So Simon is Out Of Town On Business

he is ‘staying in college’ at Cambridge and his rooms are ‘dead posh’.

My day so far?

4 am dummy cry

430 sounds of shuffling

445 come get me mummy

446 in bed with me

500 no no no I want up up up

515 MASSIVE Poo.  Teething is fun!

530 back to sleep, Adam, not me, I’m awake now

615 reaching for peanut butter knock down baby rice.  Baby rice is about the consistency of baby powder. Grab GTech carpet sweeper.  Battery dead due to Simon not charging it all the time to save the battery.

630 baby back up.  Toast cold.  Coffee, however, hot.

7 Simon rings to check in.  I explain new battery £20.  My sanity? Worth much more, plug the fucking thing in!

705 Simon agrees

717 baby playing in bouncy chair with car attachment.  Mummy drinking coffee.

Today has got to get better, right?

Right?!?!

Back On Weight Watchers

As the title says, I am following Weight Watchers again.  Not going to meetings, just online.

You see, when I did the program online about 8 or 9 years ago I was very successful at it.  I lost a ton of weight.  And then it started creeping back on so I started to go to meetings.  And didn’t lose a pound.

So for some reason it really only works for me online.

I’ve been seriously following it for about 2 weeks, with a break for my Manchester trip, and have lost about 2 lbs.  Which is a step in the right direction.

I have nearly 50 pounds to lose to get to where I want to be.

Let the meal planning begin…

My Day/Night Off

was awesome!

Highlights: –

Realizing on the way to the airport that I had never tested the phone number I had put into my mobile for one of my friends.  So I sent her a text from the taxi.  I had the number right!

Almost getting on the wrong plane because they said what door but not what gate at the airport and I just joined the first queue I saw.  Belfast City Airport really needs to finish the damn construction already.

Having no seat mate.

Going up to the ticket counter a the airport train station to be told that the next train wasn’t for 15 whole minutes.  Um.  Okay.  So?  Am I suppose to turn and walk away and head back to Belfast?!

Hoping I had gotten on the right train because there was only one sign and they never made an announcement.  I had.

Phone ringing as I go to the street.  T’was my other friend.  She was there and checked into the hotel and we were roomies and come on up!!

The instant chat and gossip.

Others arriving avec champagne, chocolates and cake.  Let the party begin!

Dinner at Wegamama.

The Comedy Store new comedy night.  Glad it was only £3.  7 acts.  4 made me laugh.  1 made me smile once.  The other two sucked rocks.

Sleeping until 8!

Not being able to get the other girls’ room on the phone and theorizing that they either a.) had been abducted by aliens or b.) that one had murdered the other.  We even knew who had killed whom.

Meeting more friends (and some of their wonderful children) at Slattery.  OMG THE CHOCOLATE!

Yet another friend driving me to the airport.  And naming my new company (more on the company in a later entry).

Going to the wrong terminal at Manchester airport.

No seat mate!

Home to a big grin from my boy.

Had a great time.  Can’t wait for the next one!!!

My Time Off

So this Sunday around 1245 I board a plane bound for Manchester England.

Once there I will be meeting up with 8 very good friends of mine.

Its our night off.

I know these women from the internet.

We are all over 40.

We all have small children.

We started planning this before Christmas.  We were going to try to do a spa thing.  Only every spa we spoke to wanted a deposit and had no cancellation policy.  Um, did I mention we all have small children?  Yeah, we need to have a way to cancel.

So we picked a city.  Manchester.  Its sort of central for the rest of my friends.  And we picked a hotel.  And a restaurant.  And a comedy club.

And so we are gathering on Sunday.

And taking the day and night off.

I will miss Adam.

I will miss Simon.

But I will so love my day off. 🙂

Letter To My Son – Adam – 9 Months Old

Dear Adam

9 months today!

This month we have learned to sit up when someone puts us on our bottom: –

I can sit up!

and cut our two top front teeth, although there is no picture because its very hard to get you to show anyone!

We have also learned that you will be having The Lump removed surgically in the next 2 months or so.  At first the surgeon thought it might be treatable with Beta Blockers, but on further review of the ‘films’ (I don’t know why they still call them that, since its all digital now) it has been determined that they still don’t know what it is and its is best cut off.

In other news you have outgrown your Stage 0 car seat and Mummy and Daddy are shopping for a Stage 1.  We think we’ve found it.  Now we just have to buy it!

You’ve been being bathed in the big bathtub for at least the past month, and you love it:

Need more toys!!

Your favourite toy is a measuring cup, but hey! We already had that and don’t have to buy any other bath toys!  Seriously, you do love that bucket, as we call it.  But also like to play with your ducks!

In bad news for Mummy you seem to be dropping your morning nap most days.

And on that note I have to go get you.  As you’ve just woken up.  After 5 minutes.

Love

Mummy

As Much As I Admire Charles Darwin

the way my nights are going right now disproves his theory of survival of the fittest.

Let’s go back millions of years.  There is a little cave family, Urg, the male, Arg, the female and Blargh, their baby.  Blargh is about 9 months old and had been sleeping great.  Then one night he wakes with a resounding wail!!  Urg and Arg jump up to see what’s wrong and discover, Oh Joy! Oh Rapture! A tooth!!

But wait, there, in their cave, there is no Calpol.  Or Nurophen. Or Children’s Tylenol.  Not even Nelson’s Teetha powder.  Or a ‘fridge to stick a wet cloth into to make it cold.  Poor little Blargh just has to suffer through.

And suffer he does.  And so do his parents as every night’s sleep is broken by poor wee Blargh crying his eyes out with the pain of the teeth coming in.  And then it stops. Oh Joy! Oh Rapture…dammit here comes another one and it starts over.

And then one morning, after being up half the night with Blargh and Arg, Urg realizes there is no meat in the house. He grabs his spear and heads out.  Arg realizes she must gather while he hunts.

During the hunt, Urg eyes can barely stay open and therefore he does not notice the sabertooth tiger sneaking up behind him.  Poor Urg, eaten by a tiger.

During her gathering, Arg can barely keep her eyes open.  She falls asleep by the river.  Blargh falls out of her arms and drowns (I never said this was a happy story).  When she awakens and finds him dead she goes to find Urg.  She finds him dead as well.  She goes off and finds a new mate.  One whose previous children had no teething issues.  Oh wait, there is no such thing.

My point, and I do have one, is if survival of the fittest was true, babies today would not suffer so much with teething.

Because their ancestors who have teething problem babies would have died from exhaustion.

Another Worry Off My Mind

So Adam is thisclose to being to big for his Stage 0 car seat.

We don’t, of course, have a car.  Part of the reason we have the car seat we do is because it can fit into any car using the 3 point regular seat belt.  This was proven very successfully while we were in the US.

But what the hell were we going to do now? Granted, the law states that car seats don’t have to be used in taxis, but that’s because the taxi lobby (or whatever they call it in the UK) is so powerful.  A taxi is no safer than a regular car.

So we were in our local pram shop today, getting the ripped cover replaced on Adam’s pram, and I mentioned my concern to the lady.  She said, no worries, Maxi Cosi makes a Stage 1 that’s almost as easy to move from car to car as the Stage 0 you’re using now.  And she’s right.  And it isn’t even all that heavy.  Its not light, but it would be possible for me to hold Adam in one arm and carry the seat in the other, for short distances.  Such as to the Children’s Hospital for his surgery.

And the best part? Their price is the same as online.  So I can continue to give this shop with the great service my business.

So Adam’s next car seat, which I think we will order this week, will be the Maxi Cosi Pirori XP.  In grey.

Continuity…

When Adam was born and my step dad and mom were here he remarked how interesting he found it that all the old songs come back up as soon as there is a baby in the house.  Twinkle Twinkle.  This Old Man. And so on.

I was thinking about that again the other day.  How I do things with Adam that I have done with other babies in the past.

Some of them must be unique to my family, like showing Adam which Sesame Street character is on his nappy.  We used to do that with my niece.  And now I show him and sing him the song of that character.  So C is for Cookie or Rubber Ducky.  Or I just tell him how Elmo is my favourite!

Others I know are universal.  For instance, when he grabs my face or hits my arm I say ‘gently!’  Like he really has any idea yet what that means.

And then he does something that I have no idea where he learned it, but is also universal.  Like when he started blowing raspberries.  And just yesterday? He started clucking his tongue.  I didn’t teach him either of those things and neither did Simon.  He just figured them out on his own.

Or there is such as thing as genetic memory…

I Usually Just Ignore SPAM To This Site

Askimet catches it, I give it a glance on the off chance something that isn’t SPAM is caught in the filter, delete and move on.

But this one? Made me laugh out loud:

“I do think this is a most incredible website for proclaiming great wonders of Our God!”

It was  a comment to one of my newsletters to Adam.

Does that make Adam their God?