Free Sleep

So Jambeans was very mature and went to nursery sans Felix, and most importantly, sans Granma without the screaming fuss we were anticipating. And Squealycops was in tremendously capable and loving hands for the day. We left him in the morning totally grumpy and with some kind of pus oozing from every orifice. Came back in the evening to a happy, energetic and smiling little bub. Phew.

Then this morning bf did the uber-chivalrous thing and cared for Felix when he woke at 5am whilst babymomma coma-slept. Then later in the morning, after we had all got up and when Granma was busy attending to Princess J, babymomma put Felix to bed, just lay down next to him "for 5 minutes" and then got another FREE SLEEP for over an hour. So whilst babymomma has been kipping, bf has been awake since 4.30 and is now knackered.

Time to pay off the TLC debt methinks...

The other joyful matters of today are that Jasmine is really getting musical. She's always singing and is getting the hang of tunes. She and daddy have been playing duets on the guitar and singing Jingle Bells together and we all had a big dance together this evening, putting the Strictly contestants to shame with our nifty footwork and twirls. Bf is totally into superspeedy broadband and Playstation 3 (his recent pressies to himself, because I'm working so much in the evenings and hogging the pooter). He has just introduced me to Little Big Planet, which I think I might quite like, though Jambeans, at the tender age of 2, is already a better player than I am. Felix is still cruising for Britain.

But despite my attempts to stay jolly I'm feeling rather seasonally affected.

Ballet dancing monkeys

Yesterday, nursery called to say Felix had conjunctivitis.

Obviously, we knew he had conjunctivitis (but according to the bf, it's the viral, as opposed to the bacterial sort, which apparently you don't take drops or ointment for and wait for it to clear up. And it is contagious but in the same way a cold is, ie no reason not to go to nursery) but I pretended I didn't.

Since I was on a roll I then lied some more and said I was in the office, as opposed to working from home, and therefore would take a good couple of hours to get back.

Evil mama.

So when I eventually got to nursery Felix was FINE.

But we got on the (old) bat phone anyway, and Granma came to save the day. Driving 200 miles at god knows what speed to get here in the evening.

Jasmine, on the other hand, has been on amazing good form and certainly seems more like her usual (tantrummy) self. She went to bed promising to dream of ballet-dancing monkeys. However, we're going to have to peel her off Granma kicking and screaming today to get her to school.

Felix woke up this morning with snot poring out of every orifice and is really poorly.

It just never ends...

It had to happen some day

Bf and I are having a really tough couple of weeks. We're just so wiped. Work is tough. Kids aren't quite 100% and various bugs that keep attacking are lingering and wearing everyone down.

Felix is onto 6 teeth now. They're coming at an alarming rate. His cold has been hanging around for over 2 weeks now. And he's waking up in the middle of the night consistently. He wouldn't settle this evening. Cried like a mad thing, and he's normally so easy. Had to go upstairs and check him after I put him down. Found him standing in the cot, peering through the bars, snot and tears pouring off his puffy little face. He was standing in the cot. And doubtless couldn't get down again. Felt that familiar twinge of a baby growing up. But he looked so helpless, and desperate. And totally adorable. Warning sign though. Next he'll be talking - then the demands will come. Just like his diva of a sister...

Jambeans' phases of sleep rebellion seem to be lasting longer and longer. After sounding so confident she wasn't going to get horribly ill, she went and got horribly ill again. Though to be fair, nowhere near as bad as we've seen her in the past, so reckon the drugs are still keeping various horrors at bay.

Last night, for the first time in about a week, we got her to sleep through in her own bed, rather than wake up and then moan for a mummycudd for the next hour till we give in. She's acting a bit weird these days (as in diva weird.) Bf says he can't wait for her to recover fully, then we can stop giving her the montelukast and get our normal, pliable, amenable daughter back. Somehow I'm not holding out much hope.

Grumpy Homage to Heat Magazine

So Into It:

Felix waving

Jasmine singing (as in, carrying a tune, rather than semi-rapping the nursery rhyme with a tone deafness worthy of her auntie)



(erm, that's it on this list)


So Over It:

Brrrr it's bloody cold

Dire Work Stress

Water flooding through our kitchen ceiling again (barely 2 months after we had it repainted)

Jambeans and Squealycops' neverending cold then taking turns to spike a fever

Having to miss out Girlie Gang reunion weekend - the most important event in my social calendar

Not having enough time to get a decent haircut

Only decent pair of shoes losing a heel grrrrr

Shit worry-induced sleep, eyebags, dry skin

More Dire Work Stress

what u doin mummy?

I was chatting on the blower to Uncle Mary yesterday, swapping notes on the bubs, as you do. And she was saying how baby Kate's developmental thang was all about babbling and communication. And I was saying how baby Felix' developmental thang was all about mobility. And she was saying how that's so typical of all the baby girls and boys in her NCT group, which got me comparing notes to when Jasmine was a bub (corrected age of course) and how that all seems totally true. That's not to say Felix doesn't talk - he babbles quite a lot - but it ain't half so interesting to him as moving is.

Jasmine's developmental thang is asking questions. Right now, it's 'what u doin?' As in:

'what you doin mummy?'

'I'm washing up'

'You washing up.'... (pause) 'what u doin mummy?'

and so on.

You can only go to bed once you've had your ice cream

It's early days yet, but this montelukast Jambeans is on seems to be working wonders. We give it to her as soon as the early symptoms of a cold begin to show and continue for a one or two week course. Twice we've given it to her now, and twice she's had just a cold. At worst she's a fever during the night. But her breathing hasn't been out of control and she's been mainly well in herself and able to go to school (as in nursery. We call it school. It's gonna make actually going to school a whole lot easier.)

It's taken an enormous weight of our shoulders. Jasmine's quality of life seems to be on the up, and no longer do we anticipate the onset of a cold with dread and stress. I've also noticed we don't snap at each other so much (or maybe, we just snap about other things).

Montelukast has to be taken with cold food. So every night we entreat Jasmine to have 'ice cream with magic dust.' Normally, she's totally up for it. But on occasion when she's been tired it's just "NO! NO ICE CREAM. I tired. Want to go upstairs" and we get all disciplinarian and have to go "Jasmine. You can only go to bed once you've had your ice cream" which is just totally weird.

Bad pants

My darling baby Felix has started to haul himself up onto furniture. It won't be long before he'll be cruising and walking. He's growing up so much more quickly than I seem to remember Jasmine doing whereas I just want him to stay a bub forever.


And he's really got to sort his thong problem out!

what's wrong with 5?

I'm amazed I'm still able to function. I'm working all hours god sends - till 10 or 11 at night and weekends too. And in between it's commuting, kids, and inconveniently enough, petitions (more planning applications to object to yadda yadda). The residual guilt that I'm deserting my children is rising ever closer to the surface. So, when yesterday the inevitable happened yesterday and I was called to take not one, but two sick kids home from nursery, I was strangely looking forward to being able to spend some time with them.

How wrong I was.

Looking after two sick kids - bub yelping, toddler moaning - is like being in a war zone, it's just so full on. The only upside is that it gave my arms a full work out from having to carry one or t'other (or both) of them pretty much continuously. And it's not like either of them is properly sick either (Jasmine's wonder drug seemingly performing miracles as it keeps the breathing difficulties at bay.)

Right now, Felix is banging the radiator and Jambeans is singing with her daddy, only the number 5 seems to have fallen out of favour: '1,2,3,4,6 once I caught a fish alive.'

Jambeans and Felix do us proud

Today at nursery, Jasmine did her first wee on the toilet. I was totally gobsmacked. I thought we would never make progress. And not to be outdone, Felix stood unaided for about 2 seconds.

Champion children.

A time to reflect

So, you would have thought that a black man winning the US presidential race would lead me to reflect on, ahem, concerns of a slightly more global import.

But instead I find myself thinking how this time last year I was pregnant and having an amazing holidaying in the Cotswolds.

And how today, I was getting on the tube to come home and I brushed the rucksack of some asian looking dude, and how he got all jumpy and protective over it and took it off his shoulder so he could carry it in his arms, and how I got a feel for the weight of that rucksack, and how the dude looked at me nervily, and then how the thought pierced my paranoia shield that he could well be muslim, and that since he was sitting right next to me with what might be a bomb how I would definitely die, and then who woul pick the kids up? and what would they do without a mama? but also how unready I was to listen to my own paranoia and get off the tube, especially as it would be doing a most-likely-normal-person an enormous injustice and i really couldn't be that racist how I was already running late to pick the kids up as it was.

And then he got off at Leicester Square anyway and i realised how pathetic I was being. (asian dude - wherever you are - i am sooooo sorry)

And then I reflected on how I managed to sit on the northbound Northern Line platform at Kings X and tell myself 3 times over NOT to get on the next train, because it was the Edgware branch, and then found myself on the next train and telling myself 3 times over to get off at Camden and change to the High Barnet branch, then finding myself at Chalk Farm, ie past Camden and heading north towards Edgware, and having to cross the platform to go back south so I could get off at Camden and change onto the High Barnet branch, then bf called and said 'I've got the kids' which was a relief but then I found myself stuck at Mill Hill East because I didn't check the destination of the train I boarded on the High Barnet platform at Camden, and how I had to wait 20 minutes for the train at Mill Hill East to turn around and trundle back south to Finchley Central, and how I had to run over the bridge to the other platform to get a northbound train that went to High Barnet, and how I missed it and had to wait another 4 minutes to get a train that finally took me home.

10 rounds with Mike Tyson

It's impossible to change Felix' nappy at all these days. Normally, I require the help of bf to pin him down. Yesterday at the zoo with uncle A, auntie T and cousin A I had to change him toute seule on a changing station that didn't have a strap to keep him place. Result - 10 minutes of struggling and a total babymomma energy crash all afternoon.

Other than that - no new news. London Zoo yesterday en famille. Jasmine and Abagael get on like a house on fire - though J wants to copy everything A is, does and has. Today Jambeans and I made cake for Nani's birthday, which was raw and collapsing when we took it out of the oven, but by the time we had ferried it to Auntie Seema's had miraculously recovered and tasted delicious. Nigella, irritating as she is, scores another goal.