Sometimes it's nice being woken in the night (yes, really). The past three or four nights I've been sleeping in the same room as M because Mum and Dad were here (and I haven't got around to changing the sheets yet). Around 3, I've been woken by a little voice saying Mummy...cuddle?. When I get up to give her a cuddle, she lays her head on my shoulder for a minute or two before saying KISS!, giving me a great big smacker, then lying down and going straight back to sleep. Aw.
Lisa at 20:30
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We've had a nice few days with my mum and dad here - Cameron has gone to Houston this time. We took M to her normal playgroup on Monday, her birthday, where I felt a bit teary when they sang happy birthday. Then Sara and Ian came for a birthday tea, bringing pressies and candles and it was sort of OK that Daddy was away for it. Tuesday, I took my parents on their first ever visit to Ikea: despite the crowds (I'd promised it would be empty midweek, failing to anticipate everybody being off work striking, or off work looking after their children whose schools were shut because the dinner ladies were on strike - or something) they were enormously surprised and impressed. I think they expected a small selection of flimsy falling-apart flatpack and were actually overwhelmed by the huge selection and came away clutching leaflets about kitchens! So that was fun - I always enjoy a trip to Ikea anyway, even if I buy nothing but a coffee and a new pack of bibs for Maggie.
I got her new shoes today - was made to feel like a really Bad Mummy because she'd gone up a whole size and I admitted she'd had them for ages. But her toes were only just at the end, it's not like I was squashing her feet in like an ugly stepsister; and we had had them checked (ahem, once) in the interim.
Still no exchange.
Lisa at 19:34
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Look who's two! Busy busy with parties and presents and parents; back soon.


Lisa at 15:58
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We had Sunday lunch with some friends a few weeks back. And very nice it was too: they are nice middle-class (!) cloth-nappy-using people (well, for their children) and fed us enormous amounts of roast lamb and a vast selection of seasonal veg: all organic, naturally. Then a fabulous home-made cheesecake to follow. And then they got out a "tweenies" yogurt for Maggie, at which point I began to feel like a complete mad old crunchy hippy mum as I had to confess that I didn't know whether she'd like it as she'd only ever had natural yogurt. (She didn't, and is far too young to have the manners to hide it - she took one spoonful and spat it out!) I felt quite embarrassed to come across as a nutritional obsessive*: I'm not, but having a child who eats virtually nothing makes you very aware of what each mouthful contains. Of course she has biscuits (plain ones, mostly) and the occasional chocolate or cakey treat. But not nasty cynical branded-for-children desserts. I don't want anyone to think I'm like that Paltrow woman, but I don't eat much muck myself and am certainly not going to feed it to a 2-year-old.
My sister cleverly suggested I do as she does in the future - so I'm not the only one, and she has a child who would eat you if you stood still long enough - and suggest that it is about miserliness not freakishness. Although anyone even vaguely familar with my profligate ways won't be fooled for one second.
*Also secretly quite pleased, I'd have been a bit miffed if she'd gobbled it up going yum yum yum.
Lisa at 20:05
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I'm terribly sorry: I have no excuse bar general rubbishness and the overwhelming drudgery of single parenthood. Roll on April, when I will once again have a husband in the same location as me for more than 2 days at a time. Germany this week, while Maggie and I attempt to buy a new house and organise the Grand Birthday Bash. Which isn't so Grand, having been left completely to the last minute, but she won't mind. There will be cake and new toys and some of her favourite people and soft-play: what more could a 2-year-old want?
Let's see. Last week was spent mainly on the phone to solicitors (or rather, solicitor's receptionists, and quite a lot of time on hold) or "dealing" with the bank. I have no idea why we nominally have internet and telephone banking when to do anything more unusual than check your balance you are required to present yourself in person, with passport et al. The Warrington branch has see my passport more times than Japanese customs (and without fail they say ooh this is a well-travelled one). We took M to Tatton Park Farm (grumble grumble license to print money mutter mutter) on Sunday, which she really enjoyed, touching donkeys, feeding goats, wiggling her nose at the rabbit and snorting at piglets. Katy and Megan came to stay last night: spookily, about 20 minutes before they arrived Maggie told me Megan's crying then Katy told me when she arrived that Megan had slept most of the way and just cried for the last 20 minutes or so!
Lisa at 15:40
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Well, we've still not actually exchanged or anything interesting like that - some last-minute kerfuffle about moving interior walls, wood-burning stoves (and accompanying flues) and a water search - but the remortgage for our current house came through today. Am seriously considering emptying the current account and absconding to live on a beach in the sun - via Croydon, of course, to collect Cameron; I wouldn't leave him there. Croydon! I have no idea.
Lisa at 19:52
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phew! Just ate my way through the European veg mountain: C was expected home for tea but his car turned up (correctly) 2 hours earlier than expected, necessitating frantic calls to work and a dash home for him while I packed his bag. Goodness knows if he has appropriate clothing (how would I know what people wear to meetings? Coffee mornings or playgroups, I can do) and fingers crossed he made his flight. Dinner was prepared so what is a girl to do? Extra carrots, broccoli and fish yum yum. Have left the potatoes until tomorrow though.
Lisa at 19:14
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Oops! Where did that week go? I suppose with Cameron away (then back, then away again as of today) and Maggie now having a new infection - eyes this time; just back from the doctor with drops - and signing the contract (no we still haven't got a date for moving, please stop asking please thank you) and tidying for viewers and reattaching the washing-machine door and a curtain rail - the house is falling apart around us - (these last two were Cameron's jobs of course; we are terribly trad), there just hasn't been much time for sitting at the PC. (Oh OK those of you who speak to me on MSN know that's a lie but let me continue my self delusion a while longer.) And we've been busy with the usual round of playgroups, coffee mornings, soft-play, swimming: it's all go being a toddler these days.
Lisa at 14:01
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We're raising a monster. How many children, when their devoted mummies had cooked their number one most favourite tea in an attempt to tempt them out of a 72-hour famine, would spit out the delicious shepherd's pie and choose instead a big feed of broccoli? Yummy yummy she said: that's not normal, is it.
Lisa at 20:03
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C is away south until Thursday night and so far today I have been to playgroup; had the washing machine fixed; taken on a piece of work with the very odd deadline of "Friday 10th or Monday 13th STRICT"; dealt with a super-clingy M, who has stopped puking but not yet started eating again although she thinks she's hungry - right until it gets put in her mouth and spat out, which is particularly pleasant when she chooses your water glass into which to spit her chewed-up tagliatelle; handled an almost-dead pigeon (proper dead birds I am fine with, it's the chewed and mangled yet still wriggling and bleeding on my carpet ones I have a problem with. I'm ashamed to say I put it out the front door and thrust the cat after it to finish the job. Then feigned surprise when the washing-machine man pointed out the half pigeon on my drive.) I've done (hooray!) a load of laundry and failed (boo!) to speak to either solicitor or estate agent or damp chap. I've chosen the washing machine I want in my new house, having been assured by two separate repairmen that hotpoint now expects its machines to last 18 months. (The one we have, from before they were merged or bought or whatever happened, has lasted 8 years with only two repairs. Which is good: I'd rather pay more for my next one and have it last than have to replace every 2 years or so. I thought we had a landfill problem? It makes me cross. Miele, apparently, builds machines to last 20 years and provides a 10-year guarantee - so we'll get one of them).
That was a big digress, and now I can't remember what else i was going to put. Having got M bathed and in bed on my own, tidied the toys and washed the dishes, I think I deserve a nice bath and some special ice cream.
Lisa at 19:11
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OK, so what does one need for a pleasant Saturday night in? Pizza, check. Ice cream, check. Film on telly, check. Stinking rotten cold, check. Projectile-vomiting toddler, check. Broken-down washing machine just as you put on the first load of sicky sheets and towels? Fan-bloody-tastic.
Lisa at 15:51
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What a lovely day. Maggie and I went to the theatre (well, the Brindley Arts Centre) with a couple of friends this morning: how civilised. My friend snow is designed for 2-7-year-olds so I fully expected her to manage about half then get bored, but she sat transfixed for nearly an hour. She had to be on my lap, and when the dragon came on stage she whimpered, but she must have enjoyed it because she's been telling me about it all afternoon. ("dragon. bear. steps. sit down.") I was a little bored by the end, but that's OK: I don't fall within the designated age range.
The rest of the day was mostly occupied with Wheel of the Year photos and mostly not reading my book-group book despite the meeting being tomorrow. I'm just not gripped.
Lisa at 18:39
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