Quiet

It’s been quiet here lately.  It’s not that things aren’t happening, they very much are.  It’s just that they’re happening to other people and I don’t feel comfortable blogging about other people’s trials and joys – they are their stories to tell, not mine.

Time is steadily marching on though.  We’re getting rid of the highchair as we no longer need it.  The boy insists on sitting on a booster seat on a big chair now.  I’m proud of him and a little sad, I don’t know why this, over anything else we’ve got rid of lately, signifies growing up to me but it does.  I no longer have babies or toddlers, I have two children, one of whom will be 4 in December – where did the time go?

At least they’re still small enough to be tidied up when they’re in my way.

I’d just like to point out that they put themselves there.  There was no pushing, poking or unnecessary folding of small children carried out to get this picture.  Honest.

Now I’ve Seen It All

We had a bit of a momentous day today.

Up until now I have picked the girl’s friends.  Not because I’ve been particularly controlling – more that she’s only 3 and her playmates until now have been the children of my friends, mostly met on ante or pre natal courses.

Today we had the first of the girl’s friends over who wasn’t a friend of the girl purely because I am a friend of the mummy (A).  They are friends at nursery and the girl specifically asked to have her over to play.  I know A from swimming lessons we took when the girls were tiny but that’s really all the contact we’ve had.

A lovely afternoon was had by all.  The girls played fantastically and even let the boy join in at times, I got on well with A (to be honest, I wasn’t taking that much of a risk, having chatted with her over swimming(ish) babies many a time, I figured we probably would get on well) and they brought with them the funniest thing I’ve seen in a very long time.

I give you (drumroll please)…………. Pregnant Barbie

No, really, she is pregnant, she doesn’t just have a Barbie pillow stuck up her top (I feel a bit wrong showing you this picture)

She is the gift that just keeps on giving, when A said that her bump was stuck on with magnets and came off to make her not pregnant Barbie I have to say that I just didn’t believe her.  So, of course, I checked.  I was delighted to see this

No, your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you.  That is a real Barbie baby inside a Barbie bump that detaches for speedy return to pre-bump figure.

What will they come up with next?

 

Prepared

Before we had children I was definitely a ready meal or eat out person.  When the girl came along I suddenly developed a desire to make all sorts of things from scratch.  I’m not a fabulous cook but I like to think that I can feed my family food that is nutritious, tasty, and last, but not least, not actively poisonous.  Over the years I’ve started becoming a bit more ambitious.  We bought a breadmaker, I make yoghurt (from a dried culture, nothing too technical) and I started making and decorating the kid’s birthday cakes.  Last year I was brave enough to make a fruit cake and this year I branched out to chocolate cake.

Then (and I’m sorry to bang on about this again) we discovered the boy’s nut allergy.  Just in time for Christmas, which is possibly the nuttiest time of the year.  It’s not just the cakes and the bowls of nuts that we’re likely to trip over, but also mince pies.  I had no idea that mincemeat had nuts in it.

I made my own mincemeat this year and it was curiously satisfying.  I wish I could somehow have made you smell my kitchen on Saturday – it was the very essence of Christmas.

All I have to do now is master pastry and we’re away.

It’s A Boy!

I give this post over to my fabulous little sister who gave birth to a 7.5lb baby boy at 6.15 this morning.

Congratulations love, he’s gorgeous.

Old Boiler

Well, we have a new boiler but it hasn’t been a smooth journey.

Apparently there was something wrong with the boiler so they had to go and get a new part – not a great start.  And it won’t talk to our digistat which is quite gutting as the digistat is relatively new, wasn’t cheap and is a very useful piece of equipment.  Getting a digistat that will talk to our new boiler and not cost the earth is proving quite tricky, the husband is looking into it now but it might involve actually talking to someone tomorrow morning.

The boy looked suitably amused to see the old boiler out on the street when we got back from dropping the girl at nursery.

So, what’s next?

Together

On the way home today the girl wanted to push the buggy.  The boy wanted to walk so I let her push (it’s not that I don’t trust her, the buggy is too heavy for her to push when the boy is in it).  I asked the boy to hold my hand but he much preferred holding the buggy and being with his sister.

Festive Cheer

Yes, I know it’s only October but I do feel cheered.  I made our christmas cake today.  I made a fruit cake for the first time ever this time last year and was astounded at how easy it was.  It took for ever and a day but it wasn’t technically challenging at all.  The benefit of making it this early in the year is that you can feed it lots of brandy which means, um, it keeps longer.

Unfortunately, while I remembered how easy it was, I forgot how blooming long it takes.  I started at 2pm, this afternoon, and it’s due to come out of the oven in just over an hours time (it’s quarter past six in the evening as I type this).

The length of time it took to make was extended somewhat by the fact that my food processor refused to actually mix anything.  I suspect that this means it is about to pack up, which is slightly more ho hum than ho ho ho, but I’m being brave about it.

Karma

If karma exists, then right now I should be in a good place.

Yesterday I gave blood. I’ve given blood regularly for quite a few years now (I’ve just made my 15th donation) partly because it’s a small thing that I can do that will help someone else and partly, selfishly, because it makes me feel good about myself. I’ve never really thought about who I am helping in the past, there has never been a face. The last few times I’ve donated, however, I have had a face to think about. Ivy is a very adorable little girl who I’ve never met and, unfortunately, am not likely to meet. I read Ivy’s mummy’s blog, Three Ring Circus, and feel that I know Ivy a bit through that. Ivy has an immune-deficiency disorder that mean she needs an Intragam P transfusion on a regular basis. As I understand it, Intragam P is made up of other people’s anti-bodies which is taken from donated blood but Tiff, Ivy’s mum, explains it much better here. Ivy is the most amazing ambassador for giving blood, and if you don’t believe me then check this out.

I also had a clear out the day before yesterday and got rid of a load of the childrens’ toys. They were baby toys that weren’t really played with (ok I got rid of Lion, who is still played with, but I’ve been looking for an excuse to get rid of him for some time, he has the most annoying tune ever and I’ve suffered it for 3 years) and with one birthday just done and another birthday and christmas coming up I figured we could use the space. Rather than take the toys to the charity shop as I would normally, I thought that we’d give them to the children’s ward of the local hospital. After all, me and the boy have spent a fair bit of time playing with their toys this year, it seemed only fair to give a bit back.

So why then, after the year we’ve had so far and the nice things I’ve just done, has the boiler decided to pack up? We’ve had no heating for a few days which isn’t an issue yet but last night it started making some weird noises and dripping. I’m fairly sure boilers aren’t supposed to drip. Today we lost the hot water so our boiler is officially kerput. We’re having a new one fitted on Monday but it’s a bit of a pain in the arse neck.

My picture is totally unrelated to the above babble but I was mightily amused when LNFATR came over yesterday with her telephone. She was expecting a call. I was very impressed when her phone rang and she was able to have a conversation on it in my house. I should add at this point that this was her landline, not a mobile phone.

So, next step is to see if the baby monitors work across the road as well!

Thomas The Tank Engine

On Sunday we took the children, as part of the boy’s birthday celebrations and also because LNFATR was going, to a local steam railway, where they had “A day out with Thomas the Tank Engine”.

The kids had a great time.  It was fairly small which was perfect for them.  In the locomotive shed (it is part of a working steam railway so is a working shed – gloomy and dirty but also strangely beautiful) there was a model railway to look at, face painting (the girl had it done for the first time, her stillness was legendary), a 9 seat cinema showing a Thomas the Tank film which both kids spent a considerable amount of time in, some old fashioned penny games which the girl enjoyed playing, a ride on car that the boy became quite attached to, the buffet car (of course, we avoided that), Punch and Judy (a proper old-fashioned one where Judy and the policeman get beaten to death by Mr Punch and then thrown in the bin – thanks for the warning, I might not have let the girl watch if I’d known), and, the big draw of the day, in the locomotive yard were Thomas, Percy, Duck, Diesel and Daisy pulling trucks backwards and forwards.  I was a bit surprised when the girl asked me why they weren’t all talking – I thought she’d worked out that television isn’t real!

We had also booked onto the tea-time train where we would have a tea party with the Fat Controller.  Thomas the Tank himself pulls that train and all the children are given a little box with a picnic tea in.  I booked this before we found out about the boy’s allergy.  As soon as we’d been to see the private allergy specialist, I telephoned the railway to explain what was happening and to find out how geared up for allergies they were.  I wasn’t expecting much and so was pleasantly surprised when the chap I spoke to was very positive and said that if I made myself known to a member of staff when I got there then all would be fine.  I would be able to speak to the catering staff and choose what went into the boy’s box and they would prepare his box in a clean (i.e. nut free) environment.  We got there and I duly made myself known to the man on the door.  He sent me back to the ticket office where the lady on the desk really hadn’t got a clue what to do about us.  Unfortunately, my arriving at her desk coincided with a train coming in (they ran once an hour all day) and a load of people trying to get through where we were waiting into the shed where all the attractions were.  After most of the people had cleared, the lady sent a steward to go and find the general manager.  We were all asked to wait outside.  In the rain (oh, alright, drizzle but that’s not the point).  With no umbrella.  The general manager never appeared.  Instead, after about 15 maybe 20 minutes had passed, the steward came back with a piece of paper with the contents of the box written on it.

Kit kat (chocolate/biscuit bar, just in case they’re not universal)
Jam sandwich
Sausage rolls
Grapes
Tomatoes
Crisps

I asked to see someone in catering and was told they had gone home.  I explained that I’d been told on the phone that I would be able to pick what went into the boy’s box and see where it was prepared and was told that under no circumstances would that have happened even if catering was still there.  Until we got on the train and had the box in front of us I wouldn’t be able to check any labels.  I had no idea where the sandwich/sausage rolls were made and with what ingredients.  I didn’t know what brand of crisps they would have.

We took the slightly scary decision to go on the tea-time train anyway.  The husband agreed that I would hi-jack the boy’s tea as soon as it arrived, steal the sausage rolls, give him the grapes and tomatoes and check the packaging on the crisps/kit kat (and this doesn’t even begin to deal with my issues with giving small children a kit kat and a whole packet of crisps, but that’s a whole other soapbox).  We decided that a jam sandwich was probably ok although I wasn’t happy having not seen the bread/margarine/jam packets.  I had loads of (mostly) healthy snacks in my bag (I always tended to have something they could eat with me before, even more so now) so I knew we could fill the gaps left if I’d had to take more than just the sausage rolls.  As it was, it was ok but they had some rice cakes anyway.

After the initially positive phone call I was so disappointed that they handled us, in my view, so badly.  If they’d just said on the phone that there was a chance that the catering manager wouldn’t be there and that I wouldn’t be able to see where the food was prepared then I wouldn’t have minded taking a packed lunch for him.  Next time we do anything like that I won’t bother checking, I’ll just take a packed lunch.  Lesson learnt.

Anyway, rant over.  I will be writing a stiff letter though.  I’ll let you know if anything comes of it.

Here are me and the girl on the tea time train – I’m even managing to smile by this point!  Sadly, only some of her face painting remains, we had to wipe her face after a mid afternoon snack and lost half of Rosie.

And look, Thomas the Tank Engine really does exist although he’s not very chatty.

This last photo is for Kim at Frogpondsrock.  It is the sky on the way home and I think she might like the colours (although having been from eye to camera, from camera to computer and from computer to blog they’re not as vivid as I remember them).

Like a Bird on a Wire

But a bit more south London

I wonder how they got up there?  And how the owner felt about having to go home bare foot (although maybe they had spare shoes with them, who knows).

It’s been two weeks since I last blogged (or read anyone elses, come to that).  It feels like less than that, but also more.  Time is doing some weird stretchy concertina type things for me at the moment.  I think because I’m struggling with the boy’s allergy.  I have felt angry (not sure who with), sad (for him and for the life he’ll need to lead), guilty (pointless, I know, but I still feel it).  I’ve tried to take it on the chin and remember that far worse things happen at sea (a favourite saying of my mother or possibly my grandmother, I’ve never known why) but it’s hard not to think that it’s all a bit bloody unfair.

There are lots of positive aspects to it – he’s very young and will never know anything else; his reaction was, in the world of anaphylaxis, quite slow (10 minutes before he collapsed); there is a lot of information nowadays about nut allergies so I was quickly able to find out the nature of the beast; I’ve had an enormous amount of support from family and friends and have discovered that the friends I’ve got are really good ones (I knew that but it’s nice to have it confirmed).  You see?  Lots of positives.

Unfortunately, the negatives far outweigh the positives.  The fear that follows me everywhere is tiring me out and whilst he may not know any different it is still crap that he will have to live the rest of his life having to be so careful about what he eats.

On another note, it’s also hard to believe that the boy turned 2 yesterday.  We had a lovely day.  Grandma, Grandpa and Aunty D came over for lunch and the boy was thoroughly spoilt.  LNFATR also popped in with her two gorgeous boys.  I made a cake which, as usual, I can see loads of flaws in.  The boy was quite taken with it but the girl wanted to know why there was only one giraffe.  She’s got high standards, I’m not sure my cakes will ever live up to her expectations (or mine, come to that).  Ho hum.

The girl took a healthy interest in the boy’s presents,

and was thrilled to see Aunty D

I was amazed, and grateful, that it was warm enough in October for them to go and run around outside without having to be bundled up first.