Update on life as we know it ...

I reached new professional heights this week when I was on the phone to our advertising agency. I was giving some amendments for some advert copy and I said the following;

“Yes, put a curly ‘c’ in front of the salary?”

As I said it, I knew I had forgotten that I was indeed speaking to a 40+ year old man and not my 4 year old daughter. I hastily ended the conversation and put down the phone. I then had an ‘I carried a watermelon’ moment (Haven't you seen Dirty Dancing?).

I am starting to notice changes to my body. So far this week I have noticed huge wrinkles around my eyes when I smile to myself in the mirror. Please note I do not spend time smiling at myself in the mirror, it was an accidental find. Nor do I chant 'Go get them Laura, you are the fabulous!' three times before I go to work.

Clearly these lines are caused by laughing. I like to laugh. I do not like the wrinkles. Also, nasal hair. After 30 years of just being there out of view it's suddenly grown. At the grand age of 30 is it time to invest in some anti ageing creams and find some way to stop the nasal hair before I can plait it upwards and into my eyebrows. Not an attractive look.

We have a house, the dream house in fact. Hooray! We move in 4ish weeks. I am particularly excited by the fact that we will have a dishwasher after 3 years without and a normal persons bath. We currently have a corner bath, being tall means this is not remotely comfortable.

I have started de-cluttering the house. A natural hoarder, I have found de-cluttering quite cathartic. I pick on a room armed with a bin liner and get rid of anything that has no use.

The 4 year old is fine, a little wobbly about the new house but she will be fine. "You'll have a bigger bedroom" I keep saying animatedly with a big smile as if that will make her feel more at ease.

She has said to me on three separate occasions this week that she doesn't like her dreams, that they are always bad. I have started giving her happy memories to think about when she starts to think about her bad dreams. The latest one was when I was pregnant with her and she kept me and the husband amused of an evening by hiccuping from within. She thinks this is amusing and I have told her it will ward off the bad dreams. Let's see how long that lasts.

She is still skipping with her rope at every opportunity and lassoing random people in the school playground. She keeps her skipping rope in a powder pink shoe box she got from school ... "It's the skipping ropes house". Who am I to argue.

The 3 year old is fine and dandy. He seems unfazed by our house move. He has recently added to his people collection (Mickey Mouse and Tramp) and soon will not be able to get into bed for his people. He has his post op (grommets) check on Friday which I'm sure will go fine. I'm paranoid that his hearing has dropped again ... it could be selective. If only they could do something about his foghorn voice and his snoring too ... Jeez ... the snoring. Each snore shakes the house.

He loves pre-school, more so when it doesn't rain and he can play outside on the bikes, pulling wheelies and handbrake turns, much to the horror of 'the ladies' as he affectionately calls them. He thinks it's OK to burp every time we sit down for a family meal, but it's alright because he says 'excuse me'.

The Husband doesn't burp during family meals or snore, in fact he makes no noise when he sleeps. Occasionally I have to check that he is even breathing. This week he has discovered Twitter, Wordpress and that he doesn't like iced muffins. he is designing a new website (to be unveiled sometime soon) for his freelance work and is about to embark on redesigning my blog. All this rain has accelerated the cabbages, peas and onions in his vegetable patch which he will be unable to transport to the new house. A case of 'look at what you could have won'.


The Tadpoles worry me and I think we shall be leaving them here. We had 30 tadpoles, stolen from Auntie Kate's pond. I thought it would be great for the children to see them morph into frogs. They are currently living on the decking in a large box. I feed them, but they much prefer the taste of fresh tadpole. We now have around 12 giant tadpoles.

An update on life as we know it

Me – I was shocked and slightly disturbed to find that all this blogging (which some may see as idle wittering) has earned me number 40 in the Top 100 British Parent Bloggers. It’s all very exciting and I don’t completely understand all the technical bits which got it there, but none the less I have told everyone (bar the monotone security guard on Friday) I have come into contact with over the past week.

I have had several broody moments this week. I keep seeing mothers with their bundles of joy out and about in the village. In my mind I would love another bundle of joy because the maternal lunatic which lives inside me has erased all the crappy/shitty/tear your hair out parts of having a baby. All I can remember are the good bits … swaying with my beautiful baby in the pitch black of night as I feed her/him for the third time in six hours. Bliss. What? Wasn’t I tired and vaguely psychotic through lack of sleep? According to the maternal lunatic in my head … nope, never. I blame the sudden bouts of sunshine this week which make everything seem très jolie.

Just for the record, the above paragraph is written in a special typeface that my husband can't read.

I am feeling fairly domesticated which is a vast improvement on my previous status of ‘definitely not domesticated, no sireee’. Not only have I ironed more than twice this week I have also bought a new Hoover and taken an interest in the garden. My new favourite hangout is the local garden centre.

Can I just mention that the highlight of the televisual year is upon us. The Apprentice is back on Wednesday. Personally, I can’t wait.

Husband – Doesn’t like the Apprentice and is more Alan Titchmarsh than Guitar Hero these days. Despite a bad back he has spent hours cultivating a vegetable patch. It started three weeks ago with a ceremonious bonfire (what is it with men and fire?) in the back garden to clear the way and now we have seedlings sprouting ubiquitously.

I keep having visions of him stepping onto a podium at the village summer fair to collect his prize for 'Yorkshire's Biggest Leeks'.

3 Year Old – Stealth Boy has struck again. Last week husband found a '3 year old sized soil angel' in his vegetable patch. This is hindering the above village prize giving vision.

I walked into the kitchen on Saturday morning to find it flooded. From what I can tell he had been trying to fill the dog’s water bowl. Unfortunately he had then spilled it and repeated the process around twenty times.

The grommet operation was a success, he can hear, his balance is better and he actually starts conversations with people where before he would stand and stare at them as if they were talking in Swahili.

We are growing his hair, I say 'we' but I am actually against this idea as his head is already on the large side. He now has ear flaps and as his hair grows, so does his head. I keep looking at pictures of him after his last hair cut and contemplating sneaking off to the barbers for a quick snip.

4 Year Old – She is in fine fettle. Parents evening made us swell with pride.

Her writing has become much clearer and she likes to leave messages, albeit phonetically, on my computer. Her latest offering was … ‘Ben ten is a hirobicoshiyfitswivpipl’. As you can see she needs to work on her spacing too.

Her class keep getting nit letters, every time I read one I start to itch. No nits yet and I am crossing my fingers that we shall avoid them altogether. Who am I kidding?!

On a recent trip (one of many) to the garden centre she caught us unawares and she had to have an emergency poo. Husband was mortified as he and the 4 year old emerged from behind a polytunnel. She looked relieved. Apparently it was huge. We just can't EVER go there again.

Luckily there are other garden centres in the area that we can visit.