Minor Irritations

I'm back!  My friend Linda came over yesterday afternoon (Thank you so much - it was very much needed!) and whilst here said "I didn't know you had a blog."  So thought it was about time I did a bit more on here as I have been somewhat absent for a while, mostly due to potty training. If this was homework my teacher would surely have written 'must do better'.

I was disproportionately annoyed by a sock yesterday.  So much so that it made me think "Have I got OCD or something?!"  When I got dressed I was in a bit of a hurry as we had uncharacteristically overslept - a small miracle as anyone with children will know.  In any case I had an appointment at 10am with my health advisor and was running late.  In my haste I wasn't paying attention when I put my socks on and then when I came downstairs I realised that one of them was inside out.  I am not the sort of person who can shrug this off and think "oh well, who cares?".  So I took my sock off to right this heinous wrong.

Not my feet.  Or my socks.

Unfortunately I got distracted by Hayley taking off the cardigan I had just got her to put on and failed to turn the sock the right way round before I put it back on.  Without having realised this I put my shoes on and off we went.  It wasn't until we had come home again and I had made everyone lunch that I sat down and saw what I had done.  I now had a dilemma on my hands.  Do I turn the sock round and get all that dust and what not on my foot or do I leave the sock as it is and let it annoy me all day?  I decided I couldn't cope with all that muck on my foot and left it as it was.

I kept noticing it through the day and letting out a mental gasp of exasperation!  I was so relieved when I went to bed that I was finally able to take it off!  I can't believe that not once did it occur to me just to put a new pair of socks on and all would have been well with the world...

Adios Suckers!

Hayley has a bad habit of biting things.  Today I caught her with DVD in her mouth.  Anyway because of this she was down to one dummy having lost one and chewed through two.  The last time she chewed through one we told her that it was broken and she had to throw it away, which she did.  We then explained to her that she now only had one left so she needed to take care of it because if she broke that one it would have to go in the bin and then she wouldn't be able to have one anymore.

That day arrived on Monday.  Whilst at her Aunty Cait's I noticed that her dummy (which was in my bag for emergencies) had a hole in and that I was now going to have to face a few days of torture by means of a 2 year old's screams.  I called Jon and gave him the bad news.  Before bedtime we sat Hayley down and showed her that her dummy was broken.  We told her that she could have it for one more night and then she would have to throw it away.  The next morning we reminded her that it had to go and she threw it in the bin with no problem.

However, when it came to nap time I spent 1hr 10mins repeatedly putting her back to bed, cuddling her, explaining about the dummy in a continuous cycle until she got completely over the fact that she was tired and eventually brought her downstairs again.  I expected the same at bedtime but to our surprise she only asked for the dummy twice and went to bed with only some of the normal amount of fussing.  She refused a nap again today and wouldn't even let me take her upstairs so I didn't push it.  This meant that she was fairly hideous this afternoon throwing tantrums at the smallest thing (one being that she wanted a red ice pop, which I gave her only for her to start screaming that she wanted an orange one - cue me tearing my hair out) but by bedtime was exhausted.

She asked for her dummy on the way to bed and I said her dummy was broken and asked her what happened to it.  "It's in the bin Mummy!" like I was stupid not to know!  And she went to bed with absolutely no fuss and we haven't heard a peep from her since.

YES!!!!!!!!!!!!

A busy few days

Haven't blogged for a few days as I've been a little busy reading!  My friend Melanie lent me a brilliant book called The Hunger Games and it most definitely had my undivided attention (of course only in the child free hours of midday and the evening).  I'm just desperate for the next installment now!

Having said that I now feel completely sorry for myself as I'm full of cold and having chills so off for a bath and early night!

Mama's Boy

So so proud of my niece Leilani today who showed a spider exactly who's the boss.  I have completely irrational fear of spiders given that I am probably a hundred times their size (maybe a bit more at the moment...) but it's the legs!  And the speed with which they use those legs.

A few days ago whilst on the phone to my sister Cait, Jon pointed out that there was a spider poking it's legs out from underneath our fire.  I instantly pulled my legs up underneath me and put on my 'scared for my life face' and begged Jon to get it.  This was followed by much whimpering and squealing until he did get up to catch it, especially when it evaded him and headed for the bookshelf - a safe haven if ever it saw one.  Thankfully Jon managed to trap it in his bare hands (my brave, brave hero!), and asked me to open the back door so he could let it out.  I made him wait in the middle of the room until I had opened the door and retreated to a point of safety halfway up the stairs, just in case the spider made a break for it before being released.  Ordeal over.

Until the next morning.

After breakfast I went upstairs to shower and Jon was in the bathroom.  He said "Are you going to have a shower?"  To which I said "I was but if you want to go in first that's fine."  He smiled and said "It's not that, look."  I looked in the bath and there was the MOTHER OF ALL SPIDERS!!!!  It was seriously huge!  The spider from the night before had obviously gone running to his mummy, it's Italian Mama at that (you know the type, big and protective) and said "They were mean to me!" and she decided we needed to be taught a lesson.  And to make things even worse Jon excitedly called Hayley in and showed her the spider and said "Watch this!" and poked the spider and both of them giggled as it sped round and round the bath.

I had to take refuge in the bedroom until I could be certain Mama was gone.

Positional Asphyxiation

I watched CSI the other night and learned that Positional Asphyxiation is where someone is suffocated by someone else sitting on their chest.  It reminded me of a conversation that took place at my sister Cait's house on Sunday.

Our youngest sister Jess has just started dating someone and as she's the youngest we're all very protective of her.  I said to Cait that I really needed to lose some weight so when I said to David* that if he hurts my sister I know Kung Fu and Kickboxing** he doesn't just look me up and down and laugh.  Cait said "Well until then you can just tell him you'll sit on him."


*Not his real name.  Don't think Jess would be appreciate me blogging about someone she's only been on a couple of dates with, so we'll just see how things develop.

**I do actually know some Kung Fu and Kickboxing.

Thank heaven for cameras

I was watching my children today doing the lovely things they do and suddenly thought "will I remember this?"

Will I remember how Austin loves to be kissed?  How he gets a big grin even if you just make kissing noises?  Or how if you make cooing sounds to him he'll make them back?  Will I remember that when he's really happy he wriggles and kicks his legs like mad?  Or how he looks gorgeous in green?  And will I remember that for some reason during the daytime he likes to sleep with the curtains open?

Will I remember that Hayley loves to wrestle and that her favourite weapon is licking?  Or that she loves to share our crumpets or muffins, but won't eat them from her own plate?  Will I remember the exact shade her hair turns in summer and how at the age of 2 it hangs all bouncy just below her shoulders?  Or how she loves to demonstrate her boogie bum?  Will I remember exactly how when she holds my hand it feels so small and so secure?

I won't remember everything and that makes me feel incredibly sad.  For the things that can't be captured in a picture I'll have to get better at writing them down, and for the things that can, thank heaven for cameras.

The Food Diary

After I had Hayley I was determined to lose some weight and was on a fairly good roll and then found out I was pregnant with Austin.  According to my Health Advisor I only need to lose about 1stone before I'm back to a healthy BMI and although I'd like to lose more than that it seems a good initial target.

I had my first meeting with the Health Advisor yesterday who weighed and measured me and set me the challenge of keeping a food diary for two weeks.  This is supposed to be so she can see just what and how much I eat normally.  The thing is, because I'm writing it down for someone else to read I am not eating normally!  I can't put on there "6 biscuits, 2 slices of chocolate cake and a pint of milk"!  So instead today I have had one small bowl of shreddies for breakfast, a slice of last night's leftover homemade pizza and a banana for lunch and 3 glasses of high juice.  And 3 toffee pennies.

I'm starving!!

Hayleyisms

When Hayley was 9 months old I was walking into Church carrying her when she said "car" as we went past one.  I thought it must have been a coincidence and she was just babbling, but then on the way out we passed the same car again and she said "car".  I was surprised and so so proud!  Since then her speech has rapidly improved - within a couple of weeks she was saying 'dog' and 'woof' as well as Mama and Dada, which of course was her very first word.  People have often commented on how well she speaks for her age and has for a few months been able to talk in sentences, although she often misses out the connecting words like 'the' and 'a'. 

Our gorgeous girl just before her brithday

She comes out with some really funny things and I thought I'd share some:

Iccleponamous - believe it or not this is Hippopotamus

When she asked to watch a movie I asked her which one she wanted to watch and she said "Ice Age Dinosours eat Sid in mouth" and opened her mouth wide and pointed into it just to make sure I knew exactly what she meant.

Jon was putting up the new TV and Hayley pointed to the old one which was on the floor and said "That one broken, that Mummy's."  She then pointed to the new TV and said "That Hayley's."  Today I asked her where my TV was and she pointed to the old one, so I asked where her TV was and she pointed to the new one.  Then I asked her where Daddy's TV was (we don't have another one) and she stood and thought for a bit and then went "Ummmmmm.... upstairs!"

I can't think of anymore just now as my brain has switched off but I'll update this as soon as it comes back to me!

Our Matt

When I moved 'up north' to go to university I didn't actually know that many people from Yorkshire as the other students I lived and went to institute with where from all over the country.  It wasn't until I switched courses and went to Sheffield Hallam University that I started to notice particular phrases being used, like "I tret me sen" which means "I treated myself", or "causey" which means "footpath".  But perhaps the most common one is when they use "our" in front of someones name, which means that the person referred to is family.  So "Our Matt" is Jon's brother.

Matt is older than Jon and still lives with his parents and pays board.  For this he is constantly being ribbed by Jon and me (and I have to admit that I am the worst).  We tell him he's got it so easy and use the phrase "Put his board up!" a lot.  I keep not so subtly telling Matt about houses and flats that are for rent or sale (two of which were on our street), or trying to point out single ladies he might be interested in and generally giving him a hard time and he takes it all in good grace.

But I don't think Matt knows just how much we love him!  Matt is one of the nicest, kindest people you will ever meet.  He's the sort of person that you can call on a Saturday afternoon in the middle of the world cup because the IKEA furniture you bought and tried to put up by yourself is falling down and you need him to come and fix it (he did that for my friend Sarah).  He's the person that when you're ill at work and you need to be picked up and have your car taken home, he'll come and do it.  That happened twice, once was at 3am.  He does everything that he should and more.  If you need anything Matt is the one you call. 

He's a lovely uncle too.  He comes round just to see the children sometimes and they love it!  Hayley adores him and calls him 'Culmatt' because she can't saw the 'un' bit of 'uncle'.  When we had Hayley he bought us our pushchair and when we had Austin he bought us a new nappy bag as the one we had was falling apart.  And on Sunday we went to a family wedding he had Austin for virtually the whole afternoon and didn't complain once.  He plays with them and pays them attention.  And not just my children but his other nieces and nephews too, they all love him to bits.

And he's a fantastic brother-in-law.  I remember at our wedding he was the best man and in his speech he said if Jon ever hurt me he'd break his legs, and he meant it.  When I had to get my car serviced he kept me company all day while I waited at Jon's parents for it to be finished, even though he probably had much better things to do.  He makes an awesome banoffe pie and always offers to make one (or two) if we're ever having some sort of function. 

We give him a hard time because we love him, and we suggest houses on our street because we'd like it if he lived there.  We try to set him up with girls we know because he would be a great husband and father.  Matt is the best brother anyone could hope for.

I can't do tinned tomatoes

So a little bit more of the holiday for you.  Each time we go on holiday together, as there are so many of us, each family takes it in turns to cook dinner for everyone else.  Thursday was Jessica's turn and she was making Spaghetti Bolognese.  As she had helped me on my evening I decided it was only fair to return the favour and acted as her sous chef doing all the chopping.  Jess was adding tinned tomatoes to the pan when she came out with "Eugh what's that?" and using the wooden spoon lifted out what can only be described as a black knobbly lump.  Definitely not a lump of burnt meat and only appeared after adding the tomatoes.  I said she should put it to one side and take it back to Tesco.  And yes we did all still eat the dinner and lived to tell the tale.

Later on I had to pop to Tesco anyway for a few bits and bobs and offered to return the offending tin and black lump on Jess's behalf.  When I arrived I went up to the very friendly looking assistant at the customer service desk and explained the problem.  I handed over the tin and lump to which she said (in a very thick welsh accent) "I can't do tinned tomatoes" and without any further explanation walked over to another assistant and asked them to serve me instead.  She did then come back and elaborated with "I'm sorry but every time I smell tinned tomatoes I throw up."  Odd.

The young man who served me was very helpful but his computer was not which lead to lots of conversations with is colleagues as to how to process the complaint.  I didn't have a clue what they were saying though as apart from the odd word or two such as "Head Office" which they obviously didn't have a translation for, they were all talking in Welsh.  Now I know that this is going to sound very ignorant and blonde (no offense you blondes out there) but I seriously didn't think that when I went to Wales so many people would actually speak Welsh!  I was under the impression that Welsh was a bit of a dying language and that kids were taught it in school just to keep it alive.  But it was actually really lovely to hear them all speaking it even if I didn't have a clue what was going on.  The long and short of it though is that Jess got a £5 good will gesture until she hears from the suppliers of the tomatoes.

That evening Adam did manage to finish his work and we finally got to watch Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.  Genius!  Absolutely loved it and would recommend it to anyone, especially adults!

Friday was the day Hayley, Austin and I were going home as we had a dinner planned with the Turner family on Saturday for a very late Christmas (will explain later).  That morning was the nicest we'd had though and we all went for a walk down to the beach, where I called Jon and said I'd like to stay a bit later and make the most of it.  So instead of leaving at lunchtime we would be leaving after dinner.

Hayley LOVES the beach.  Although she was fully clothed she ran in and out of the water laughing and squealing and generally having a brilliant time.

She even laid down in the sand and said "Hayley go sleep now."  It was very sweet and I didn't care one bit about the sand that was quite literally everywhere as we were going home and she was happy.  Also just a tip for anyone out there who has had the common sand all over problem following trips to the beach - talcum powder.  Just rub it on and it works a treat!  The sand falls off straight away, it doesn't even feel gritty while you're rubbing it and your skin is all soft afterwards.  So thanks Claire for the advice!

Jess had to leave in the morning to go to a wedding reception of one of her best friends (congratulations Lucy) and the rest of us spent the afternoon on the harbour crabbing again.  We had a delicious lunch of chips, it's very rare that I bother with the fish, and later wondered back through Porthmaddog and headed 'home' to the campsite.

We didn't set off after tea for one very messy reason provided by Austin.  You really don't want to know.  Let's just say that it was messy, everywhere and necessitated a complete change of clothes for both Austin and myself.  So at 8pm I set up the sat nav and off we went.  It took us on a beautiful tour of the Welsh countryside where I got to see an amazing sunset.

This picture really doesn't do it justice

Two hours later and Austin was ready for a feed, I was tired, we were in the middle of nowhere with no mobile signal and I had no idea of how long it would be before I saw anything that resembled civilization again.  I drove a little further and eventually ended up parking at a petrol station to feed Austin before setting off again.  I couldn't even reset the sat nav to find a shorter route as I couldn't guarantee we'd get a GPS signal again and as I had no clue where we were I wouldn't even know which way to drive.  So I carried on and eventually made it out of Wales, following which I stopped at the first services I came to and had a sleep.  Some time later I made it to the M62 and could not believe my luck that at midnight I was stuck in traffic because of road works.  SERIOUSLY??

Mom: "I've got crabs!"

I don't know whether my secondary school English teacher, Mrs Gregory, might have something to say about the use of punctuation in the title of this blog entry but I wanted to make absolutely sure that no one thought I had caught a nasty infestation!  And perhaps I should explain my Mom's outburst.

Last week I joined my parents, my England dwelling sisters and their families on a camping holiday in Porthmadog, Wales.  I was a bit nervous about it as Austin was only 7 weeks old and Jon wasn't coming with us as he had to work but I shouldn't have worried because it was brilliant!  We arrived on Tuesday evening and got unpacked before making everyone a yummy dinner of Cajun Chicken Pasta (which is delicious and deliciously easy if anyone would like the recipe).  Hayley was far too excited at the prospect of sleeping in a tent to actually go to sleep but we did eventually settle down to a surprisingly warm and comfortable night.

On Wednesday morning, Mom, Dad, Hayley, Austin, Jessica and I explored Porthmadog then met Cait, Richard and Ethan at the Harbour to do sometime I had never tried before - crabbing.  I was pretty excited to give it a go, though as it transpired not as excited as Mom who took the first turn under Cait's careful tuition.  After several failed attempts to catch anything, Mom pulled in her line and shouted very loudly "I've got crabs!" to which all those in the vicinity fell about laughing and the tone was set for the rest of the day.  Mom got freaked out when Cait was trying to get the tiniest crab off her line and it landed on the harbour wall and scuttled towards Mom.  Mom was screaming at Cait to get it and Cait obviously wasn't doing it fast enough as Mom swatted the poor thing and launched it 20 feet into the air!  But this doesn't even compare to her sneaky little comment which unfortunately for her Cait heard and retold to the rest of us.  Apparently Mom had a few crabs on her line which she failed to get up into the bucket so Mom said "The little buggers fell off!"  Probably sounds tame to most people but not if you know my mother!

Mom moments after her "I've got crabs!" outburst

Mom swapped with me to look after my sleeping babies and I had a brilliant time.  Having never been crabbing before I asked Cait if bacon was the only bait you could use and she said "Bacon, ham... whatever", to which I replied "Just pork products then?" to which she very quickly came out with "Yes, that's why you're not catching anything, you're fishing in the Jewish community."

My first time Crabbing

Thursday was a bit grim weather wise so we all took a trip on the steam train to Blaenau Ffestiniog.  All of us except Mom, Becky and Jess who decided to climb Snowden.  If it hadn't been raining I think it would have been fine, but as it was the only place we could find to eat our picnic without the sandwiches going soggy was a bus shelter.  Classy!

That evening we had planned on borrowing Adam's laptop to watch Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.  This is a favourite of some of my family but I hadn't seen it.  While sat with Jess and Richard in the gazebo the two of them started quoting funny lines from the film.  I asked them to stop because I didn't want them to ruin the film.  They stopped for a couple of minutes and then started again, at which point my Mom put on her 'I'm really cross' face and said "Jessica! Enough!  I mean it, enough!"  To which Jess broke off laughing for all of a second, then wheezed out "She tried to tell me off!" before breaking into further hysterics.

Well there's lots more holiday memories to share but they'll have to wait until another day as my little boy needs feeding.

Here I go again

I was lucky growing up that my Mom had the philosophy that 'Hair Grows'.  She allowed us to cut it and dye it whenever we wanted to because it would just grow out.  So I spent my teenage years using those sachets of wash in and wash out dye, usually with little effect on my dark brown hair.  I later moved on to actually buying boxes of dye with mixed results.  Things took a step up when I moved to university in Sheffield and through my part time job at HA!HA! Bar and Restaurant became friends with the hairdressers at the Tony and Guy Salon over the road. 

This is the only time I have ever had a male hairdresser, James, and he was brilliant!  I always had great haircuts and some amazing colours.  I started off with big chunks of red in various shades and then moved on to pink in baby pink, fuchsia and violet.  I loved it and apparently so did Jon as he met me during this phase.  The last time James dyed my hair it had patches of pink, blue, purple and red and it was for a course he was doing.  I'm sure if I had any photos of it now I would still think I looked amazing!  I eventually came to the realisation that I actually quite like my natural hair colour and it was only the last time that I had my hair cut that the very last ends of previously dyed hair got chopped off (the dyeing wasn't a recent thing, I just have very long hair).

However, I also grew up watching my Mom dye her greying hair and then even got to the stage where I helped her to do it after two part time jobs as a salon junior, so I knew that there would likely come a time in my life when I would be doing the same thing.  When I was 21 and holiday in New Zealand with my oldest sister Sam visiting my second oldest sister Sheri the clock started ticking.  I think the only thing worse than finding a grey hair is your older sister finding it.  I don't even remember what exactly we were doing, I just remember Sam's sudden sharp intake of breath and "Amy you've got a grey hair!" followed by my screams of "Pull it out! Pull it out!"  Since then the greys have come more frequently and now they're bringing they're friends the frizzies too.  Two children and six year later, and they arrive in groups and pulling them out just doesn't seem to do the trick.

 I'm not ready to just keep trying to retain my natural colour so I decided I needed to go for a bold colour.  I thought this might give the impression that I was dyeing my hair because I wanted to and not out of necessity.  Although I guess by writing about it on here I might just have blown my cover.  Anyhow, I went for red and having had the box in my bag for a couple of days I finally took the plunge and donned the plastic gloves this morning.

 I was about half way through when I realised I did not have enough dye.  Did I mention that I have very long hair?  I also have very thick hair, so thick in fact that when I go to my current hairdresser Emma, she books me in for a double appointment just so she has enough time to thin it out.  There was no way Jon would have done a quick trip to Asda for me, and even if he had the colour wouldn't develop at the same time as the other one.  So I soldiered on and hoped for the best.

The best is not what I got.  It's patchy thanks to the lack of dye and it is not the colour the girl on the box looks so happy to be sporting.  The only way you can even tell I've done anything to it is if I stand right under a light and then it has a reddish brownish hue.  I even checked on the box what colour it would turn out with darkest brown to black hair and believe me this isn't it.  A complete waste of two days being nervous and a morning spent dyeing, washing and drying it.

But there's hope.  I've bought two boxes of a different brand in a red that I like and I'm going to leave it on for longer and keep my fingers crossed.  It might work.  Maybe.

I won't hold my breath.

And so it begins

Following in the steps of my big sister I have taken to journal writing on here.  Mostly because I type much faster than I write, but also because I've never been very good at keeping a journal so maybe this will be an improvement.

I actually stole the title of my blog from a book (which I have yet to read) called MEE speaks but does she have anything to say?  It seemed very appropriate for me as I love to talk but often don't have much of anything to talk about.  Although today is Hayley's 2nd birthday so maybe this will actually be worthwhile!


I was up first this morning with Austin, my 6 week old son, and Hayley wandered out of her bedroom dummy and 'snuggy' in hand looking all gorgeous and curly haired and I wondered to myself "What happened to the last two years?"  It seems to have gone so quickly yet at the same time as though it was just yesterday that it was her I was feeding at 6am.  She is wonderful and beautiful and I don't deserve her.  She makes me smile everyday, even on the tough days when we have lots of time outs I can find something that has made me glow inside because of her.  Jon carried Hayley downstairs (not because she can't do it by herself but because she loves to be carried) whilst I got ready with the camera.  We bought her a play kitchen and having put it together last night it was far too big and awkward to wrap so it had a sheet of wrapping paper on the front which was very quickly pulled off.  Her little face lit up and she was very quickly making us breakfast and giving us drinks.

She also got some cars from Austin, which doesn't sound very girly but she loves playing with her cousin Ethan's cars so we thought why not?  We are blessed to have many generous friends who have also given her gifts - thank you all.  We've since spent the morning watching Ice Age (again) and making glittery pictures at the kitchen table.

Both Austin and Hayley are now asleep so I need to crack on with her second birthday cake.  By that I mean it's the second cake she's had not that it's for her second birthday.  We had all the family here on Sunday for Austin's blessing so we had her actual cake then (pictures are up on facebook) but Jon's family are coming this evening for a BBQ - more than likely to turn into a grill - so another cake is in order, but only if I actually go and make it...