Lovely new garden

Before, in the snow

Crappy garage gone at last

Decking down, family chilling

Decking finished, new shed

Lovely new lawn

Felix Cutie Pie does more stuff

Felix Cutie Pie is still a wee Chubba Bubba and is well into being a Grabby Babby and has just started to Squeal With Delight (sooo cuuuuute) and now, at 14 weeks old, is entering the Dribble Monkey and the Icky Licky phases of early babyhood. I seem to remember that this means some horrendous Teething Poos are no doubt in the offing, so time to perfect my tactics for playing Poo Roulette with the boyfried. And as I write it all down I realise how much easier it is second time round, being able to Read The Signs and knowing What To Expect (erm, except maybe the bit about Poo). Speaking of, is it so very obvious I have been reading a lot of A. A. Milne recently?

Running on empty

I'm so tired I dream of sleep.

And the topic of today's suburban nightmare is

Aaarrghhh woke up this morning to find our kitchen ceiling dripping with water from a leaking pipe and add that to aaaarrrghh woke up yesterday morning to find water dripping through the loft hatch onto our landing because of a leaky roof window and aaaaarrrghhh insurance companies and call centres and you are in a queue and hold please and emergency plumbers and oooh it's gonna cost you and AAAAAARRRGGGHHHH

Housebound and feeling a bit scrumbly

Felix and Jambeans both have snotty colds today. It's Bank Holiday Monday so obviously the weather's shite. It's pouring with rain and has been for the last two days. We've discovered a few leaks in the house. Bf has a hurty knee. Despite trying our best - aka baking muffins and holding an origami extravaganza earlier with Jambeans - it's all a bit grumpy making really.

Jasmine and babymomma bake muffins

Jasmine's first foray into baking showed her to be a dab hand at pouring things into bowls, at mixing and at tasting the chocolate drops (just to make sure they tasted okay). Of course, being a bit of a beginner, it was Jasmine wot left them in the oven for a wee bit longer than necessary so they were a bit dry. But otherwise a good score on the yummy scale.

I took these out of the oven and in that very pointed explaining-things-carefully-to-a-toddler way, accompanied by some judicious finger wagging, I looked at Jambeans and said "We can't eat them yet. They are hot hot hot. We have to leave them here to cool." Then bf and I retired to behind the door where we spied Jambeans pull her stool over to the bench where the muffins were, climb up, peek over the edge and point at them whilst shouting "Cake. Cake. Cake. Caaaake!"

The day we forgot to feed our children

We simply didn't feed our bubs enough yesterday, which is why they were both up till 9pm, (Felix screaming blue murder, Jambeans playing quite calmly thank god) until we eventually figured out that they were hungry. Parenting test score - FAIL

The Tiger Who Came to Tea

Jambeans favourite book is currently The Tiger Who Came to Tea.

On the surface, it's about a tiger who invites himself round to tea and eats and drinks everything in the house. But it's really an illustration of women's subjugation to men in the 1960s .

The tiger is charming and attractive and brazenly exploits Sophie and her mummy's generosity by eating them out of house and home. Then when he buggers off, Sophie and her mummy, being mere girls, are totally at a loss to know what to do about the damage to their basic requirements for security and sustenance - ie the mess and lack of food. Mummy's cannot bathe Sophie or feed Daddy because there is no water or food in the house. So really the Tiger has denied her the ability to fulfil the primary role she has in life - that of mother and provider - and therefore she has lost her identity. It is also her fault since she allowed and even encouraged the Tiger to scoff all the cakes and drink all the water in the taps (but obviously any sense of criticism I apply is notably absent in the story). Sophie is also pretty useless - she has totally fallen in love with the Tiger and cuddles him adoringly whilst he ransacks the house.

But then Daddy arrives home, Ta-Daaa, and rescues the situation by, oh my gosh he's so brilliant, suggesting they go to a cafe for dinner. They eat sausage. They are warm. They are fed. Everyone is happy. Daddy has restored Mummy's ability to feed and provide for her brood. Thanks to him, she is self-fulfilled. He is a Good Man. You get my drift...

But despite the fact that it occasionally wants to make me vomit, I absolutely LOVE this story.

Supermommy status regained

It's early afternoon on saturday bank holiday and I can't believe I am the ONLY one in the house who has not fallen asleep.

Jambeans is in her room - she's got a nasty coldy coughy fevery virus type thingy that meant she didn't nap yesterday and she had a crappy night (as did we) so she's built up a serious sleep debt. Still that hasn't stopped her from waking up every 30 mins and screaming the house down. But thankfully, for the time being, she is asleep.

As is Felix, in his MB on the dining room table,

As is Daddy, over a war book in our bedroom,

As is Grandma, dozing lightly on a chair on our luffly new garden deck.

Which leaves me. And I've had the least sleep out of us all so far.

Which officially makes me SUPERMOM right now.

My cheeky window cleaner...

...came round to clean the windows today. He's only supposed to come every 3 months, so the sweepstake is now open as to how soon before he comes round again, chirpily pretending that he can get away with it. I can't begin to count the number of times he's tried to charge me more money, or come too frequently.

Does he think I am thick? How does that work? How come he thinks that I could be the thick one out of us two??? Ooooh it makes me so mad.

Mr. Window Cleaner - your card is marked my son, your card is marked.

Operation Crossword

I'm conscious that I've become a very tedious person recently - most of my "hobbies", if you can call them that, took me out of the house - to the cinema and swimming pool and restaurants and ski runs and so on. But indoors I've become nothing short of a zoned-out biscuit-eating TV-watching bub-feeding couch potato. So I am now making a concerted effort to become more interesting by reading books (I'm achieving about 4 paragraphs a day) listening to music and reminding myself how to do the Torygraph Crossword (my only concession to right wing newspapery.) Like all good diets I give myself, ooh, about 5 days, before I give up...

So in love with my baby

Felix is growing into such an adorable, calm and contented little baby. He's all smiley and cooey and loves being tickled all over. He's just starting his Grabby Babby phase and clings onto my fingers in such a heartmeltingly gorgeous way. I just spend loads of time cuddling him and gazing into his eyes and talking outrageous quantities of baby babble. He's just soooooo luffly. Luffly LUFFLY LUFFLY.

Uh-oh

Objectively speaking, I look pretty damn hideous in a swimming costume. But yesterday, to make matters worse, I forgot to remove one of my gel-filled breast pads before getting in the pool. It had slipped further down my body and had been nestling soggily between my lower ribcage and the cossie lining. I didn't discover it until I got out to change - it was swollen beyond all recognition having absorbed at least half of the pool water, so basically it must have looked like a huge, totally misshapen, wobbly lard tumor sticking out of my side.

Utterly utterly utterly revolting.

Felix does a triangle

Felix is 12 weeks and 2 days old.

He turned corner 1 recently when he started sleeping a couple of 5-6 hour shifts between 6pm-ish and 6am-ish. So Mummy got some decent sleep and was very Happy.

Corner 2 was turned a few days ago when he still managed a couple of 5-6 hour sleep shifts, but at the wrong times of day, so in the evening when we have both had long weary-making days and I desperately want the bubs to SLEEP NOW GODDAMIT we have the company of a very wakey babbling, burbling, occasionally crying and sometimes screaming Felix too.

Which is okay, and thank God I know not to go all Gina Ford on his ass, but being on child duty for longer makes Mummy Tired Again and Grumpy coming so soon after having a blissful taste of decent sleep and thinking 'at last at last at last.'

Gorgeous

The Little Boy Man - Dressed in Girl's Clothes and Smiling Big

Penguin Massacre shocks Finchley - exclusive pictures

Horrified onlookers looked on horrified as Daddy Pig went on the rampage whilst holidaying on the sunny Living Room Floor with his family.

Taking his wife, Mummy Pig, and two helpless piglets, Peppa and George, hostage in his remote controlled convertible he ruthlessly ploughed into the cloth penguins, repeatedly reversing over them in a bloody and heartless massacre.

Five of the penguins fell fatally. Only brave number 6 penguin survived. He is now in intensive care. A spokesperson for the family said his condition is stable, but he is a skittle so you never can tell.

Herding Geese

It's a long weekend, hurrah, and the sun has come out again. It's T-Shirt weather - the first of the year. Went to Kew Gardens yesterday. The idea was to get a decent walk in, but we didn't cover much ground as Jambeans kept veering off all over the place. Her favourite activity was herding geese which she did determinedly for what seemed like hours whilst bf and I laughed at her. The F-bub was having a hungry day so I spent most of it with him attached to my boobs, but that was cool. The we met up with Nicki and her clan for tea and cake. Kew worked it's magic on us and we left all blissed out.

Today we took the bairns swimming. Jasmine got very excited at the prospect. She has learned both "Yaaaaay" and "Wheeeee" and she alternated shouting both out all morning till we got to the pool. Felix was very chilled in the pool and had a good time just looking around and soaking up the atmos. Both kids completely conked out afterwards. We put Jambeans on a rug on the floor where she rolled over and just lay on her face half on it half off it. For some reason it was bloody funny and bf and I laughed so hard it hurt and the noise of our guffaws woke Jambeans up and she was totally grumpy about that.