to manage to find something that would suffice for the purpose. One evening we picked up my nieces from the station at 5.30pm for a sleepover (their half term was stupidly different to ours which meant we had to snatch their presence whenever we could) - as we neared Grandma's house, and therefore quite a few miles from my sister's house, the youngest one remembered that she had to go in to school dressed as a Tudor the following day. As they catch their train at 6.50am in the morning it didn't give us much scope for picking it up en route for her return to the station. So, within ten minutes of arriving at mum's she had managed to whip out a hat, top, apron and long skirt - et voila! A Tudor child was produced. It really is quite a skill. As is my pleasing feat of taking all four children to the cinema on my own. As the cousins were busy at school or work, we had to amuse ourselves for the week - which meant I was the only one available to take them to see Wreck It Ralph. (Oh - you may not understand that mother doesn't 'do' the cinema - the last time she entered a cinema with children was, I think, when she took Newly Married Sister, Me and two friends to see White Fang - but made us all walk out half way through as she was so angry at the dog fighting aspect of the film - oddly that embarrassment wasn't in my diary - surely there couldn't have been anything worse?). It actually went better than expected - the big three sat behind me and I sat with Cybs at the start and then after various kerfuffles, I ended up with G sitting behind me holding on to my neck, Bea and Ted on my lap and Cybs asleep in the travel buggy in front of me which I wiggled with my foot. Still, we all stayed for the entire film without even leaving for a wee break. The rest of the week actually turned out to be very sociable after a recent (in the last few years) influx of 'fresh blood' in to mum's village and the subsequent children they have provided, coupled with a lovely day spent with our old SE23 neighbours who chose to move to Norwich a month after we moved in. I was sorry to come home and back to the freezing school run, endless washing piles and constant food preparation.
The first school run back is always a mixed bag - horrible because you are up and dressed and cold at 8.30am but happy because you are finally going to be temporarily absolved of responsibility. Particularly welcome after a hideous night of no-sleep thanks to C and her various cough, cold, teething ailments. As I left one school on Monday morning to deliver Ted to his, I overheard a conversation from a mum who was telling another one that she had been skiing during the half term. To Val D'Isere no less. I felt momentarily lifted at how 'up and coming' our school was - only to turn around and see another mother turn her head and spitting on to the pavement whilst pushing her buggy and then I had to veer my buggy around some poo. Lesson Learnt.
Quickly before I go - my night out goal is progressing nicely. I am now in posession of an electric breast pump (still haven't had the guts to use it though) and I have managed to persuade C to sleep in her cot from 7-11pm with just a dummy for comfort. Hoorah! And I have organised a local night out as practise the week before - so if there is no serious illness issues I should finally make it out of the house sans enfants a mere 7 months in. Muchos Exctingos.
Right, I better go and get Ted and ruin my tranquil morning idyll. More fascinating news and updates will be with you as soon as possible. Now I have my evenings clear anything is possible.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
This Winter has gone on for far too long. I am desperate for Spring to arrive and hopefully bring with it an end to the constant coughs and colds with which we are currently plagued. Also C seems to be teething which is making life rather hellish. She is, at this precise moment, trying to gum her way through a Top Trump card. I am too tired to stop her as it is keeping her quiet. She managed to gum her way convincingly through an entire piece of Margarita pizza over the half term. I took Bea and G out with their cousins for a meal and after rejecting the crust C spent half an hour devouring her first taste of pizza. I have no idea what the 'official' meal plan is for a 6 month old but I heartily recommend introducing pizza from Frankie and Benny's. Far nicer than cottage cheese and papaya which I have heard is the preferred choice of the yummy mummies. I wouldn't eat that shit so I have no idea why I expect my baby to. Ditto with baby rice - what the hell is the reason for it? It is tasteless crap - you are far better off mashing potato and adding fruit and veg to it or giving them some bread. I am still unable to understand why it is peddled as the best thing to wean a baby on - it is so dull and as far as i can make out it's just a sort of cereal mush which is fortified with vitamins they don't particularly need if they are getting them elsewhere. Food is a huge love of mine and I consider it a total disservice to introduce new human beings to the amazing world of food with one of the blandest non-specific crap created by man. Sorry - I have become ranty - you get the message.
Valentine's - K surprised me with a spectacularly good looking bunch of flowers and a funny card. I was shocked. I didn't even do a card. Well we don't tend to. As I have explained before I don't really believe in it. Even so, I was so shocked and pleased with my surprise valentine that we decided to make an occasion of the evening with a Micheal McIntyre DVD, champagne and good food. It was an entirely surprising day. In recognition of his effort, when he arrived at my mum's that weekend I offered to slip in to something a bit more comfortable for him.......... I came back down from my bath in my new, navy blue, Tesco onesie. He is such a lucky chap. I look like a developed Cabbage Patch doll in it, but I care not a jot. It is beautifully comfy and the children and I can now all wear one and they think it's hilarious. I did take a sneaky peek in the mirror and it wasn't too horrifying if you like cabbage patch dolls (which I do) but I was struck by how excess weight really does block out the light. If I look in the mirror I am stealing all lighting from behind me as there are no gaps between my arms and main body, or in between my legs, so I am just a block of light stealing, onesie wearing, 'special' looking adult. Anyhoo. It acts as a great form of contraception which can only be a good thing.
My allure wasn't much better during my teenage years. Whilst away I discovered my old diary in my bedroom and low and behold my weight was making me pretty miserable 20 years ago as well. Funnily enough my writing style was very similar and my foreign language skills were as developed. And my attempts at procuring a boyfriend were laughable. My favourite entry, alongside many moany entries about my hideous family, was the following. "Went to Center Parcs with Nell. Rang Anton to ask him out. He said No. I'm not surprised as Nell had only just dumped him. Oh well. Bibi says he thinks I'm a weirdo. That hurt." My total and utter lack of finesse with the opposite sex is quite incomprehensible. They are easy creatures - look pretty, flirt, smile and don't ring up the day after they are dumped and ask them out on a date. I was a hopeless 14 year old. The only male I regularly had contact with up until my 16th Birthday was my dad. All other information I learnt about males was from the TV or books. And for some inexplicable reason my favourite reading matter at the time was Take A Break magazine. I was a most peculiar child. It does explain why I didn't have a boyfriend until I was 17 though.
Anyway, back to the half term. I managed to make a rather fabulous costume for Bea to wear on World Book Day, thanks to mum's endless reserves of 'stuff'. She manages to pull almost anything you need out of a cupboard or a drawer - even I am impressed with the costume I managed to produce from an old skirt and a netting bed canopy, but her ability to produce the materials needed is far more impressive. I would defy anyone to arrive at the house, ask for something obscure and for her not to manage to find something that would suffice for the purpose. One evening we picked up my nieces from the station at 5.30pm for a sleepover (their half term was stupidly different to ours which meant we had to snatch their presence whenever we could) - as we neared Grandma's house, and therefore quite a few miles from my sister's house, the youngest one remembered that she had to go in to school dressed as a Tudor the following day. As they catch their train at 6.50am in the morning it didn't give us much scope for picking it up en route for her return to the station. So, within ten minutes of arriving at mum's she had managed to whip out a hat, top, apron and long skirt - et voila! A Tudor child was produced. It really is quite a skill. As is my pleasing feat of taking all four children to the cinema on my own. As the cousins were busy at school or work, we had to amuse ourselves for the week - which meant I was the only one available to take them to see Wreck It Ralph. (Oh - you may not understand that mother doesn't 'do' the cinema - the last time she entered a cinema with children was, I think, when she took Newly Married Sister, Me and two friends to see White Fang - but made us all walk out half way through as she was so angry at the dog fighting aspect of the film - oddly that embarrassment wasn't in my diary - surely there couldn't have been anything worse?). It actually went better than expected - the big three sat behind me and I sat with Cybs at the start and then after various kerfuffles, I ended up with G sitting behind me holding on to my neck, Bea and Ted on my lap and Cybs asleep in the travel buggy in front of me which I wiggled with my foot. Still, we all stayed for the entire film without even leaving for a wee break. The rest of the week actually turned out to be very sociable after a recent (in the last few years) influx of 'fresh blood' in to mum's village and the subsequent children they have provided, coupled with a lovely day spent with our old SE23 neighbours who chose to move to Norwich a month after we moved in. I was sorry to come home and back to the freezing school run, endless washing piles and constant food preparation.
The first school run back is always a mixed bag - horrible because you are up and dressed and cold at 8.30am but happy because you are finally going to be temporarily absolved of responsibility. Particularly welcome after a hideous night of no-sleep thanks to C and her various cough, cold, teething ailments. As I left one school on Monday morning to deliver Ted to his, I overheard a conversation from a mum who was telling another one that she had been skiing during the half term. To Val D'Isere no less. I felt momentarily lifted at how 'up and coming' our school was - only to turn around and see another mother turn her head and spitting on to the pavement whilst pushing her buggy and then I had to veer my buggy around some poo. Lesson Learnt.
Quickly before I go - my night out goal is progressing nicely. I am now in posession of an electric breast pump (still haven't had the guts to use it though) and I have managed to persuade C to sleep in her cot from 7-11pm with just a dummy for comfort. Hoorah! And I have organised a local night out as practise the week before - so if there is no serious illness issues I should finally make it out of the house sans enfants a mere 7 months in. Muchos Exctingos.
Right, I better go and get Ted and ruin my tranquil morning idyll. More fascinating news and updates will be with you as soon as possible. Now I have my evenings clear anything is possible.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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