Category Archives: Personal

So, Yesterday I Went Shopping

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My birthday, you may recall, was in February. And at that time I acquired, between my mom & step-dad and my parents in law, £200. Of which I had, until today, spent £12. And that was just last month.

You see, I’m a cheapskate. I hate paying full price for *anything*.

The problem with that being finding things I like in my size when the sales happen.

Last month I found a pink and grey stripped tunic top/dress at Dorothy Perkins (can’t find it on their website), originally £40. I got it for £12.

And then today I was at the mall and wandered into Debenhams. And found three pairs of jeans.

These, which I got for £12.50, down from £25

These, which I got for £9, down from £30

And these which I got for *free* as they were on the buy one get one rack with the ones above.

All pictures sourced from Debenhams

I think, based on the website, that the red ones were on the wrong rack and I shouldn’t have gotten them for free. Although, as I remember, they were marked at £9 like the brown ones above them.

Anyway, big bargains. I was very pleased.

I’ve also been looking for a new purse, so I went into Cath Kidston. I do like their purses but none of them were quite right. I did, however find this very useful ticket holder to keep my bus ticket in along with some other cards.

So a very successful day’s shopping, indeed!

I Believe Her

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There is a footballer named Ched Evans who was just convicted of rape, a very rare thing to get a conviction for, still, in the 21st C in the UK.

The victim has been victimized. Has had her name splashed across Twitter, which is illegal and across the internet by one of the major news outlets who forgot to redact it when writing about the Twitter issue.

A horrible Facebook page, supposedly created by Ched’s sister, calls for a retrial. Says the woman was not raped as she was drunk and therefore ‘got what she deserved.’

I am sick to my stomach at all of this. Witnesses say she was too drunk to walk, never mind able to give consent to a sexual act. Certainly not able to agree to have Ched’s friends film her.

But what really is making me sick to my stomach is the women who are saying these things. That she got what she deserved. That she shouldn’t have been drunk. What did she expect?

She expected to not wind up with a footballer in his room being raped. That’s what all women expect.

So do me a favour. Go to: I Believe Her on Facebook and like the page. Share the page. At last count the page calling for a retrial had just over 4,000 likes.

Surely there are more than 4,000 women on Facebook who believe her?

If you’re going to Tweet about this, please use #ibelieveher

The Worst Insult, In His Mind, That My Son Can Yell At You Is….

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“You ATOY!”

What does it mean?

For the longest time Simon and I couldn’t figure it out. We thought it must have come from nursery in some manner.

And then Adam and I were waiting for the bus and he yelled it at me when I told him to stop jumping so close to the road.

“YOU ATOY!” with a small finger shaking up to my face. And I realized.

It’s what Woody says to Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story 1 and what Buzz says to the other Lightyear toys in Toy Story 2.

“YOU ARE A TOY!”

And my 2.10 year old thinks it’s an insult to call someone a toy. 🙂

Now that I figured it out I laugh when he says which, of course, just makes him madder. One time when he was calm I tried to explain to him that Woody and Buzz aren’t being insulting, they are trying to convince someone of something. But Adam isn’t buying it.

So I continue to get called ATOY! when Adam is mad at me. Which, at nearly 3, is all the time. As nearly 3 year olds often have to do things that they don’t want to do like brush their teeth and get their nappies changed when they’d rather be playing with Lego or watching the aforementioned Toy Story, any of them but 3 is the big fav.

Of course there are much worse things he could call Simon and me. Much worse things he could yell.

For example?

Yesterday he said ‘Oh Frack!’

Ooooopppps

 

 

“I can’t want it!”

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The above is my son’s current favourite sentence. It’s adorable!

Obviously he’s getting his verb confused and means to say ‘I don’t want it!’ but that’s not how it’s coming out.

Overall his language has come on leaps and bounds. The little boy who caused a bit of concern with his low vocabulary at his 2 year check last year is now pouring out with sentences (wrong verbs non-withstanding) and paragraphs and stories and information.

Although if you ask him what he did at nursery that day he usually answers with ‘Yummy toast!’ while rubbing his tummy.

Which is also adorable.

For the record is he is also about 30 pounds and 38.5 inches. So over half my height. At 2.10.

I’m doomed…

Totally Bummed

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So this weekend was suppose to be full of laughing, playing, running children at my house. My sister in law and her family were coming to stay as one of her friends is getting married here in Belfast.

Instead my poor nephew has what appears to be chicken pox. 🙁

So instead of two boys playing chase in circles around my front room and a baby to snuggle, I’m going to have my sister in law drinking wine. 🙂

Still. We’re all pretty bummed she has to come alone. When told his cousin wasn’t coming to play because he might have chicken pox Adam said ‘No pox! Aidan!’ Oh I wish I could make that true.

Aidan is apparently also sad. He wanted to come play at Adam’s house.

And now I have nothing to do tomorrow as I was going to be Chief Adult in Charge of Children while people went to work and to weddings.

What shall I do with myself?

My Worries, Personified…

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So we were at the GP Friday (Another chest infection. Good thing he actually likes banana liquid.) and also there were two other boys.

They came over to us when they saw Adam was wearing a Fireman Sam shirt and were asking Adam about it. Adam, of course, did not answer as he’s not big on talking to strangers.

The younger boy said, ‘Doesn’t he talk?’

I said, ‘Of course he talks, but he’s not yet three. How old are you?’

‘I’m three!’

‘How long have you been three? When is your birthday?’

His big brother said, ‘October is his birthday.’

So I said ‘See? You’ve been three for *ages*! He’s not three for two more months, so he’s only two.’

At that point they got called in to see the GP so I couldn’t ask my next question which was ‘And which preschool are you going to in September?’

Because it is very likely that his boy, who will be four two months after the start of preschool, will be in the same class as Adam. Who will be three three months before preschool starts.

That’s nearly a year apart in age. In the same class.

I know they have to have cut off dates and some kids have to be the youngest in the class, but I don’t know why they can’t split the year and have two classes. So children turning three from 1st July to 31st December go in the morning with those turning three from 1st January to 31st June going in the afternoon. Or something similar. Wouldn’t that make more sense than having just turned three year olds in the same class as just about to turn four year olds?

Because at that age? It shows. That 3.6 year old was miles ahead of my 2.10 year old in terms of verbalization, self-assuredness, really everything I could see in a five minute interaction at the GP’s. The only thing they matched on was height, and that’s only because Adam is so tall.

Which is another worry. Already more than one person has commented on such a big boy acting like such a baby at times. When questioned, they assume he’s three or even four. He’s not. He’s two. Nearly three, but really still two. And he acts two.

He has a dummy, he’s just beginning to be articulate around other people and it’s not all that often that he is and they can understand him. He still has milk out of a bottle. And he’s no where ready to be potty trained. Which he has to be to start school in September. He still naps at least an hour a day.

Within the next year or two none of this will matter, of course. Nearly five and just four are a lot closer than nearly four and just three. And it will get closer and closer as he goes through school. Soon his peers will catch up with his height, even if he remains tall, he won’t stick out so much. Eventually.

But a Mummy worries.

So I worry.

I worry  he’ll be picked on or overlooked. I worry he’ll have no friends and no one will come to his birthday parties. I worry about things I can’t do a damn thing about, which I hate and refuse to do in everything else.

Being a Mummy is hard in ways I never expected.

And I do hate the unexpected.

Fraser’s House of Plague and Injury, how may I direct your call?

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So, as I said, it’s been A good week except for health.

Adam started with a fever on Sunday. Switched to cough and cold by Wednesday. Got antibiotics on Friday.

Simon threw up this morning and now has a fever of 100.9F.

I’ve been flaring all over the place, aphasia (or as Simon and I are now calling it ‘can’t remember the effing word’ as Simon thinks aphasia sounds like a flower) very bad, pin point pain, exhausted muscles.

And this afternoon Adam was playing in the front room, rolling on his tummy on our round step stool placed on its side. He was doing it this morning as well and I told him to stop as he’d break his head. So what happened? He fell forward and hit his eye on the coffee table. A very nice shiner is developing and Mummy is trying very hard to not say “I told you so!”

And of course this fever thing is spreading around the family. By my calculations I should get it around Wednesday.

And Friday? I’m babysitting Simon’s sister’s two children for the day.

Yay?

It’s Been A Very Good Week

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with Simon on holiday and Adam off nursery for a few days. Lots of playing and walks and painting pictures and doing puzzles and watching of DVDs from my childhood.

Today I am off to do some shopping while Simon and Adam head out to do whatever boys do when Mummy isn’t looking. I imagine there will be chocolate and crisps involved, but I could be wrong.

I’ll be back with something more profound soon.

Maybe.

SPOILERS – The Hunger Games – SPOILERS

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As it says in the title, here be spoilers for The Hunger Games, movie and book. If you have not seen it or read it and plan on doing so and don’t want to know what it’s about? Go away now.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

That should be enough space for anyone with an extract blog stream reader.

So, I read The Hunger Games about 3 years ago, before the release of Mockingjay in 2010 but after the release of Catching Fire. So I got to read The Hunger Games and Catching Fire right in a row and then wait, I think, about a year for Mockingjay. I enjoyed the whole series from beginning to end as it shocked me and made me laugh and cry and think.

And when I heard of the movie, I cringed. How on earth were they going to make it a movie? Reading about children killing children is one thing. Watching it on a screen? ::shudder::

And then it came out. And everyone I knew who watched it, and had read the book, thought it was amazing. So I gave it ago.

And they were right. It was amazing. Incredibly faithful to the book, the violence handled well (if you can say that about violence involving children), an entire universe created in 2 hours and 22 minutes.

There are some major differences, of course. The first being that, I think, Katniss is not given the Mockingjay pin until the second book and I know it is given to her by the daughter of District 11’s Mayor.

The next being that, again I think, District 12 is mentioned in the first book, at least in passing. No mention of it in the  movie at all.

The whole subplot of the people being caught outside a district and Kat meeting up with the girl, whose tongue has been cut out, in the Capitol, as one of her servants was removed.

And, most interestingly to me, the roles of her ‘handlers’, other than Cinna, are completely non-existent except that they are there and have a few throw away lines. In the book, possibly books (really should re-read them!), it is through the handlers that we learn how citizens of the Capitol view the games; as just that, a game. No feeling for the deaths of the ‘tributes’ other than, perhaps, the sort of ‘ah dammit’ we might feel if our favourite Apprentice gets fired. Except the ‘tributes’, of course, die.

In the movie this attitude is shown, a bit more subtly, I think, through the actions of the people running the games. We see the control centre for the arena, including a great moment when the dogs that end The Game are created. The woman who creates them is so happy that The Game maker, Seneca Crane, is pleased with her creation and gives her a, literal, pat on the back for a job well done as they send these dogs into the arena to help kill the remaining contestants and end The Game. It doesn’t occur to this woman that she’s just killed children. All she cares about is she’s done her job well.

The ‘tributes’ aren’t really people to the citizens of the capitol. They did something, over 74 years ago, and still they must be punished for it. And any act of rebellion is quickly removed, as seen when District 10 riots after Rue’s death. The ‘peacekeepers’ are sent in, people are killed, rebellion over.

There are, of course, holes in the story. Where is the rest of the world? Is it completely destroyed or is all communication shut off so they don’t know that what is left of The Americas regularly sends it’s children to fight to the death? Or are they doing the same here in Europe? That’s the hole the bugs me the most, I must say.

But, of course, what makes The Hunger Games so very scary is how prophetic it is. Oh, we don’t have The Hunger Games. But the haves (Capitol Citizens, their 1%) are killing the have nots (the Districts Citizens, the 99%), or at least oppressing them, all over the world here in 2012.

The Tories are cutting benefit after benefit to the poor and the disabled and doing  nothing to fix the problem using their own money. And on one is stopping them. Lord knows the Opposition government isn’t doing much.

The Republicans are waging a war on women, on children, on the 99% and the only thing holding them back is President Obama and sometimes it seems to be a losing battle.

So is it such a leap of imagination that if, god forbid, there is nuclear war or natural disaster that wipes out most of the world, the next step is The Arena?

May The Odds Be In Your Favour indeed.