I just got a text from home:
Lots of little balls of white fluff falling from the sky
And for my next trick
Hmmm all we need now is one million pounds
C'mon now universe, make it 2 for 2.
Monday, 29 November 2010
House of Klutz
There is new reality seeping into the house at the moment – one involving life with a toddler. There’s nothing I can quite put my finger on, but there is just something in the way Alfie moves and acts that is subtly, but definitely grown up. I love watching him, seeing his new appreciation for how things work (small wooden hammers included) and his strong willed character flourish.
Here’s some FTC banality for you.
We walked home from a birthday party yesterday evening, warm and snugly after an amazing afternoon of talking to friends, demolishing tea and cake and watching Alfie strut up and down a lounge slapping away any hands that tried to help him steer the walker he had borrowed. Keith had baked some bread so I threw on some beans for a super quick dinner to head off the grizzles.
Alfie isn’t talking yet, but actually, he doesn’t need to be for you to know exactly what is going on in his head. He sat down to a plate of bean juice soaked toast, and a pile of beans with a spoon. What follows is a rough translation of Alfie’s internal monologue.
Hmm beenz. I love beenz. Spoon of beenz! (Flap, flap) That is more beenz than I can pick up all in one go. Gimme woman! (Snatch)
Nyom! Beenz taste as good as last time I had them. Yes. (Nods head)
And bread too. Bread is very nyom. I think maybe I can put bread and beenz in together (stuffs bread into already bean filled mouth)
My cheeks are full. Beenz may escape. (Holds spoon in front on mouth and catches an escaped bean)
Yes, I am wise, I saved the bean. (closes eyes in haughty expression)
I have space now (re-eats escaped bean).
Nyom.
And so it went on, with spoonfuls of beans and fistfuls of toast. It is the first time I can remember Alfie not just eating disjointed items from his plate, but showing clear signs of appreciating that he was eating a meal, and that his meal would sate his hunger. These are the moments I love the most.
Now that my birthday is over, Keith has finally been allowed to unleash his Christmas excitement. I’m not joking here, he is actually going to explode. Little bits of it keep escaping from him in the form of squeaks and giggles at the moment, and we’re still a month out.
I had to try and channel some of his excess energy so we did some festive stuff this weekend.
First of all we hung the advent calendars. The top one is belong to Keith. The grown up one is Alfie’s (and mine) and it nearly made me burst out crying in the middle of Waitrose. I was so thankful for finding it, I went to Customer Services to tell them as much.
I know Alfie doesn’t care about chocolate advent calendars. I know as a good BLW mother I could have made him one filled with something a bit more healthy than chocolate, but that is missing the point entirely. I worry about Alfie missing out because of his food issues. I try really hard to find alternatives for him so he never has to ask me why the other children get to have yummy stuff while he has to make do without. My hope is that he will never actually think he is missing out because the alternatives we give him are so nyom, it’s the other children who feel hard done by. Opening a chocolate advent calendar is an exciting treat for a child, and it is one of the things I didn’t want him to miss out on. He won’t have much of the chocolate this year, but thanks to the people at Celtic Chocolates, he will be right there with Keith and I opening the windows and popping out the chocolates every evening after dinner.
The advent calendars weren’t enough to take the edge off Keith’s Christmas mania, so we made our very first homemade pud. Ten points for guessing which recipe we used.
Y’know this is the first year I can actually contemplate eating some pudding, if it stays as nyom as it smelled when it came out of the steamer anyway. I just hope Keith doesn’t go too crazy feeding it brandy for the next month otherwise I’ll be asleep until the new year.
Oooh and just to complete the line-up of my photogenic family? This is Alfie’s new hat. It comes with matching mittens (of which Alfie does NOT approve, and he can make a surprisingly awkward starfish with his hands given the threat of having to wear them) and also some waterproof boots for stamping on snow.
Now we just need some more snow.
Here’s some FTC banality for you.
We walked home from a birthday party yesterday evening, warm and snugly after an amazing afternoon of talking to friends, demolishing tea and cake and watching Alfie strut up and down a lounge slapping away any hands that tried to help him steer the walker he had borrowed. Keith had baked some bread so I threw on some beans for a super quick dinner to head off the grizzles.
Alfie isn’t talking yet, but actually, he doesn’t need to be for you to know exactly what is going on in his head. He sat down to a plate of bean juice soaked toast, and a pile of beans with a spoon. What follows is a rough translation of Alfie’s internal monologue.
Hmm beenz. I love beenz. Spoon of beenz! (Flap, flap) That is more beenz than I can pick up all in one go. Gimme woman! (Snatch)
Nyom! Beenz taste as good as last time I had them. Yes. (Nods head)
And bread too. Bread is very nyom. I think maybe I can put bread and beenz in together (stuffs bread into already bean filled mouth)
My cheeks are full. Beenz may escape. (Holds spoon in front on mouth and catches an escaped bean)
Yes, I am wise, I saved the bean. (closes eyes in haughty expression)
I have space now (re-eats escaped bean).
Nyom.
And so it went on, with spoonfuls of beans and fistfuls of toast. It is the first time I can remember Alfie not just eating disjointed items from his plate, but showing clear signs of appreciating that he was eating a meal, and that his meal would sate his hunger. These are the moments I love the most.
Now that my birthday is over, Keith has finally been allowed to unleash his Christmas excitement. I’m not joking here, he is actually going to explode. Little bits of it keep escaping from him in the form of squeaks and giggles at the moment, and we’re still a month out.
I had to try and channel some of his excess energy so we did some festive stuff this weekend.
First of all we hung the advent calendars. The top one is belong to Keith. The grown up one is Alfie’s (and mine) and it nearly made me burst out crying in the middle of Waitrose. I was so thankful for finding it, I went to Customer Services to tell them as much.
The advent calendars weren’t enough to take the edge off Keith’s Christmas mania, so we made our very first homemade pud. Ten points for guessing which recipe we used.
Oooh and just to complete the line-up of my photogenic family? This is Alfie’s new hat. It comes with matching mittens (of which Alfie does NOT approve, and he can make a surprisingly awkward starfish with his hands given the threat of having to wear them) and also some waterproof boots for stamping on snow.
Tuesday, 23 November 2010
A Very Big Month
I know I have been keeping people in suspense by not posting, and I'm sorry for my silence - the seasonal snot monster has descended on FTC and currently I am spending most of my time wanting to cheese grate my nose to stop it itching, as is my boy.
My boy. My one year old boy.
I keep expecting that to be weird, but it's not. I keep expecting to get all misty eyed over his birth, but frankly I don't think there's ever going to be enough booze to make me go misty eyed over those few days. On the run-up to his birthday I kept being told I would have a moment, but if it came, it was heavily disguised with a fake moustache and comedy glasses.
I think maybe I just measure Alfie's life against a different yardstick. Standing up, feeding himself, pointing, these are the things that hit me between the eyes and make me wonder where my wrinkly old man baby has gone.
Oooh speaking of which guess what. You'll never guess, Alfie has just developed his first rolls. His thighs now have creases, how cute it that?!? My skinny whupput of a son has little chunky thighs!!
So we had a party, it was ace. You know those moments where you have this hope of how it will be and then it not only meets it, it totally blows that hope out of the water? Yeah that was the party.
The babies all sat around a table and stuffed food into any mouths that were open. Meatballs, sometimes half chewed ones, were freely shared, and determined toddler tantrums were thrown when anyone spotted something they had not been offered. It was really funny to watch.
We had cleared the back room and filled it with toys (literally after the amazing gifts Alfie was given by his friends) and the babies climbed over each other like puppies to play with everything.
I won't say they were entirely sugar fuelled, but at one point I admit to being sat in the middle of the floor with one baby demanding jelly from me with a baby bird mouth while another stole fistfuls directly out of my bowl. Shocking behaviour.
It was an exhausting day for everyone though, especially the birthday boy who crashed about 30 seconds after we loaded him into the car.
Once we had just about got over being attacked by a marauding herd of ankle biters, I was hit with another surprise. The lovely chair of our NCT branch decided to step down, and asked me to take her place.
Me?! What do I know about running a branch? I've only been around for 5 minutes, surely there must be a more qualified ..... no? ..... wow, I didn't see that one coming.
So I seem to have somehow become chair of our local NCT branch. Our 600+ members, top 10 fundraising, CEO of the whole damn organisation comes to out AMM branch. No pressure then.
I'm not entirely sure whether I'm more terrified, or excited. I have so many ideas about what I would love to do, but also I still feel like I'm on work experience and someone has accidentally mistaken me for the boss because they caught me sitting behind the desk with my feet up.
I know it's going to be hard work but also the most amazing opportunity to keep working with the best group of mums I could have imagined getting to know. Between them they are like the village of old, so supportive, so friendly, so knowledgeable.
Mostly I just feel in awe of them and so lucky to have them around.
My boy. My one year old boy.
I keep expecting that to be weird, but it's not. I keep expecting to get all misty eyed over his birth, but frankly I don't think there's ever going to be enough booze to make me go misty eyed over those few days. On the run-up to his birthday I kept being told I would have a moment, but if it came, it was heavily disguised with a fake moustache and comedy glasses.
I think maybe I just measure Alfie's life against a different yardstick. Standing up, feeding himself, pointing, these are the things that hit me between the eyes and make me wonder where my wrinkly old man baby has gone.
Oooh speaking of which guess what. You'll never guess, Alfie has just developed his first rolls. His thighs now have creases, how cute it that?!? My skinny whupput of a son has little chunky thighs!!
So we had a party, it was ace. You know those moments where you have this hope of how it will be and then it not only meets it, it totally blows that hope out of the water? Yeah that was the party.
The babies all sat around a table and stuffed food into any mouths that were open. Meatballs, sometimes half chewed ones, were freely shared, and determined toddler tantrums were thrown when anyone spotted something they had not been offered. It was really funny to watch.
I won't say they were entirely sugar fuelled, but at one point I admit to being sat in the middle of the floor with one baby demanding jelly from me with a baby bird mouth while another stole fistfuls directly out of my bowl. Shocking behaviour.
It was an exhausting day for everyone though, especially the birthday boy who crashed about 30 seconds after we loaded him into the car.
Once we had just about got over being attacked by a marauding herd of ankle biters, I was hit with another surprise. The lovely chair of our NCT branch decided to step down, and asked me to take her place.
Me?! What do I know about running a branch? I've only been around for 5 minutes, surely there must be a more qualified ..... no? ..... wow, I didn't see that one coming.
So I seem to have somehow become chair of our local NCT branch. Our 600+ members, top 10 fundraising, CEO of the whole damn organisation comes to out AMM branch. No pressure then.
I'm not entirely sure whether I'm more terrified, or excited. I have so many ideas about what I would love to do, but also I still feel like I'm on work experience and someone has accidentally mistaken me for the boss because they caught me sitting behind the desk with my feet up.
I know it's going to be hard work but also the most amazing opportunity to keep working with the best group of mums I could have imagined getting to know. Between them they are like the village of old, so supportive, so friendly, so knowledgeable.
Mostly I just feel in awe of them and so lucky to have them around.
Monday, 8 November 2010
Laughed so hard I nearly choked
This is not the mail you want to receive when you have just sat down to eat your lunch.
from: Keith
to: Tash
subject: your son
removed his nappy again this morning.
I had more of a cleanup operation to do than last time.
Potty training begins tomorrow!
How much are those bumbo toilet ones?
Love you
xxxxxx
Is mine the only nearly 1 year old who has decided he doesn't like being wet or dirty and to take matters into his own hands?
When I made a mental list of skills I would quite like my son to excel in, undressing was not one of them, like it wasn't even in the top 50.
Talented musician, eloquent speaker, avid book lover? check
Ability to remove nappy and distributing contents all over bedroom? Nil Point!!
So not great, but on the plus side, trying to potty train a stubborn little gremlin with a penchant for escapology is going to give me buckets of blog material!!!
from: Keith
to: Tash
subject: your son
removed his nappy again this morning.
I had more of a cleanup operation to do than last time.
Potty training begins tomorrow!
How much are those bumbo toilet ones?
Love you
xxxxxx
Is mine the only nearly 1 year old who has decided he doesn't like being wet or dirty and to take matters into his own hands?
When I made a mental list of skills I would quite like my son to excel in, undressing was not one of them, like it wasn't even in the top 50.
Talented musician, eloquent speaker, avid book lover? check
Ability to remove nappy and distributing contents all over bedroom? Nil Point!!
So not great, but on the plus side, trying to potty train a stubborn little gremlin with a penchant for escapology is going to give me buckets of blog material!!!
Wednesday, 3 November 2010
Oops
We went on a little trip yesterday.
Our friend, Bryn, very kindly offered to lend us his talents for the day to take some family shots. He had in actual fact offered some time ago, we are just useless at arranging these things.
Bryn lives on a farm with the most amazing buildings and fields and a gypsy caravan. It was almost purpose built to be the kind of place where we could have a very 'us' photo shoot.
Keith is busy resizing and uploading the photos elsewhere, but I just wanted to share this little sequence with you.
Keith found this old bucket lying around and I picked a spot that was out of the wind to set it up. Just out of shot is an old telegraph pole with the remains of a metal bracket attached.
What do you think happened next?
Here's a small hint - it involved a lump, and a lot of cuddles to make better.
Thing is, you can actually see the moment his little brain figures out the mischief potential.
You can also see where I said "Aaaallfiiiiiieeee" and he decided to pull his very best "can't hear you mother" face.
Klutz
At least he had the good sense to miss the metal he was trying to reach. That would have been a whole different can of A&E based whoopass!
Our friend, Bryn, very kindly offered to lend us his talents for the day to take some family shots. He had in actual fact offered some time ago, we are just useless at arranging these things.
Bryn lives on a farm with the most amazing buildings and fields and a gypsy caravan. It was almost purpose built to be the kind of place where we could have a very 'us' photo shoot.
Keith is busy resizing and uploading the photos elsewhere, but I just wanted to share this little sequence with you.
Keith found this old bucket lying around and I picked a spot that was out of the wind to set it up. Just out of shot is an old telegraph pole with the remains of a metal bracket attached.
What do you think happened next?
Here's a small hint - it involved a lump, and a lot of cuddles to make better.
Thing is, you can actually see the moment his little brain figures out the mischief potential.
You can also see where I said "Aaaallfiiiiiieeee" and he decided to pull his very best "can't hear you mother" face.
Klutz
At least he had the good sense to miss the metal he was trying to reach. That would have been a whole different can of A&E based whoopass!
Monday, 1 November 2010
Playtime
For reason I won’t bore you with, Alfie and I went to Birmingham yesterday and we ended up at one of those soft play centres.
Yesterday was a good day.
I cannot describe my son’s reaction to be dumped into a multicoloured plastic wilderness without judicious use of the words ‘peacock’ and ‘cattle prod’.
He loved it: Every little bit of it.
He made friends with an older kid who he happily followed around for AGES. This older kid was lovely to him as well, and Alfie thought he was the funniest thing he had ever seen. You can see him here doing his new favourite thing, hugging.
Second on the list of new favourite things? Climbing slopes and going down slides face first. Apparently this is the funniest thing since his new friend. Also a new scary skill for his father and I to keep an eye on because lord knows that child already tried hard enough to give himself brain damage without adding stairs into the equation.
Being a boring mum I had to drag Alfie away a couple of times for things like changing, and to force some food and drink down him. He wasn’t impressed, in fact he stuffed his banana down so quickly I was worried it would make a cameo somewhere in the bendy tunnel.
It didn’t, in fact he took himself off to have a quiet moment playing with cogs when it all got a bit much.
Shortly afterwards we got in the car to head home. He was so tired he didn’t even make it to the end of the road and slept until I woke him up an hour later for fear he would be too well rested to go to bed.
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