In laws.. the visit

did drunken msn chat last night. I'm ashamed of myself. It was just wrong. I lost all ability to type, I have no idea what I said, or why it was necessary to stay up till 2am. I *think* I had fun though. Not sure my msn buddies did!

Went to Mass this morning.. Lal was an angel. Seriously. There weren't that many people there, only around 150, so he had lots of room to quietly roam. And apart from a tendancy to dance to the choir and shout what sounded suspiciously like "All done!" everytime they finished singing, was almost unnoticeable. I was proud. And hungover.. maybe he picked up on that and felt sympathy.

K was off on a stag night last night, and most of today. I was angelic in deciding that I would go to the in laws with the children.. by myself. I'm keeping track of the points I'm earning... will definitely go straight to heaven at this rate.

So In laws.. we got there. They cooed over both the children, and then did the thing. The thing where they think its cute watching Lal eat biscuits. Mini Cheddars. Chocolate Mousse. Crisps. Actually, all the stuff I deprive him of at home. The child crawled so fast, with his head down, he kept smacking into walls. Sugar rush. I've never seen the like before. I am also abusing and damaging the child but not trimming his curls. Granted, he'd had a hat on, so they were more sticky out than usual, and he did look a little Krusty the Clown like, but still. It's hardly child abuse.

So I bit my tongue. A lot. Tasted blood at one point. Got a mini revenge by allowing Lal to empty all their cupboards out. Except they found it cute. Dammit. Never going there on my own again.

Came home, did the night time routine.. that doesn't change at all.. every night doing the exact same thing. Except tonight had Lal the Sugar Freak, he finally succumbed to tiredness at 7.50, and touch wood is still asleep now. I then watched Over The Hedge with G... very funny. Really very funny. I love children's films. All of them. Except the evil Snickety man.

Ooh.. must go and feed the hedgehogs..

K x x

Otherwise known as the North Pole

Another night where Lal slept through! We were woken by him at 7.30, having escaped the cot, attempting to scale his doorgate. Honestly.. he won't walk, but he'll happily climb over everything.

Had most of the freecycle stuff from yesterday collected first thing.. I was still in dressing gown, but it was absolutely freezing, and only 11am.. who gets dressed before that?

I then decided, in my wisdom, that as the sun was shining so brightly, we would walk the 30 minutes to town, do some shopping, and walk home. Fresh air and exercise. I could always stop for a cigarette half way through. lol. So off we went, K in a thick jacket, G in a jumper and thin coat, Lal in a snowsuit, and me in a denim jacket and long T shirt. The sun was out, very bright day, I knew that after walking for 5 minutes I'd be boiling, so just a jacket would do. Would it heck. Within 6 minutes the easterly wind have permeated my meagre coverings and I was a shivering wreck, eyes streaming, nose running (attractive no?) I daren't stop walking for a second for fear my blood would freeze and I'd be stuck there forever. My mum rang too.. so I couldn't even hold my hand inside the T shirt.. one purple frozen hand. Of course, mum complained that the biting wind was blowing into the phone and so she couldn't hear me... sorry about that!

We finally got to town, my darling husband, not being chivalrous enough to give me his coat, despite giving 3 minute temperature updates.. 1 degree at one stage, was lovely and warm so was left with the children whilst I ran into a shop to defrost. And accidentally bought them both some books whilst in there.

Went to Boots, armed with a prescription for Hydrocortisone, my excema is up at the moment, to discover that the prescription was actually written on 21.02.07.. so only 6 months out of date. Wonderful. Whilst in Boots, I did manage to buy some cute shoes and a new set of sleepsuits for Lal.

Went into H&M, intending to buy me some new trousers, I have finally put on a little weight, and things are a little tight, and got G some tops and a new dress. Lal got a lovely outfit for Mass tomorrow.

And then to Debenhams, where we thought we'd treat ourselves to an afternoon snack. One coffee, two hot chocolates, one scone with cream, one choc chip muffin, one slice of apple pie and one brown roll (poor Lal gets the best stuff).. oh and G scammed K into getting her an evil Fruit Shoot.. How much?? £20.75! The Queen was obviously expected, either that or Nuclear War had happened outside and Debenhams were profiteering. £20 for that! MacDonalds next time I think.

We honestly tried to walk home, we got as far as the taxi rank. I didn't get any new clothes. I forgot to get G's birthday cards.. forgot to stop at Tesco and get stuff for tea.. didn't get my prescription. I did get frostbite though.

K x x

The nappy saga

I am now convinced that someone stole my sweet, fun and lovable Lal and replaced him with a whining brat monster. The last two days, he has been awful! Maybe the half term curse has gotten to him, but urgh.. I can't cope with it anymore! They'd better swap him back by Monday. Or he's going to live in the shed with his sister and father.

We cleaned out G's cupboards today. I put 9 different categories of stuff on freecycle, and most have gone. Old pink rucksacks, 76001 pencil cases, clothes, large and scary Halloween spiders, that sort of thing! We also found a rather large, pink and fluffy doll. The doll is Lal's new best friend and is dragged everywhere. He's even gone to sleep with it. K is not amused, especially as Lal has already formed a loving attachment to Jake (ake) and Emily (mmly) G's old baby dolls. :)

I put Lal back in his proper nappies today. This is not to run down anyone who uses dispicables, disposables (lol) but I hate them! Evil papery things. But I'd forgotten, even after two days, how difficult it is to get him into a cloth nappy.

It goes something like this:

Step One: Sniff bottom. Ewww. Delightful pong. Take baby upstairs.
Step Two: Put baby down. (We use a bed, as new spine surgery is rather expensive, and is often needed if you bend over on the floor 6 times a day)
Step three: Get clean nappy out of cupboard, remembering to get insert.
Step Four: Stop baby eating cat and move baby back to nappy changing position.
Step Five: Remove trousers and undo vest. Baby is now realising what is happening and head is now hanging off side of bed, and body is in a position that contortionists would be jealous of.
Step Six: In desperation, put trousers over baby's head and play an impromptu game of peeka boo, whilst undoing dirty nappy.
Step Seven: Attempt to clean bottom and remove nappy before baby gets trousers off head and sticks his hands in poo.
Step Eight: Clean poo off baby hands, bedding, clothes and clean nappy. Forget yourself, you're not important.
Step Nine: Give baby illegal toy.. best so far are Tv Controls Mobile Phone, Hair brush and Talcum Powder.
Step Ten: Take talcum powder off baby and do the top up properly. Wipe excess dust from streaming eyes and lift your jumper up over your mouth and breathe through. Talc will settle eventually.
Step Eleven: Rescue baby from climbing off bed and place him down on clean nappy.
Step Twelve: Move dirty nappy a safe distance, clean baby again and remember to put nappy where baby can't reach next time.
Step Thirteen: Time for a pause.. sing or something and distract baby by clapping his hands, or in our case feet.
Step fourteen: Hand back illegal toys and attempt to do up clean nappy.
Step Fifteen: One side done up is not good enough, place baby back down, undo done up side and start again.
Repeat steps 11-15
Step Sixteen: Once nappy is done up, leave vest undone and trousers off. There may be time later when baby is distracted by television to put them back on.
Step Seventeen: Leave frankly filthy and disgusting bedroom alone. There are several more nappy changes due throughout the day and there is just no point cleaning.

It's been like this all day. I'm exhausted! On the plus side.. back to school in 2 days. Oh yes.

K x x

(Ps: Lal escaped through the cat flap again. It's disconcerting when you're washing up to look outside and see your son sitting in the middle of the lawn.)

The pain of the super heated jeans.

Ouch.. it hurts. Really hurts.

Lal is currently having a major tantrum as fil came round and decided to take G into town to buy her birthday present (12 next week). Lal is screaming as he wasn't invited, and Grandpa came round and went with only a 10 minute cuddle. I am ignoring the tantrum, and hoping that he will stop soon. Not likely.. he may be hitting the terrible two's at 13 months. Smashing.

Anyway.. I have af. I hate having af. It decided to arrive a week early this morning, and the first day is always the worst. Why is that? So, I decided to make myself a hot water bottle and suffer in (non) silence through the cramping agony. When fil arrived, I threw said bottle onto the sofa, becuase you can't answer the door with a pink flowery bottle hanging out of your jeans. It's not the done thing. I failed to realise that the bottle had super heated the metal button on my jeans, and now have a perfectly round burn on my tummy.

So now I have cramps, a headache (from the tantrum screaming) and a first degree burn. It's only 1.51.. how much worse will the day get?

Oh yes. Happy Valentines Day. I have yet to receive anything.. but then I didn't realise it was actually today, so apart from a free card on photobox, I haven't got anything either. Ah well.

K x

Fix the sky!

Tuesday, today is Tuesday, I'm sure it is, but when I don't have the structure of getting up for school, I lose days completely. Is it sad that I know it's Tuesday because CSI is on? Of course tonight's episode probably won't be recording because Sky seems to have a fault. After 45 minutes on the phone, turning the box off at the wall, yes I did count to 30 before I turned it on,* taking the card in and out, being put on hold, they finally informed me that it was a local issue and engineers are laughing, sorry working on the problem. If I miss the Gorgeous Gil, well.. I may write a strongly worded letter. Ok, I won't actually write one, but I will in my mind. Always sounds better in there than on paper.
Ooh.. I ranted there, sorry!

Walking with Lal started off well... but then we kept making him do it, so now every time his feet touch the floor he arches himself backwards in protest. Ah... may give it a rest tomorrow and allow him to crawl again.

Oh yes.. urgh.. shudder and yuck... Lal dropped a dummy behind the row of drawers in our bedroom.. the dust.. the dust actually had dust and had made swirly patterns. URGH! Children were despatched to the park with K and I moved all the furniture and cleaned.. URGH. Three hours it took.. but I may be able to sleep in our room tonight.

And lastly for tonight, and I am blaming Mallan entirely for making me read her blog on nappy rashes.. Lal's has been getting progressively worse today, he now has a big red sore patch. No creams were working, nothing, so I had to do it. He is now in his first disposable nappy in a year. And he has no bum. The vests that were too tight this morning are now miles too big.. clothes actually fit him..but he feels so strange to hold. I am used to big, squishy fat bum baby. I now have a skinny nothingness. Not good. As soon as its cleared up he's back in his proper ones. I want a big bummed baby!

That leads me quickly to another point.. hopefully not just me... does anyone else not read threads on bc entitled "Chicken Pox..." "Terrible sickness..." "Baby who won't sleep.." " Baby who won't eat..." "Terrible tantrums?" I used to read them, but within two or three days, Lal would be suffering from whatever ailment was contained within the thread... It''s safer not to look!

K x x

*Ok, I really counted to 28, but those last two seconds won't have hurt...

Maybe holidays aren't so bad..

The first day, and all went rather well! G was actually extremely well behaved, she probably wants something later in the week and is storing up goodness, but I don't mind. I can always say no. I'm good at that.

Had a mini mental moment, as I went into the kitchen to remove the washing from the machine, opened it and there was nothing in there. So I shut the door, and then opened it again to check that I had really just seen an empty drum. Nothing. Maybe I hadn't put the washing on? Just thought I had. Meh.

And then I saw a sock. A single, solitary sock. On the floor, in front of the cat flap. Lal strikes again. All my lovely clean washing had been posted outside. Wonderful. Good job K had swept out there, but still.. winter does not mean that outside floor is nice and clean. Grrr! Put washing on again and made sure I was around when it finished this time.

And then tonight. Oh happy tonight!
Justa bout to have our tea, and I went into the playroom, where G and Lal were playing. She stood Lal in front of me, and backed away.. and he took 6, yes 6, steps towards her. On his own! And then after his bath, he repeated it 6 times, backwards and forwards between me and her! K is now taking tomorrow off work, so he can see. LOL

So, let the record reflect that on this, the 11th day of February in the year of Our Lord, 2008, Alexander James S, became an official "nearly" walker. Oh yes he did.

The one problem I can foresee, G and I made such a fuss of him when he did do it, hugs, shouts etc, we made him cry, so he may never attempt it again.

Ah well.

K x x

Our eyes met across a crowded room....

He knocked me over. The first time we met, literally. With a football. I cried for a long time and told my mum. He then bought me an ice cream and I decided to marry him. I was 7. He was my brother's friend and he was gorgeous. Although I wasn't aware of his gorgeousness at the time, but I did like the ice cream. It even had a flake.

Of course I was far too young to get married at 7, and he was older, it just wasn't the done thing. So he ignored me until I turned 14. Which was still stupidly young, but I couldn't hold out any more, and kissed him. As I recall, he absolutely freaked and told me that my brothers would kill him. I didn't see him for three weeks, and when he finally came round he had J's (my brother) permission and we started "going out."

16 years after the first kiss, we're still going strong.

Oh.. how soppy is this? I need to find something to moan about..

Can't.. soppiness has taken over, I am no longer a sarcastic person, I am now entirely sickly sweet.

K x x