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Saturday, 15 August 2009

Gossip

There is a rumour circulating that my precious angel child is suffering from a touch of the terrible-twos, a rumour I belive is being prolifigated by her very own father!

Well I'm here to say it's not true, not true at all and heaven help him when she really enters that phase in her life.

Isobel has been busy growing the most enormous pair of molars. A pair of molars that have terrorised her gums, more than she has our days.

Don't get me wrong, there have been tantrums, indeed some days have been heavily seasoned with them, but they have always been the seasoning not the main dish.

The molars are through, and life is easier again; there are other teeth on the way, but as this is our first experience of teething we really shouldn't complain.

Oh, and by the way, a bear with a sore head has nothing on a child with sore gums.

The real gossip is that Isobel has, this evening, spent 20 minutes calling Iggle-Piggle daddy. Questions will be asked.

Thursday, 13 August 2009

Co-ordinates

This morning while I was still in my undies, Isobel and I were chatting about getting dressed.

Then, off she scampered (what a great and under used word) to her bedroom.

I heard the drawer open, and close again.

She scampered back (yes, I know the same word twice, shoot me, I just realised I like it), proudly clutching a cardie in her hands.

She then proceeded to match it to my knickers.

Tuesday, 11 August 2009

And there is always Sunday

Sunday started with cosy cuddles with Grandma and her girls.

Followed by a swift departure to avoid tears -mine of course!

And ended in the paddling pool in our back garden.


I heart summer.


*Please don't bother telling me what I already know - the lovely happy picture shows every ounce of my extra weight, I have already been asked if I have a baby in my tummy in the persistant way only four year olds can get away with, and this picture will serve as a mighty fine fridge picture.

Just focus on how happy we are, please!

In which I know it's been a good day

When I take a photo of my daughter with her Great Grandma



And this is the view in my mirror on the way back to my mummy's house.




Then I spend a lovely evening outside at Apple Tree Cafe with my best friend Miss B, and the brushing on my foot is my napkin, not a mouse.

And I seriously start wondering about moving home.

Monday, 10 August 2009

In which we were not alone

As there were four generations at The Hut on Saturday you can imagine while not exactly peaceful, it was fun.

Trouble is, as if often the case at these events I often feel woefully inadequate. I had simply stuffed swim nappies and Isobel's swimming costume in our bag and off we went. (Yes, only one costume not two, can't put a wet costume back on a babe - it's impossible, so impossible I didn't even try!)

Foolishly I hadn't bothered with her towelling poncho; thriftily I hadn't bought a sun suit for the very few odd days we make it to the sea; AND I had decided to just buy lunch from the fab cafe next door.

And I certainly didn't pack a costume for me.

Everyone else was well prepared and stocked for their week at The Hut. That is my only defence: I knew we were only going for a few hours one afternoon.

Here's some more pics:





One thing I did do right is I didn't bother to pack a book or get a deckchair out.

In which we head to the seaside

On Saturday we went to the seaside.

Yes, we were back on the Island for a family catch up and that means heading to The Beach Hut. I capitalise it because to my family there is only one hut and any sign of sun means it's A Hut Day.

So there I am standing at the waters edge, camera poised ready to take photos of my little girl's first toe dip in the sea. Strictly speaking she dipped a toe or ten last year but this was to be her first self propelled foray into the sea.



I imagined us splashing around where the water just lapped the sand, walking hand in hand in the shallowest of shallows...

Instead, I hurriedly tuck my dress in my knickers to hold her hand; and then in order to prevent my daughter washing herself out to sea I find myself hastily tucking my camera in my bra - good look. So good in fact I had to do it on the second trip to the sea too - when will I learn.

(But would squeezing the extra 7lbs of me into a swimming costume have been a better look? Actually I think maybe it would have, rather than being the towny in a dress and beads to boot!)

I won't leave you with that image; try these instead:






To say Isobel took to the sea like a duck to water would indeed be an understatement. She followed the waves out up to her little chest on a quest for 'Bub-bals'. Leaving me to clutch the straps of her costume as she waded... and waded.

The sea splashed her hat and she barely stopped.

Apptly titled 'Mini Posts'

I can't quite remember when I started it, but I have always labelled the comments on my blog as Mini Posts.

And how true that can be.

While I am debating how much reviewing etc I wish to do on my blog, and whether or not I am just writing it for fun or do I want to exploit the opportunities to make some cash, one thing I do love is the sense of community.

So while I may not make it to Butlins tomorrow, I am so pleased to have made some 'virtual' friends.

The purpose of this post is to point you all in the direction of the lovely mini-post responses to my post last Wednesday.

If you haven't read them, please do.

And if you wrote them a very BIG THANK YOU!

Saturday, 8 August 2009

A taste of posts to come

A reply of thanks to all the comments on my previous post.

A discussion on how hard motherhood is when your daughter's favourite
game involves waving and you realise your arm continues waving long
after your hand has stopped.

Why my back is burnt and Isobel has sand in every crease.

How not to confuse a napkin sliding off your lap with a mouse running
over your toes.


Sent from my iPhone

Wednesday, 5 August 2009

One word from me

We have a slight problem at the moment. Isobel seems to have started smacking.

Now there is no doubt that this has been picked up from nursery as she has never seen any one raise their hand at home.

On several occasions, three to be exact, I have caught the same little thug boy smacking Isobel. He has been greeted with the nursery standard response 'Sad choice'.

The tone of this utterance seemed to only have an effect on me; it made me sad.

So what do I expect them to do: be stern at the very least. I know you mustn't label a child as 'bad'... I know, I know, but...

How do you discipline an under 2 year old?; how do I stop 17 month old Isobel before she really starts?

I am in no doubt that, no way, no how, will anyone lift a finger to, or even come close to smacking her. If I do I will have failed not her but me too. If anyone else does, it will be all I can do not to smack them, and hard. (But not when Isobel can see as that would be setting a very bad example...)

Right now I bring her raised hand down and say 'No' but is that the right thing?

As for naughty steps: how naughty can a step be?

How much of a banishment is it when that's where we put our shoes on and eat our apples.

Tuesday, 4 August 2009

No wonder I go to work

So far today we have been to Waitrose, the Post Office and the cafe.

We have made banana muffins and granola bars.

I have offered Isobel 4 different meals not including breakfast.

She has slept for an hour and a half, time which was spent having a
angsty email conversation (no not with PD).

We have been to homebase, done some gardening and played in the sandpit.

Kissed Buddha.

Swept the kitchen floor 17 times and the sitting room once when cheese
and toast in front of tele was rejected.

The tele is now on (Third and Bird) and I am tapping this out on my
iPhone with one hand while holding the hide and seek farm book with
the other.

Where's my tea?!

Sent from my iPhone

SAHM vs WM

I actually have no idea why there has to be a 'versus' in that title. It implies conflict straight away.

I'm lucky, I get to do a bit of both.

When I first had Isobel, right up until the point at which I went back to work, I thought I wanted to be a stay at home mum. Who wouldn't want to spend all their time with the beautiful child that they gave birth to.

As it turns out, I actually found I enjoyed having a couple of hours to myself when Isobel went to nursery; yes I cried nearly every time I dropped her off, but it was good for me.

Remember I am a single parent (how could you forget) and although I am lucky in my relationship with PD that we do manage to co-parent at times, I do bear the brunt of parenting. No lie-ins, no-one else to get up in the night, no one coming home for supper and 'how was your day'.

So to me going to work is a respite, a chance for adult non-baby conversation. Not to mention the fact that I think being a stay at home mum must be blooming hard: how do you entertain a child all day? I worry that I don't give her enough stimulation, that I should do more things and go different places all the time. It's pressure and a lot of it, to bear on your own. It's not like I have family nearby to help take the strain.

No, it's me and just me.

I think all this isolation has a lot to do with my the state of my health mentally. I built a little bubble and lived in it. Slowly I drew the bubble in tighter, to a point where I couldn't let anyone in it or get out of it.

Meeting people, even people I was close to was hard, I wouldn't pick up the phone I still don't always pick up the phone, I wouldn't write, I just couldn't talk to anyone. It was too hard. I just wanted to curl up in a ball or runaway with my little girl.

I took pills, I went to yoga and now I work too. I've stopped taking the pills but not because I thought I was necessarily ready but because I simply didn't want to take them anymore. It's been tough, I walk a tightrope every day and I have no spare emotion left, I'm not even sure I have a safety net anymore.

I still find it hard to venture out, even the most innocuous invitation can shake me, but at least now, more often than not, I go and I have fun. I'm nearly me again.

So you see it's not that being a stay at home mum is something I look down on, it's just something I have realised I cannot do on my own.

Monday, 3 August 2009

Morbid-go-round? Walkies?

Another weekend has passed and there are sooo many things I could blog about...

Isobel choosing to play among the headstones rather than the swings.



The new words: door, ball and cheese.

The counting: one, twoooo, freeeeeeeeee!

The mother of all tantrums because I wouldn't let her play with the snip-snips (nail clippers), and how helpless I felt.

Isobel eating my linguine rather than her pizza pie (yes, these are PDs gorgeous pics, I'm sitting next to her within linguine grabbing range)




Or Isobel taking her daddy (who still isn't sure of how to handle off-piste napping) for a walk.



Maybe, just maybe, I should find some words to describe how it felt when all my little girl wanted was to hold my and PD's hands at the same time...

Saturday, 1 August 2009

One I made earlier

When I was pregnant I painted this framed magnetic blackboard on the
kitchen wall.

I felt very pleased with myself today when little girl started drawing on it.

Thursday, 30 July 2009

I guess that's why she wins hearts..

She runs at a hundred smiles an hour.

No pets allowed

Tuesday, next door’s cleaner let their cat out, she couldn’t get it back in so she left me a note asking me to do it, believe me this is not a simple task. As a rescue cat she is skittish to say the least, lovely when she knows you but skittish.

Having to get a cat in when on my way out was not my ideal way to spend valuable socialising time. Anyway.

Next morning I thought I could hear said cat, so between getting little girl dressed, me dressed, readying our selves for our days at work and nursery, I popped round to check. On my way I found myself trying to remember the alarm code. Fatal mistake. As a girl who, in the days before mobiles, could only remember phone numbers by pretending to dial them, I’m best just stepping up and pressing buttons, not THINKING about it.

So, at 7:30 am I was standing in the middle of someone else’s houses with a crying little girl, an escaping cat trying to call my neighbour to remind me of the code. (I don’t know what it says about me, but she thought I had forgotten my OWN alarm code).

Funnily enough with the house screaming at it, the cat ran away again.


See I love cats, but blimey.

AND THEN…

Last night at around nine o’clock I could found standing on my settee, screaming. Yes Tom and Jerry style screaming. There was a mouse in my sitting room.

The only differences between me and the cartoon were the colour of my skin and the fact that my stockings weren’t saggy.

The Gruffalo will tell you the mouse is the scariest animal in the woods and I would I agree. I cannot stand furry rodent type creatures. It makes me wince just to think of it.

Luckily I had a pair of four inch heels nearby which I donned like stilts to take me to safety of my bedroom; if 5 foot something of me wasn’t enough to scare it I was going to make damn sure it couldn’t make a vicious lunge for my well turned ankle.

If Isobel wants a ratty, hamstery type pet she can appeal to PD’s absent parent guilt and he can keep it for her.

Wednesday, 29 July 2009

I love to love

I love weddings, I love birthdays but I love weddings too.

I mean what’s not to love; peeps in their finery; beautiful princess brides; parties; eating; drinking; being merry… Not to mention all that LOVE. Even as a jaded singleton I love love.

So, when an invitation popped through my door a few months ago it took me only seconds to decide to sell the Camp Bestival tickets I had (I bought Bestival ones instead and added Camp Bestival to my ‘things to do next year list’) and head to Newbury instead.

It was a great wedding, but exhausting.

The church was beautiful and Isobel wasn’t struck by lightening on entry; obviously always a possibility as she had never been in a church before.



The bride, my cousin, Verity looked stunning and Isobel ran around.



The service was lovely, (I have had to order a copy of the Velveteen Rabbit now) and Isobel made piggy noises while reading a Squash and a Squeeze, thus reducing those in the pew behind us to tears of laughter. I hastily swapped the book for The Owl and the Pussy Cat feeling that ‘Twit-twoo’ may be less of a distraction.



Oh, and Isobel ran around. She was quiet, but very mobile.

I couldn’t believe how many of my family hadn’t met her before, some of my favourite people including the bride were introduced to my lovely girly and she to them, and she ran around.

We’d booked into the reception hotel for the night, so that I could enjoy the evening too. I tried to put up the travel cot and Isobel ran around, actually she climbed in the wardrobe and shouted to be released from the room so she could have more room to run around.

Don’t get me wrong, she was beautifully charming and loved (well I would say that) by all but she did not stay still. Too many people to smile at, too many stairs to climb…

The speeches were good but long, Isobel clapped and agreed in the right places while standing by the top table ready to absorb all the applause, even though she was by now in her PJs.

At 8:15pm Isobel stopped running around and I put her to bed, returning to see Verity trip the light fantastic in a Strictly Come Dancing Outfit that only she could carry off, to the strains of a big band.

No longer having Isobel to run after you’d think I’d sit down, but no, I spent the evening being twirled and swirled, so much so I ached the next day.

My aging and shrinking Grandparents danced, we all danced. We laughed, we drank, we admired and we loved. (Isobel loving my brother Ross over everyone else)



The next day we had a Full English. What more could a girl ask for?

(Someone else to do the running after perhaps?)

I’m afraid I was too busy running to take many pictures, if I see any family snaps I will post them later, if I get hold of the video of my Grandparents dancing be sure you’ll see that too.

Monday, 27 July 2009

And the mummy cried

all the way home.

I drove back from a family wedding this morning.

I had such a wonderful time I cried all the way home.

(Proper post to follow...)

Friday, 24 July 2009

Spot the odd pair out

Isobel has started putting her own shoes away...

Thursday, 23 July 2009

Bu-bbles

Isobel loves bubbles. It was one of her very very first words and is one of her clearest too.

I love organic health products, can't help feeling that the less chemicals and sulphawotsits the better. This is especially true when it comes to stuff for my baby's skin. She even uses Organic shampoo (which I've just realised I don't).

The problem is organic bubble bath just isn't that bubbly.

The bubbles don't survive the slightest wee, let alone the onslaught of a baby with a fishing rod (which, by the way Grandad and Grandma Gill she loves) and plastic cups.

So I have bought Johnsons baby bath, as used by the professionals apparently (saying 'the professionals' makes me think of my Mums crush on Bodie and Doyle in the 70s). For me it's Johnson and Johnson's so it has to be ok doesn't it?

Well the bubbles are great.

(So great I just deleted the bloomin photo)