This One Goes Out To The One I Love

Six years ago today I married the man I love.

One year ago I posted a relatively light-hearted post about our wedding and anniversary.

This year I’m feeling a bit more serious.

One year ago I thought that the husband and I had gone through pretty much everything we could, and survived fairly unscathed.

This year, I realised that the husband is even more to me than I knew.

This year, I learnt that when our world suddenly tilts and throws me off balance the husband will be there to steady me.

This year I feel more secure than ever in our future.

Happy anniversary, my lovely boy.

Ouch

Why do things like this look worse on the second day?

Old Song, New Words

Apparently all the cool kids are singing this version of Twinkle Twinkle.

We went to London today to the Aquarium (I have a free ticket for a year so thought I’d better use it) and the girl serenaded me with it on the train on the way in.

We stopped for lunch at M&S (nice clear and sensible labelling – no “this might have been a near a nut at some point” warnings on things that patently obviously haven’t been, like fresh fruit) and had a picnic in the shadow of the London Eye.

Both children ended up with a change of clothes following disastrous incidences with smoothies.  Note to self, buy drinks in cartons with straws – don’t expect the under 4’s to drink safely from a wide mouth bottle.

The Aquarium has been tarted up recently and there’s a lot more to it than there was before.  Both kids really enjoyed it, particularly the new Shark Walk.  You walk over (I hope) reinforced glass over the shark tank.  I felt slightly sick walking over it but the girl and boy both seemed to quite like it.

After our Aquarium visit the boy fell asleep in the buggy, so the girl and I had a sneaky ice-cream.  The cornet bit of a Mr Whippy is generally made in a factory that might have processed nuts at some point so I haven’t let the boy have one recently.  The girl has been denied a few lately, with no complaint from her, so I felt she deserved one.  I scrubbed us both down with a wet wipe afterwards and we drank loads of water.  It was absolutely fine, we breathed on the boy once he’d woken up and he didn’t keel over.  I can feel my paranoia beginning to subside a little.

All in all we had a really good day until it was time to go home.

The girl had a major disaster whilst running across a bridge.  It was the most odd falling over I’ve seen – she landed on hands and knees as usual (thus assuring grazed hands and bruised knees – a fairly normal state of affairs) but then tipped over straight onto her face.  She still has her milk teeth but the first thing I checked was her teeth – I’ve got to channel that spare paranoia somewhere.  They were ok.  Her nose, however, didn’t fare so well.  Can you see the scrapes on it as well as the really obvious ones underneath?

Happiness Is

a girl in pigtails sneaking a sit down in her brother’s highchair

Goose

When I started this blog it was a photo 365 blog and I had a few ideas for photo’s I could take that weren’t of my children (failed there, it has been mostly my children featuring in the pics).

One of my plans was to take a picture of the geese that fly over our house every day. Unfortunately, they don’t fly over at the same time every day and although they honk as they’re going over, you don’t get very much warning.  I’ve got my camera out seconds too late so many times in the last 21 months.

Yesterday I decided to walk to nursery to drop the boy off and we walked through what is essentially a field behind our local school.  There were plenty of magpies and blackbirds pecking away at the grass and on the far side some birds that looked much, much bigger.  As I looked at them they stood up, started walking towards us and then took off and flew right over us.

I had time to get the camera out and aim this time and still didn’t get a decent shot.  Guess those geese are still on my list!

Peek-a-Boo

While we were away we went to visit the husband’s Grandma and Grandpa.  They have a doll’s house that the girl is fascinated by.  She spent ages re-arranging all the furniture and playing with the dolls.

Last time we visited them, the girl was extremely shy.  I think she spent the whole time on my lap.  This time, however, both she and the boy were the givers of many hugs which were happily received by their Great Grandparents.

The Disadvantage of Height

My husband will tell you that while there are advantages, there are also disadvantages to being tall (and at 6ft 5 he’d know).

Bashing your head on door frames is one.  Finding a bed big enough to sleep in without your feet sticking out of the end is another.

A third disadvantage is when your wife tries to take a picture of you and her standing together by just holding the camera at arms length and chops half of both your heads off.

I have an odd affection for this picture.

The husband repaid me by taking a lovely picture of me with the kids (note the boy’s snazzy backpack – it’s quite understated for a lifesaver, don’t you think?).  Thanks, fabulous husb.

Away

We’re away for a couple of days and I possibly won’t be able to access the internet or my emails (and breathe) so don’t worry, we’re ok (as we can be) and I’ll probably post again on Monday.

Penicillin

So there I was.  I’d had an afternoon off and even a bit of a lie in this morning.  I was feeling a bit less tense than I have been for the last few days.

Silly old me.

When I came downstairs the husband greeted me with the news that the girl had had two accidents already.  Shortly after I came down she had another one.  She’s been toilet trained for the best part of a year and she was a dream to train.  Accidents were few and far between with her and I can’t remember the last time she had one (apart from the very occasional wet spot in her knick-knocks, as she’s taken to calling them, when she’s doing something very interesting and has had to leg it to the loo at the last minute).  A bit later on she had yet another one.

I reverted to asking her every 5 minutes if she needed a wee and we got a bit back on track.

We went to a local fete this afternoon and both the boy and the girl surprised me.  The boy by going on a ride all by himself and not trying to get out half way around.  The girl by wanting to go on the same ride – she’s very cautious by nature but I think having seen the boy do it she probably figured it would be ok.  Hands up who’d like to guess what colour car she chose?

They both had great fun on the trampolines.  I had to go on with the boy – I can’t decide if the lady running them thought he was too young or saw the glint in his eye and decided he probably wasn’t safe left to his own devices.

By this evening the girl was complaining that it hurt when she when to the toilet so off to EmDoc (our local, out of hours, GP service) we went.  I managed to get a sample using only a potty and and an empty mayonnaise jar (which I was very proud of) and the GP at the hospital confirmed that she’s got a UTI.  She then gave me a clean sample tube and told me to get a clean (i.e. not via another receptacle) sample to take to our usual GP in the morning.  That deflated me a bit.

Of course, this being 20 past 6 on a Sunday evening all our local chemists were closed so I had to send the husband out on a 40 minute round trip to get her some anti-biotics.  I’m not a huge fan of anti-biotics for anything and everything but I think they have their place in modern medicine and once a UTI starts hurting I think anti-biotics are justified.  (Do I sound a bit defensive?  Sorry).

I know this isn’t serious, but I feel that this year we’ve bounced from one health problem to another (don’t even get me started on the husband’s feet!) and I’ve really had enough now.  I’d like the rest of the year to be a bit more healthy if you don’t mind.

Show Time

It seems about 12 years ago, although it was more probably last year some time, that my little sister (not then pregnant) invited me to go and see a musical with her.  It was in London so she would come and stay with us.  I’d never been to see a musical before.  I’m a rock/metal chick you see, and rock/metal chicks don’t do musicals.  It was based on a film that I quite enjoyed when I was a teenager (although I would never admit it in public and I’m afraid I can’t tell you what it was – it’s my guilty secret) so I cast aside my doubts about musicals and agreed to go on the premise that it might be a hoot.

Lovely little sister came to London on Thursday afternoon and yesterday we went to see the musical.  It was absolutely fantastic and I came out of it contemplating other musicals that we might go and see together.  Never mind the fact that she’s about 34 weeks pregnant at the moment and unlikely to be going to any musicals for a little while.  The sound track was just as good as I remembered (I haven’t seen the film for many, many years).  It was based in the ’60’s so there was plenty of good old rock and roll. I sang along, I cried, I whooped at appropriate moments.  In short, I really surprised myself.  I think I was ready for something utterly silly and purely there for entertainment.  It had a running time of 2.5 hours.

I didn’t think about nuts for 2.5 hours.

While we were in London I saw my first Juice Point.

We had dinner afterwards at Ask Pizza.  It was a lovely meal, although neither of us had pizza.  When we got there, I ordered a large Peroni.  The waiter brought the drinks over and put my glass in front of me ready to pour my beer into.  My glass looked a bit grotty so I picked it up to check it.  I was heartily amused when the waiter asked “is your glass not big enough?”.  I show it next to little sister’s half pint of coke just for scale.

I realised that there are few things less visually pleasing than a beautiful sunset viewed through a grimy train window.

Here is lovely little sister – I probably shouldn’t take photo’s in poor light when I’ve been drinking!

She had to go home again today.  What you see below is the girl’s best fake smile.  She wasn’t happy to see lovely little sister go home.

The boy wasn’t best pleased either.

The next time I see lovely little sister, she will be a mother.  Crikey.