286/366 - More Birthday

Today, to celebrate the boy’s birthday, Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle P and Aunty D came to lunch.  Many thanks to the husband for cooking a lovely lunch.

The girl was only a bit excited about everyone coming.

I took that this morning while I was trying to take a picture of the cake I’d made and decorated.  It’s a simple design but it’s early days in the cake decorating course yet.  I piped his name in yellow across the middle of the train - I couldn’t be bothered to faff around too much with paint when I was blocking his name out - sorry it’s a block of colour that doesn’t quite match!

285/366 - Caring

The girl has not had a good day today.  She’s of a fairly nervous disposition.  She doesn’t like loud noises or surprises (when she was only a little bit younger she was terrified of the jack-in-the-box). 

As a special treat in lieu of not being able to open the boy’s birthday presents yesterday, the girl and I had a trip out today.  We went and had lunch and then went to see a play/puppet show at the theatre.  The trip there was uneventful (she spent most of the time sitting on my lap with her head buried in my chest so that no-one could see her, which is fairly standard procedure on the tram).  Lunch was a huge success - we had a really nice time, she enjoyed her lunch and she was really looking forward to the theatre (having been told all about it in a positive light by me).  Here she is with her first “big girl’s” sandwich.

The start of the play was extremely loud which made her jump but she was ok.  However, when she saw the first puppets she was terrified.  I took her outside and she sat on my lap until she’d calmed down.  I could hear that after the initial dialogue it seemed to be getting a bit quieter and I thought that if it wasn’t so loud she might be ok so after a bit of persuasion we went back in.  She was ok for a minute or so while they had reasonable sounding volume and the puppet was an octopus - she was very interested and seemed to be enjoying it.  Then the volume cranked up a bit.  She still seemed ok but a bit jumpy.  I was hoping that she might get used to the volume.  Another puppet came on, this time a baby and she was absolutely terrified again.  We left at that point and she cried pretty much all the way to the tram stop.

When we got home the husband decided to mow the lawn.  In the past she’s been a bit twitchy about it (the lawnmower is quite loud) but she’s got used to it now.  The boy was fascinated by it all and was hanging onto the gate across the back door watching what was going on.  Despite having such a rotten afternoon, the girl’s first thought was for the boy - she went over and put her arm round him so that “he didn’t fall into the garden”.  I nearly cried.

284/366 - Happy Birthday

A very happy 1st birthday to the boy.  This time last year he’d only been with us for about 45 minutes.  How quickly the last year has gone.

I took this the next day with my camera phone.

283/366 - Misunderstanding

Sometimes the conversations you have with your children can seem a bit surreal.  Here’s an example from this morning.

The girl “Mummy. Can I have the tiger?”

Me (slightly distracted trying to reply to an email) “Pardon love?”

The girl “The tiger mummy, can I have the tiger please?”

Me (finally paying attention) “What tiger?”

The girl (and this is where it gets slightly surreal) “The tiger mummy, the one for bouncing with numbers and beeps”

Me (with a sudden flash of understanding) “Oh, the TIMER.  Yes of course you can”.

We had a little trouble with the girl not really taking turns on the mini-trampoline when her friends came over so I gave them the timer, taught them to turn it on and off (it re-sets when it’s beeped and you turn it off) and said that each time it beeped they had to swap.  It worked a treat but now whenever she bounces she needs to have “the tiger”.

Add in the “not being able to see her face” factor of a conversation on the phone and it gets downright weird.  The girl told Aunty M on the phone yesterday that she was going to the museum and was going to have crisps (pronounced newseum and crips respectively).  Poor Aunty M heard “we’re going to New Zealand to get pissed”.  I laughed myself stupid on hearing that!

On a completely separate note, here’s the girl decorating fairy cakes - she asked to help and pretty much took over!

282/366 - This Time 2 Years Ago

I couldn’t take a picture of the most significant thing that happened today but I will tell you about it so you know why I couldn’t take a picture.  As you know, I can be reasonably unlucky/careless and when I’m having a bad day it is all so very bad.  Today something good happened.  I was putting the children into the car to go home from a friend’s house at 4.30pm - never a good time as both are usually at the peak of grumpiness at that time - tired and hungry.  The boy was so grumpy that he knocked the car key out of my hand.  This is where the good thing happened.  Had it been any other season than Autumn I would have lost the car key.  It landed on a drain cover.  “Oooh, straight down the drain” I hear you say.  However, because it’s autumn there were loads of leaves on top of the drain cover (irritating for the people that live there when it rains I should think) which stopped the car key disappearing into the drain.  I couldn’t take a picture of it because I was fairly sure that if I didn’t pick the key up there and then it would disappear down the drain!

A while ago I had no picture for the day so I published one of that date last year.  I checked today’s date last year and there are no pictures (I was in a drawn out stop/start labour so funnily enough the camera didn’t get much use) so here’s one from two years ago.  Me, the girl, her cuddly rabbit and the husband did a sponsored walk for WWF around Greenwich Park.  Here’s a pic of me, the girl (aged 10 months), her rabbit and the London skyline from October 8th 2006.

281/366 - Busy

In the 24 (ish) hours since I last posted we’ve been rather busy.  It’s tricky deciding which picture to post.

The one of the husband hightailing it upstairs to bed with a bucket and a tummy upset (caught from the boy we assume) shortly after he got home from work yesterday?

The one of the girl being spectacularly sick in Tesco (also the after effects of the boy’s dodgy tum we assume and full credit to the staff in Tesco, they were wonderful and I will be writing to the manager to tell him/her so)? 

The one of the really posh lady (what was she doing in Tesco?) slipping in said sick?

The self-portrait of me gingerly removing my shoes (in the bath) which the girl had been sick in (and no, I wasn’t wearing socks or tights)? 

The one of the bowl of frozen peas that LNFATR lent me because I hadn’t been able to do my shopping in Tesco (how did we manage in the 3 or 4 years that we lived opposite but didn’t know each other)? 

The other self-portrait of me dropping a cup and swearing prodigously in front of the girl (very proud of that moment - not)? 

Or maybe one of the things I have made (in amongst the chaos) in the last 24 hours - chicken stock, bread, the boy’s birthday cake and biscuits with the girl (ok, strictly speaking that was yesterday afternoon but it makes me feel good to include it)? 

Unfortunately (well, probably fortunately now I think about it) I haven’t taken photo’s of any of those things. 

Instead here’s a picture of the girl after a particularly tiresome minute of sweeping the floor.  I didn’t make her do it - she asked - honest.

280/366 - Hereditary?

Ok, so I know that most of the things she does are copied from me because I’m the person she spends the most amount of time with, but honestly - where does she get this face from?  It is definitely not a face I pull when I’m on the phone….. I don’t think.

279/366 - Feeling Better

He’s feeling better today (although we had a couple of fairly gross moments - I won’t share them in case you’re eating).  Thank you all (including those of you that I know read this blog but emailed) for your concern and good wishes for him.

Here’s the boy trying, as usual, to get somewhere he’s not wanted!  Everytime he does something like this a little part of me thinks “how is it that my two children are so completely different?”.  She was a very still baby and at this age was showing no interest in standing up at all, let alone opening doors!  She was a bottom shuffler and didn’t walk until 17 months.  I reckon he’ll be walking by Christmas.

Bonus picture time.  The husband washed the kitchen skylight today for reason’s that I shan’t divulge (again, in case you’re eating.  Suffice to say that it involved our little four legged red haired friends) and I took this, I think, fairly cool shot.  It was the second attempt, the noise of the water hitting the plastic made me jump first time round making for a very wobbly picture.

278/366 - Thomas and The Boy

He’s sitting on the husband’s lap playing with Thomas the Tank Engine (or Thomas the Tanken Engine as the girl calls him) because he isn’t feeling very well.  He’s got a poorly tummy.  I hope he feels better in the morning.

277/366 - Alas Poor Yorick!

I laughed out loud when I saw this.  Hope you do too.