Gooaaallllll

Felix, it must be said, is extremely good at football.

Things I haven't noticed about Felix

Felix has lost his puppy fat and looks like a proper little boy.

Felix is football MAD and does a great one-two with his dad, dribbles it up the field and then scores.

Felix can JUMP. Man can he jump. He jumped off the toy chest yesterday and landed perfectly on two feet. Roll on 2012...

Felix is not sure about his new bed which we put in his room a week ago. He doesn't get the hang of the pillow and I often find him with the duvet kicked off, or rotated 180deg. But he hasn't fallen out yet (which Jambeans has, twice)

Felix loves outdoors. At the first hint of rain Jasmine comes in (she is her mummy's daughter), but Felix is out there, kicking his football, in his socks, having a play.

Felix still doesn't eat fruit. Or vegetables. He does eat Annabel Karmel's apple chips. I hate Annabel Karmel with a passion (smug do-gooding capitalist) so I grudgingly give thanks as this is the closest he will get to 5-a-day for a goodly long while.

Evidence:

the football curse - he was right

turns out i didn't watch the fitba penalties, but was relegated to the cold dining room, and we won a nailbiting 7-6. so the boyfried was right. i watch = we lose.

the football curse - not swearing

as in, i might jinx the result. not as in shout obscenities at the screen. also highly possible. but not worth banning me for.

the football curse

i've just been told i'm not allowed to watch the arsenal-roma penalties because i'll "curse the result"

uh oh it's happening again

Champions League quarter finals are on and bloody bloody bloody bloody Arsenal are crashing out of EVERYTHING AGAIN.

Inconsistent Fuckers.

Fabulous Feet

So 32 weeks gone and STILL pregnant. It's all going tremendously well.

Our Christmas holiday has been perfect, despite my former Christmas blues. We started off by having Nick, Jessica and Sophie round for a pre-Christmas lunch featuring a fabulous Rick Stein number that, for the first time, made me look like a genuine super chef. The recipe was actually ridiculously easy - the hardest bit was poaching eggs and, true to my usual lazy form, I got the bf to do that.

Christmas Day itself was just Jambeans, boyfried, me and the bump, ie NO OTHER FAMILY, ie heaven on a stick. We loaded J up with presents - one big one and a lot of small ones - which she got to open periodically throughout the day and she spent the whole day in play heaven. Boyfried and I kick started a mammoth run of film and video watching which we've barely just finished, taking in the whole Pirates of the Caribbean and Lord of the Rings series (Jasmine, for some reason, is fascinated by Gollum - I think she thinks he's a dog) as well as some more recommendable efforts like Wag the Dog and Marathon Man.

The second half of our week off has been particularly fab, most of which I attribute to my last minute pink pass (or should it be blue pass for me?) to the Sanctuary. Bf had given me a voucher for my birthday last year and I only got round to using it on the last possible day it was valid for. When I arrived I was grumpy and anxious and missing out on a visit to London Zoo (only Jasmine's second of the week) and I was still smarting at how much of my £100 voucher just went to the privilege of being able to walk through the door - £77 would you believe - but as soon as I was in and having my deluxe pedicure it all started wafting away. Having started with the crusty, crabby feet of someone "who's let themselves go a bit" I now have fabulous feet, and hands to match, and actually feel like my attractive self again (see picture - that's what I normally look like, honestly). We went round to Pedro and Lax's leaving party - the traitors are disappearing off to Oz for a year - straight after so I even had a venue to shine at.

Felix has been particularly busy this Christmas too - doubtless fuelled by all the extra holiday-season calories I've found room for. He's redoubled his disco dancing efforts and increasingly does these slow, low turns that make you feel like your centre of gravity is dropping to your feet. (Jasmine was a kickboxer - please don't ask me what the difference is. It's just definitely a different kind of kicking.) I've definitely noticed that I feel more tired and need the post lunchtime nap more than Jambeans does, and that I'm a lot more out of breath than usual, which I understand is normal, as my lungs don't have as much space as they're used to. The worst symptoms are itchy, dry, overly sensitive skin which make me very jumpy and crabby to the touch (oooh - but just read this so that seems quite normal too); and the return of the dreaded overgrown flap of gum skin behind my two front teeth which is annoying and making me lisp again.

To cap it all, Arsenal are still top of the Premiership, even though watching them play involves more stress than I am actually capable of bearing in my pregnant condition. Jambeans is turning into a good little Gunner but worryingly Felix seems to come alive when Blackburn are playing. A nice little project for us to work on when he's born methinks.

Stories I am too tired to write about

Well, I was going to try and write about Nicki and new baby Siena, who has been putting on weight quite slowly since being born (on Valentines Day - just over 3 weeks ago), so Nicki's Dairy has opened 24/7 for feeding and expressing and bottles.

Or how Jam-beans has slept well for the last 3 nights and gone back to 10 hour stints. Even though that still means I am up at 5am.

Or that tooth number 4 is appearing.

Or that she seems to be back on vegetables, for yesterday at least.

Or how yesterday she looked as if she was realy trying to crawl, as she pulled herself round in a circle on her tummy.

Or how things that I thought would be hard at work are turning out to be easy. And things I didn't even think of are turning out to be a real challenge. (Like the stop-start-stop-start of doing 3 days a week, and missing all the good things about my old job, but forgetting what was hard about it).

Or how within two weeks of losing the Carling Cup, and going out of the FA cup, Arsenal have now bombed out of the Champions League. And Man U, Chelsea and Liverpool all made it to the quarters, which makes it harder, and Thierry Henry is injured for at least 3 weeks, which makes it totally pants.

Instead I am going to moan about feeling so tired I can barely function.

Just spent a whole load of dosh

We bought a new car. Well, second hand really, but it's only a year old and it's new to us, so that counts, and we're rather excited. I was nominated to negotiate with the dealer. Walked away with a price we're all happy with, but getting the deal seemed a bit too easy and I'm wondering today whether I could have shaved another couple of hundred quid off. Once a haggler...

We had a real moment from The Apprentice when our salesman tried to sell us some seat protection (£450 - what a rip off!). He put some water onto one side of a piece of card 'with protection', and lo and behold, it just sat on the surface. Then he put it on the other side of the card and watched smugly as the water soaked into the fibres. It was like the old adverts for sanitary towels, only in reverse. Ali was sniggering - I couldn't look at him for fear of cracking up. Then the sales dude looked at us and asked in all seriousness "now which would you say was better?" Oh that familiar stench of sales guff.

Jam-beans behaved herself impeccably and only moaned a little at being carted from car seat to pram to car seat ad infinitum for about 3 hours while we went for test drives and the like.

What an angel. Mucho baby-points for that.

Next day drove to my sis' house (here in the photo with the jazzie-bird) to meet up with her and my mum, who has been suffering serious Jasmine withdrawal symptoms. Had a wonderful morning, 3 generations of ladies just chilling in spring sunshine of the front room. It felt like a holiday.

Only downer was Arsenal losing the Carling Cup final to Chelsea (scum) and then having a bust up on the pitch. I'm ashamed to be a fan at times like that. And then boyfie thrashed me at triv again by 6 pies to my measly 2 - but I learned my lesson from last time and, unlike Arsenal, took defeat with good grace.

I can sleep tonight

Arsenal pulled through in the end with a 3-1 victory so I can get some sleep tonight.

I'm so rubbish - what's the point in being a fan if I can't even watch the matches?

The thing about me and football

The thing about me and football is that I'm a passionate, but terribly nervous spectator.

Watching a game involves tension, stress, palpitations, hiding behind cushions, swearing at the commentators, swearing at the ref, swearing at the opposition, swearing at the managers, swearing at the players, changing channels and, more often than not, finding pretexts to run out of the room because I can't bear to watch.

Tonight is no exception. Arsenal just let Bolton equalise in the 91st minute of a match. I'm angry, nervous and super-stressed and I simply can't cope with watching extra time.

Why couldn't they just hang onto their lead, and give me some hope of being able to get to sleep tonight?

Icky and antsy and anxious

Sunday today. Jazzie seemed better yesterday but today conjunctivitis spread to left eye and fever returned, though not as severe as 2 days ago. Appetite still not as healthy as normal, and she's less enthusiastic about veggie slush than ever. Anxious parents resorted to cooking each meal fresh and still not hesitating to leave said veggie slush to one side at first indication of refusal and ladle out lashings of porridge if it meant the bub would eat and be happy.

Lots and lots and lots of yelping today. Lots and lots and lots of eye goo (or iGoo if you are Steve Jobs). Lots and lots and lots of cuddles and carrying the bub. Arms ache, back aches, neck aches. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

There was quite a bit of unspoken tension between mummy and daddy about what to do tomorrow. She seemed fairly well this morning, so it was all - should we send her to nursery? What if they want to send her home? Who shouldn't go to work? We were both prepared to compromise but that, combined with the bub's generally being quite unwell plus watching Arsenal go 1 goal down at home to premiership laggards Wigan was making me feel very very icky and antsy and anxious.

Then Arsenal clawed back a 2-1 win in the last 10 mins.

And our guardian angel arrived in the form of grandma who had dropped everything and drove about 200 miles in record time (don't want to think how fast) to stay with us for the next couple of days and look after Jazzie so we can both work and know the bub is in good hands.

I said it was like batman answering the bat signal. Dp said "more like old-bat signal".
And despite myself, I nearly wet myself laughing.

Sometimes it's hard to be a woman

...but this has nothing to do with standing by your man. quite the reverse - it's time of the month and i'm feeling super-grizzly. the fact that i am having a period at all makes me angry and resentful because not menstruating was the best thing about being pregnant and having a baby and breastfeeding (after actually having the baby i guess). worse still, i used to have super-light, regular-as-clockwork-every-28-days, no-problem-at-all periods but now i can't tell when they're coming. my pmt seems to last for days (dp would joke it starts as soon as my period ends but i wouldn't be laughing) and i seem to be on a 5-6 week cycle. when they do start they are those awful heavy, crampy, painful, nightmarish ones where i feel as if i'm wading through treacle and my brain turns to fudge and my body feels twice as heavy and i feel just empty and vacant, not to mention IN PAIN. i took some mefenamic acid about an hour ago and it's done nothing, nada, zip, zero, sweet f.a. so far.

the other reason why i'm in such a pissy mood is that it's the semis of the carling cup, tottenham v. arsenal, and i just watched us go 2-0 down as Baptista scored an OWN GOAL. what a fucking tragedy. and there's no Thierry Henry on the bench to save us either, so we need a miracle. i can't bear watching.

and it snowed last night so it's eff cold.

The mighty Arsenal

Jazzie has a stinky cold, and woke up and cried for 90 minutes last night.

since we've only just got her to sleep through using the vilified 'leave her to cry' technique, debated for about 20 mins about whether to go to her or not. finally gave in to my instinct and went to her. when i did felt v guilty for having left her for so long - she was pretty frantic and she was crying loads - huge tears were rolling down her face, and snot was poring out of her nose (and mainly into her mouth) but she was still trying to put a brave face on things.

bf and i shoved some calpol down her gullet, most of which she spat out, but thought it might help calm her down. it didn't.

most of day i have done diddly squat but mainly watched telly from the sofa feeling like a fat-biffer-potato-veggie-type-thingy. next week we will all be well again and can go back to the telly-only-on-certain-days rule.

watched the mighty arsenal win 2-1 to man u at home today in a fan-bloody-tastic match but bf did get over-excited again and scare Jazzie half to death with his goal celebrations. there was the goal, then the shout, then the silence, then she wailed in terror. bf said it reminded him of boo in monsters inc - the bit when she sees sully do his scary face and gets frightened. i was fuming but she recovered ok and got a big i'm sorry cuddle from her daddy. lucky girl - being a baby certainly has its perks.

in to work tomorrow :-( i've been trying not to think about it.