Happy Halloween

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Baba

'I not a baby mummy; I a big girl.'

Most of the time I do agree.








But, for just a few minutes after bathtime, she still is. Don't you agree?








(ok she will always be a baby to me)

Sorry

Sorry is a really small word and one that can be tossed around, often without thought, as a quick fix.

Recently, as I've mentioned before, Isobel has been a bit of a pickle and she has started apologising for her behaviour.

I often hear 'sorry mummy'.

Now, I know I should be pleased that she apologises and, that it is quite valid that I feel a little disappointed that it has been necessary (disappointed in both her and in me).


The thing is it actually gives me the fear. Maybe I feel like I am always apologising for being me; perhaps I remember that feeling if knowing that I have disappointed someone who I just want to love me; or maybe it's because I want Isobel to know my unconditional love.

Or maybe I do just want her to be good.






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My little ray of sunshine

This morning I was greeted by a grumpy little girl who could see no good in anything.

In fact I was even driven to ask 'what do you like today?'

The response to which was 'Daddy'.

So I pointed out the joyous news that she would see daddy this evening after nursery. But, even that wasn't quite good enough.

First it was 'Daddy come to our house, no go to daddy's house mummy please?'

When that was agreed, a new plan was contrived: 'we go cafe, westraunt, mummy daddy and mummy too. Please mummy. Okay. Okay mummy please?'

Now I didn't even know that she knew the word restaurant!

So we rung PD, who started his commute to the sound of his daughter requesting to dine out.

Luckily Isobel's idea of a restaurant is Pizza Express.










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Mummy calling Starship Enterprise

Every mother has moments when she wishes the ground would swallow her or better still that Scotty would beam her child up.

Every mother of a two year old has these moments twice as often.

Today I hosted, what used to be a regular, lunch. We had big news to celebrate: an engagement, a marriage and a baby on the way and I only had two couples as guests.

It was an opportunity for catching up and also a perfect time for one of those proud mummy moments when other people meet your angel mini-me and congratulate you on being such a fab parent that you have created a perfectly lovely little girl.

Well that was the plan.

Isobel had other ideas. She had just come back from PDs and she had only had half-hour nap and I had woken her up and she's two, and......

I can make excuses but she smacked little Sam on the Trampoline; she threw a ball at him when he was taking a turn on her bike, smacked him for .... I can't remember, my mind has blanked it out.

In the end Isobel was very eager for Sam to go home and he was equally pleased to have her hand him his shoes and dummy and wave bye bye. Actually they were so pleased to say good bye they kissed.

Our house

Has two floors: down-downstairs and up-downstairs.

And our garden has a big top:







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Mothers and daughters

Today is my Mummy's birthday. Isobel has been excited about Grandma's birthday, she has made a card and has so far resisted posting it as she wants to give it to her.

The relationship between a Mother and daughter has to be one of the most difficult in the world. I am incredibly close to my Mum but it's not always easy.

Maybe mothers and daughter's are too alike; they always know which buttons to press and often without meaning to can hurt the deepest.

I can talk to my Mummy about anything, I can run away home when life gets too much and I know she feels my hurt. I think we are even beginning to dress alike (she is copying me I hasten to add)

Happy Birthday Mummy, I love you...

But, I'm scared witless about having a daughter myself!

Out of the mouth of my babe

On Saturday my daughter called me a 'slag'.

Now I'm the first to admit that, in my past, I have had my slutty moments but I would never be described as a slag!

I (like to) think it was a slip of the tongue as PD was trying to teach her that term of affection he uses for me and his mum: old bag....

But I really can't fathom how she got to slag!


Oh, as I typed that I can: it's yet another one of PDs pet names for me.

(I promise he doesn't mean it, he is just misguided and sometimes it's wishful thinking in his part!)


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Birthday resolution

I believe birthday resolutions should always involve a positive action, not be something you will no longer do but something you will.

So, this year I resolve to believe a little more.

I will believe in myself, in love and in happy ever afters.

Birthday Boxing Day

Today is the day after my birthday and I should be up and at 'em, putting my best foot forward and brimming with positive resolutions for the next year.

But, my feet ache, my head is throbbing, my ears are ringing, my mouth feels like a badgers bottom (not that I have ever licked one -honest),and my diet red ambulance is in the fridge downstairs which is too far away.






Yes, I had a great night!

And I am giving thanks that I do not have a two year old bouncing on my head.

I'll make resolutions after my shower when my drinkers self loathing fades.

Things my daughter has said to me this week

Waking up time mummy. Stretch. Come on Mummy stretch.


Zabracadabra make mummy's hands dispear; zabra mummy's hands better again.
Zabrabcabra make Mummy's face dispear; ooh not like that mummy.
zabra mummy pretty again; Oh.


(me: have you played nicely today?) No, I fight Emily.


I don't like that dress mummy, nooo mummy. *points to dress I'M wearing*


So looking forward to her being a teenager - not

The End

Yes, yes I know that sounds awfully dramatic, but I do like a bit of drama.

It's just that this last weekend has had me thinking a lot about ends while trying to focus on the continuings.

Sunday was the fifth anniversary of the loss of my beloved James, an end that could not be more definite, the curtain call from which there is no encore. A lesson that love cannot conquer cancer but that it can allow you to hold on to memories, sad and happy, memories that show you have lived.

I was home for the weekend to celebrate (in advance) my birthday and to ensure I had enough love to wrap myself in when the worst of the memories come flooding back. There is always a lot of love when surround by my family, long may that continue.

Then on Monday I was literally stopped in my tracks by a sign that something else has come to an end. I drove down the lane to 5 High, my true north, to find the gates closed and padlocked. Indeed I didn't park in the yard as I always have. No-one lives there any more.

More memories: memories of the old wooden gates that were there when a studio formed a bridge over the top; the small yale locked door you unlocked to go in and open the big wooden gates; falling down the drain when standing behind someone unlocking the little door, my poetry book still tells the tale - I was clutching it at the time; catching the bumper of my Renault on the wooden gates as I reversed up the lane with Grandad yelling 'left-hand down' etc. - directions that never helped but served to fluster, he was a navigator and I can't tell left from right....

I guess the memories continue even when a part of a life ends.

Dear Darwin

What biological imperative does whinging and whining satisfy?

Because surely it must act contrary to a toddlers survival instinct.



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Things we have learnt this summer

Isobel has learnt that chilli makes her 'tongue feel funny'

She learnt to catch at the begining of the summer and you have never seen anyone smile so wide.

Isobel has also discovered that 'RossandAmanda' is actually one person called Ross and another called Amanda, not two people both with the name 'RossandAmanda'.

She knows all the words to 'Brown Bear, Brown Bear' but we have also learnt that there are two different editions.

Little girl can pierce her own drink carton and open her own yoghurt.

She is an expert at balancing.

What have I learnt?

That my daughter will always amaze an delight me...

except with her learning of the phrase 'I don't like...'; a phrase I never knew could be repeated and applied so often in the space of ten minutes. Funnily enough she has yet to say 'I don't like chocolate'.

My true north

Some people think the magnetic north is located somewhere near the north pole; it's not true. Well, not for me anyway.

My true north lies at 5 High.

A month ago we scattered my Grandfather's ashes off the end of the pier, he took two sisters with him (in ash form obviously!), so he will not be short of 'head leaders'.

A few weeks ago my Aunt rang and asked if there was anything from the house I wanted as Grandma is not going to live there any more, so these are the things I would like:

I would like the outside shower full of sand after we have all come back from the beach;

the sound of feet swinging on the black box outside the loo while we all queue to spend a penny before going out;

telling stories of Maggie the witch who lives through the hatch in the loo;

Grandma and Grandad's bed scaled with the help of a chair as we all pile in;

the fairies that danced in the fire while we toasted crumpets;

the twin beds that Katy and I slept in - my blankets remaining beautifully tucked in after I slept like a 'princess' and watching Katy struggle to remake hers the next morning.

Wardrobes full of cousins as we play sardines at Christmas.

The poster grandma would put on my bedroom door at Christmas when I was little;

the claw foot bath ...

I could go on about the summers I worked with Grandparents; my Grandma meeting me off the bus for a weekend with them..

but actually as I have typed this I have realised that many of my 5 high memories are also memories of my cousins, and all the summers we spent together, and I guess we still all have each other and the Hut.

It's time...

to hang up my flip flops; summer is over.

There is a slight chill in the air which means if I do not hurry there will be no time left to write down the posts that have been percolating in my head in the sunshine.

It's time to get back to two things I love but am out of the habit of: blogging and yoga!








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Step away from the sewing machine

My mother has told me she is 'sick of seeing bloomin skirts' , she didn't say bloomin but I am being polite. She also mentioned that I may be addicted to sewing at the mo, if that is the case then Backstitch.co.uk should cut me off, wonderful 'dealer' that they are.

It was this book that suddenly started me off again, 'Lovely Things to Make For Girls of Slender Means' by Eithne Farry. I just saw it by the till at Foyles, it called to me and I bought it. In fact both my skirts were made from this book.



Then I found the Grosgrain Blog and her 'Frock by Friday' - hence the blue dress.

Sewing has given me far more satisfaction that I remembered. I like the feeling of having made something, and yes being complimented on it makes it more so. (Just as well no one looks too closely, I'm not a great and accurate seamstress.)

It's not just that, it is kind of meditative, it stops me ruminating, stress and generally being anxious.Let's face it, it has meant I done' have too much time to fret about PD being out of work; or how I will juggle being a mum with maintaining a job, retraining for a new career and if I will be able to afford to follow that career let alone manage to logistics of getting across London whilst doing nursery drop of and pick up, once I have trained; or how we scattered Grandad's ashes off the pier so he really is gone; should I get a boob job; whether or not Glampervan we will be the success we need it to be because we love Clementine so much; should I get a boob job; blah blah blah.....

And it doesn't leave my hands free to blog or to tweet.

The fact that it let's me have pretty and original outfits is a bonus too!

One last picture, I made this for Isobel who refused to have her picture taken but wore it for two days.








Normal service will now
resume. Well once I have made a couple more dresses for Isobel, fixed her curtains, a skirt and dress AND a top for me... guess the sewing machine won't be going away anytime soon.

I will stop sewing and start blogging soon

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I will be a good mum and start sewing for baba tomorrow promise

Today I made this from the free coffee date dress pattern on burdastyle.com. It need jigging, but I think it's ok:




(will look better with a bra!)

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Suffering for my art!

That's a very grand title and probably not entirely true.

Actually my blog has been suffering for the sake of my sewing...

On Wednesday evening I made this butterfly dress with fabric from backstitch.co.uk and a pattern from burdastyle.com











On Thursday evening I made this












Then I went to the Isle of Wight...

Then yesterday evening I made this outfit










The skirt was an eBay dress and I ran the top up.

Tonight I have cut out the pieces for a dress, but it looks frightfully small!

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