My life in a nutshell - family tag

Another great day off

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:36:00 GMT

I have had quite a few days off recently and the common theme seems to be mostly how rubbish they are. Today is a good example. So far my day off has consisted of leaving home at 6:30am and cycling, in the rain, to work, with a slow puncture. I had to go into work as something important overan so I need to go in to finish it off. Six hours later I left work and cycled home. As soon as I got in Helen went for a nap. There wasn't much in the house for lunch so I made a mess of my diet by having jam sandwich followed by chocolate biscuits. Very healthy. Then I read some email. It's 14:48 now. Tom needs to be woken up and Jamie will be finished at school in twenty minutes. Sigh. Before you know it, it will be time for bed.

Chef Edith

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:00:54 GMT

Edith loves helping in the kitchen and has helped with the Sunday roast for the last few weeks. She keeps on telling me what to do and likes me to ask her permission and say 'Yes, Chef Edith' lots.

This Sunday when we got the meal on the table Helen congratulated 'Chef Edith' on an excellent dinner only to have Edith correct her "I'm not Chef Edith now, mummy, I'm Eater Edith". She then proceeded to consume her own body weight in roast potatoes, chicken and sausages.

Jamie has a habit of prefixing every statement with 'Actually'. Edith has picked up on this and got a bit confused so now every time we have Yorkshire Puddings with the dinner she thinks they are called 'actual-puddings'. If you try and correct her then you get a quizzical look then she will keep on calling them 'actual-puddings'. It is sending Jamie mad "because ice cream and jelly is an actual pudding, not these". This might well explain why she keeps doing it.

Dada is the new mama

Mon, 17 Aug 2009 20:52:00 GMT

Helen went away for the weekend leaving me with Tom and Edith. Tom has being saying Dada for a little while now and I was a bit nonplussed when I visited my mum's cousin and he started calling me mama. I just thought he had given up using dada for a while until Helen got back. He was very pleased to see her (ear to ear grin) but he insisted on hugs from me and still called me mama and didn't seem to call Helen anything. I couldn't work out if he associates 'mama' with whomever is supplying food and hugs today or whether he was punishing Helen for abandoning him.

Tom was poorly all weekend with a high temperature. He hit 38.8c on Saturday night. I was taking it all in my stride until I used the fancy thermometer Helen bought and it started screaming and flashing red danger high temperature. Its funny how having some figures can totally change your perception of a situation, correctly or otherwise. I rang the on call doctors to check out how I was supposed to double up Calpol and Neurofen and spent all of Saturday night getting up and administering more medicine. He was still hot on Monday morning but Helen reported him much better by that evening.

Dunwich

Thu, 28 May 2009 22:48:00 GMT

We went down to the nature reserve and saw buzzard, dartford warbler and avocet. We heard what we were reliably informed was Cettis' Warbler. A great morning in the still of the heathland beside the sea. No wind, not too hot, not too cold.
After getting back to the holiday cottage Jamie, Tom and I went exploring in the woods and fields around about. We watched an Apache helicopter from the nearby airbase orbit round a few times. They seem to fly all day and well into the evening. We found some spotted orchids growing in a damp shady patch at the top of a field. The cottage owner told us there were some in flower in the area.
After Tom and Edith were safely in bed Jamie and I went into Framlingham to buy a chinese takeaway. Twelve hours later I can still feel the leaden ball in my belly that is king prawn curry and salt and pepper chicken. I must have drunk five glasses of water overnight I was so thirsty afterwards.
I went outside about 2:30am. Nothing particulary interesting in the sky apart from a planet to the west and an owl calling in the woods.

Windy day in suffolk

Wed, 27 May 2009 22:47:00 GMT

Our fourth day on holiday in suffolk. We went to Orford which has a cool castle keep that you can go around (for a small fortune). The castle is so well preserved that it feels cosy inside! You can see all the various rooms which were the bedrooms (King Henry II stayed in one), kitches, store rooms etc. It was slighltly frustrating as I had a sense of 'so near yet so far'. I was standing in the bedrooms and bathrooms of a medieval castle, looking through the windows that knights and kings had looked out of but I didn't feel much empathy. Maybe it was the eleven month old strapped to my back, the other vistors, our self-imposed pace or the spartanness of the rooms which made it difficult to imagine how it must have felt.

From the roof you can see Orford Ness. This is a spit which is several miles long between the tidal river and the sea. It has been there for millenia which suprised me as I always thought of such things, especially on such a dynamic coastline, as being transient. You could made out several odd looking concreate structures. These were the top secret test ranges for the UK atomic weapns programme. No nuclear material made it to these ranges, they used to to develop the bomb casing and detonation mechanims.

We had another excellent pub lunch before a brief walk in the very blustery wind. We then went to Thorpness to fly the kite on the beach but the wind was so strong by this point the kites line broke every time we launched it. After repairing it four or five times we gave up, had a look round the windmill and the house in the sky and went home.

Kamikazee KIds

Sun, 24 May 2009 22:46:00 GMT

We got up and were trying to get everybody ready. Jamie was bursting with energy and getting under our feet so since the weather was nice we sent him outside to play. Two minutes later he was back after running round in the gardens. "I'm, tired.", he announced. Before anybody had a chance to respond, "Maybe not.", he chirped and sprinted across the room, into the kitchen and slipped banging his backside and ending up in a moaning pile in the corner.

Satellites over Suffolk

Sat, 23 May 2009 22:45:00 GMT

Kids woke me up in the middle of the night and I couldnt get back to sleep so I went outside. With binoculars I watched two bright objects that traversed across the whole sky very very fast. I am sure they were satellites. They were two fast and bright for planes and too longevid for meteors.

Barbie as role model

Thu, 21 May 2009 22:43:00 GMT

I was sitting next to Edith in the front room whiling away some time before bed.

"Are you going to be a sporty girl or a lazy girl when you grow up?", I asked.
"Sporty girl", she responded.
"Are you going to be a clever girl or a dumb girl?"
"Clever girl"
"Are you going to a mean girl or a kind girl?!
"Kind girl"

Edith paused for a second,

"I'm gona be barbie"

Okaaaay.

Hour long standoff with Edith

Sat, 07 Mar 2009 20:35:00 GMT

Argh! Edith climbed into Tom's travel cot just before lunch and emptied a box of beads into it. The kind of thing that Tom loves to put in his mouth. I told her she needed to clear up the beads before she got her lunch. 20 minutes later she was still refusing. The telly was off, there was nothing to do in the playpen, she just sat there. In the end I had to clear up the beads and multiple threats including toast of lunch and confiscation of her beloved Rolly Pony and 'new' doll's house. I followed through on my threats but she didnt seem bothered.

Monkey World

Sun, 01 Mar 2009 21:06:00 GMT

We went to Monkey world on Saturday and met Debbie and Martin and their little girl there. We had a great time though the kids seemed to enjoy the excellent adventure play grounds more than the actual monkeys...

It was great to see Debs and Martin again before they leave for NZ. I cant believe its seventeen years since we first met. How the hell did that happen?

Tom is standing up!

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 12:35:00 GMT

Tom is standing up! He started pulling up to standing in his cot at the weekend (time to lower the cot!) and now he is doing it everywhere. He is very pleased with himself.

Home alone (with Edith and Tom)

Sat, 07 Feb 2009 20:15:00 GMT

Helen and Jamie are away in Paris until tomorrow so I am at home with Edith and Tom. The day started badly as we missed Edith's ballet. We got ready a bit late but we're out the door before I realised we had a weeks worth of frozen snow crusted onto the windscreen. Ballet starts at 09:20 at and 09:20 I was still chipping away and had only cleared about 10x10cms. Edith was not happy. Then we all sithered and slipped our way down to the bike shop where I took the plunge and bought a replacement bike.

After lunch we walked down to the park. I took the PhilNTeds so Edith could ride in the slippy bits. Unfortuntly she feel asleep. First I knew about it was when I noticed her head resting on the buggy mudguard. So then I made her walk all the way to the museum to keep her awake. When we got there, the buggers had closed two hours early because of the 'adverse conditions'. Standing in the bright sunlight, with clear skys, thawing snow and clear roads I couldn't quite see what they were talking about.

We made it home okay and it was a pretty good day. Tom was jolly and Edith was good company. When she's being good, which is most of the time, she is joy to be with. I love the way she is so cheeky. She is a great wind up merchant.

i finished the day off with a thai takeaway. Now I feel too full and generally fat.

Black ice and bike

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 12:43:00 GMT

On the way to nursery on the bike with Edith on the back we saw a moped loose it on a corner and come off. It was very cold and icy. I dropped Edith at nursery and started to cycle to work when I had a similar problem. I was breaking gently as I approached a junction and the first wheel just appeared to go in a different direction. Next thing I knew the bike was toppling over and I was on the floor. Not too much damage, just some grazes and a couple of small tears in my jacket and gloves.
I have to say as the morning has progressed my legs and arms have got stiffer. Part of this may be due to last nights run but it is mostly down to the fall.
All this makes me nervous taking Edith to nursery on the bike. If she had been on board when I fell then that would have been a lot more unpleasant.

Edith's first ballet demonstration

Sat, 06 Dec 2008 12:39:00 GMT

Saturday was the end of Edith's first term at ballet and I got to sit in with the other parents and watch the lesson. Considering how nonplussed she was about the whole thing at the begining of term it was great to see her joining in and really enjoying herself. She did insist on hold one of the teachers hands almost all the way through. They did walking around on their tip toes and skipping and lots of waving of hands which I can see will progress into something more like ballet. It was great.

Princess and the pee

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 22:19:00 GMT

Edith has been dry at night pretty much ever since we got her potty trained but we have had her in pull up nappies in case of accidents. Everything was great until she discovered that she could wee in these and not get wet. Then, every night, she wees in her nappy. This week, being the most cunning daddy in the world, I bought some pampers Princess pants. They are bright pink and have pictures of Snow White and other assorted princesses. The big selling point is... the princesses disappear if you we on them. A great incentive for Edith not to wet herself.
Well I was right. Edith is now determined not to wee on the princesses. It has become a BIG THING. The joke is on me however. For the first three nights every couple of hours "Daddy daddy, I need to wee on the toilet". I have to get up, go into her room. Tell her to go to get out of bed. Tell her to go to the toilet. Then spend half an hour convincing her to go back to sleep. Sigh. Still, every morning the nappy is dry and the princesses are still in residence.

Family photos

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 23:31:00 GMT

After a very busy four months where we have not been taking enough pictures and various computer problems have prevent easy upload, I have updated the photo album website. I am now using F-Spot to manage the originals and one of the nice features is a graph showing the number of pictures captured each month. You can spot the three months where we have had a new arrival in the family with ease. Other than that, there always seems to be a peak in the late summer, early autumn. Probably something to do with decent weather followed by the birthday season. Other than that the only trend seemed to be that we never take many pictures in January. Go figure.

Sleepless week

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 10:32:00 GMT

It's Sunday morning and I am sitting in the front room watching rubbish Scooby Doo with the kids. Edith is sick and I am too tired to do anything else. Helen is asleep in bed. This week has been long. Everynight this week has been distrurbed in some way. I did all the feeds Friday night to try and give Helen a break. Then last night I did the 23:00 feed and then was supposed to get some sleep. Unfortunatly Edith had a temperature and I was up from 02:30 until 05:00ish looking after her. Jamie got up a few times to join in the fun. I was allowed to sleep in until 08:30. Given that I have been up with the kids every night this week, apart from Wednesday when I was in Helsinki, its no wonder the face looking out at me from the mirror has more wrinkles than an elephants bum.

There's always repeats at Christmas

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 21:27:00 GMT

Jamie came home from school this week all grumpy. Apparently they had lost out on the free play time because they had to talk about this year's xmas play. Helen asked him what was the play they were doing, Jamie responded with a big sigh:
"Humph, its that jesus one, the same as we did last year"