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Mon, Jan. 18th, 2010 10:45 pm
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.......or tales of a bad mother. So Monday often finds me taking the little ones on the bus to deepest darkest Caldicot for some lovely with the Savigears and today was no exception. The day started reasonably well with both kids up, dressed and out of the house in good order - in a reasonably timely manner to boot. Livi was merrily chirruping away trying to work out who she liked the best out of Tess, Molly and Jasmine (sorry Matt, you don't get a look in) and the sun was shining. The bus ride starts out in its usuall maner, with Livi being incredibly over excited about being on a bus and chanting her mantra: 'We are going *really* fast now! We are going *really* fast, again! We are going REALLY, REALLY fast!!!!'. This and the accompaning actions leave me snarling my, less lovely, mantra of 'Livi, sit down in your chair, please. Livi, bum in seat or you are going to hurt yourself. Livi SIT DOWN THIS INSTANT1' It was going to happen sooner or later, really it was. The bus braked sharply while my hands were otherwise occupied with a upset teething Edward (a theme which we will revisit later in this sorry tale) propelling poor Olivia into the glass pannel infront. Her collision was broken only by her nose, and she ended up on the floor pissing more blood then you think would be possible from a two year old. I can cope with the horrified judgemental looks of the other passengers. I can also just about cope with both of my kids screaming inconsolably. I was on more tentative ground having to arrive chez Savigear, with both babes in bits and one of them looking like she was involved in a road traffic accident, but Tess worked her breed of magic and quickly all concerned are deleriously happy and largely trying to pretend to be ballarina's 2 As usual we all have a wonderful afternoon. It is glorious how well the girls get on and I almost exploded with 'cute' when the three of them were all in a little row bouncing up and down on Molly's bed and then almost exploded again when Molly taught Livi to climb the bunk bed ladder. There was the baking of rice crispy cakes, dressing up, hide and seek, watering of the garden, making of a hand print painting with water, and much glorious food and kitchen roleplaying from all three of them.3 Anyway all beautiful days must come to an end, and the time came for me to haul my brood home. Now this *never* goes well, Livi is always upset about having to say goodbye and this is made worse as Livi doesn't want to waste any of her wonderful Jaz and Molly time with something as boring as an afternoon sleep and hence is totally knackered, unreasonable and crabby. Cue my second mistake of the day - and mistakes with children do hae a tendancy to snowball. I forgot to take the bus timetable with me and hence end up having to catch the evil of a stage coach bus which starts a cascade of nightmare. Matt is fantastic and comes with us to the bus stop and helps to get us on the bus, but nothing short of a miricle is going to let us get away with the forgotten timetable! Poor Livi, over tired, befreft at leaving her mates, and covered in the blood from disaster number one, falls asleep in the buggy on the way to the bus stop and has to be woken up to get us all on the bus. She wakes badly at the best of times and this was *not* one of the best times. She starts exhausted screaming and cannot be consoled, not even with a chocolate rice crispy cake. Poor Edward also starts screaming as he is suffering by cutting five teeth at once. Edward is in so much pain that he is physically trashing around everywhere and almost impossible to hold onto and Livi just wants to be cuddled but can't cope with the little man flailing. Now the gentle reader has to understand that Edward *NEVER* cries - so the whole teething issue reduces me to tiny bits incredibly quickly, and a hour and a half of both him and Livi screaming coupled with a couple of harsh comments from other passengers had me disembarking the bus close to tears myself, filled with self loathing and FAIL. Black thoughts about how we are never going to leave the house again raced around my mind as I limped home pushing the babies. We do however make it home in one piece and the buggy ride has calmed the little ones at least. I push the door open, my heart at utter rock bottom, wondering how on earth I am going to make it through dinner. Livi then hops out of her buggy seat and looks up at me with her big grey guiless eyes and says: "I love Molly. I love Jasmines. I love Tess. Thankyou mummy." And then, after a bit of a pause, you know expertly designed to be just long enough for her words to eradicate all of the bad, she gives my leg a hug, and softly, so perfectly softly, for the very first time, says: "I love you" 1 I am sad to say that the use of capitals never has any effect on my daughter.
2 In this case Ballarina is actually pronounced 'Ballariny'
3 Be very afraid! Posted via LiveJournal.app.   
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Mon, Nov. 30th, 2009 09:57 pm
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Today, I decoded the Caldicot bus timetables1 sufficiently that the jaunt to get some lovely with the Savigear's is now possible....... ney *easy*. To add to the general level of smug, at £6:00 a ticket it even works out cheaper than taking the car. My smug knows no bounds, my smug is legion. 2 1 For those that care: when travelling with kids and buggy never ever attempt to catch a 'Stage Coach' bus, hold out for a 'First Great Western' one which are marked in the timetable as '1st'. Although it is extremely amusing to see the face of the bus driver when you hand them a six month old baby to hold, safe in the knowledge that if you are at the bus stop they are legally obliged to both to take you on board and help you if necessary.
2 Glares at anybody looking to mention the tale of public transport woe, hubris, & disaster that was Molly's birthday party. Posted via LiveJournal.app.
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Fri, Oct. 23rd, 2009 11:25 pm
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Today is the first time I have braved the cross London treck from Paddington to Woodford with the double buggy and both bambinos. Today also happens to be a day when the central line was shut owing to someone "falling beneath a train". I have to be honest here and say that this turn of events wasn't great for me as it effectively took out one of the two disabled access routes that I can take the buggy and as it turns out the second and only other disabled access route was out of order due to Olympic building works and upgrades. There was also vomit and poo involved in quite alarming quanties and a fair bit of screaming owing to having to spend far too much time on sweltering overcrowded trains. But we muddled through and it all came right in the end and I was able to present two reasonably collected and calm children to their grandmother with the vomit stains on my cloths reasonably well hidden.
What really did piss me of though was the attitude of many of the other, hot, bothered, and inconvienienced passangers many of whom felt it was appropriate to rage, and swear, and argue with the undergroud staff, who's fault this was NOT, and basically behaive in an utterly shameful and appaling manner.
First up, someone has just died, a human being with hopes and fears and loves just like you. So really unless someone else is going to die if you don't get home in the next half an hour then get a perspective check please. Actually I get that you are annoyed, I wasn't overjoyed myself, but it would be nice if it would take more than a late train before civilized behaivour was thrown out of the window.
Some days I just don't like the people I happen to see.
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Fri, Oct. 16th, 2009 02:05 pm
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So I am back at work (which I expect is a long story in of itself but one that will have to wait) with all the attendant loveliness that comes with being able to put the baby down and pretend to be a proper person again. One of the things I particularly appreciate is being back on a bicycle again. I am rusty and unfit, but nothing beats the feeling of screaming down a hill in the sunshine with the wind rushing past your ears. Well almost nothing ..... Having been a bit time poor of late, I will confess that my poor bicycle was in a bit of a state. Nothing too awful as I do generally look after it reasonably well, but a year of having been moth-balled does take its toll. The gears were a little slow to jump cogs, the breaks couldn't really cope with too much of screaming down hills and basically the poor girl needed a bit of tender loving care. So I drop in for tea with one of my post-natal ladies (with as much grace as I could muster given that I was traveling by bicycle for the first time in an age) and on arrival my beast of burden was stolen out of my hands by the man of the house and whisked off through the back gate, I assumed to be propped up against a wall somewhere out of sight. An hour, some rather delicious carrot cake, and some excellent conversation later (you have got to love post-natal ladies) the bicycle thief comes into the lounge and quite randomly asks me to come outside for a moment. I am a little bemused and look to H who just smiles at me and tells me to go leaving me to wonder what on earth is going on. These are off course 'lovely' people so I wasn't expecting a shallow grave in the garden, but was suffering the wrong footedness of someone who has no idea what is going on. As it turns out H's most excellent husband, J, is a bicycle fanatic, bordering on obsession. Indeed his whole career is building and servicing high end bespoke bicycles and what I had failed to notice was that from the second I arrived at the house J has been eying up my bicycle, noticing all things wrong with it and had practically been biting his own arm off to get it out of my hands and into his SHED where, it turns out he gave it a complete five star service. I will confess to being completely floored by this totally unexpected bit of lovely, but the extra added bonus is that J had noticed that my riding position was a bit awkward and done some magic with the handlebars and rendered my bicycle - which although lovely - was not as comfortable as my previous effort into the best ride I have ever hand in my entire life. 1H of course, knowing her husbands obsessions and predilections had noticed him eying my bike in the first place and knew exactly what was going to happen. This private joke between two loving people just made me smile all the more. My word fu is weak to day and I am struggling to capture all the nuances and utter bewilderment caused by this little piece of unlooked for lovely, all served up with a helping of carrot cake. So I will steal a comment of ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) jfs's and simply say "Well if that isn't nice then I don't know what is"  complicated
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Mon, Sep. 28th, 2009 03:09 pm
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....never to talk about children or poo.
I am happy. It is the little things. My son appears to be doing wonderfully solid arse business now that he is having 'real' food shoveled into him, which means that I can go back to using my lovely, wonderful, cloth nappies. Sadly, seeing as my daughter has not done a proper shit in her life, she will have to stay in disposables. It is a demi-victory, but a victory none the less and one that makes me happy.
In other news it does turn out that the wonderful arrangement that Leanne and I had over child care was actually illegal. No really. I woke up to a radio article this morning where OFSTED were causing two police women to be prosecuted for having exactly the same reciprocal childcare arrangement. This makes me extremely sad. I believe very, very, very strongly in community childcare and to find out that it is illegal (with some hand waving and careful definition of the word 'reward') is actually kind of shocking. Yes, yes we can argue the toss about quality of care and 'qualifications' and 'certifications' but the bottom line is that as a parent I am perfectly capable of making a decision about who should look after my kids and personally I would much rather it was done by somebody that will be in that child's life for maybe the rest of that life...give or take.
My personal experience of a reciprocal arrangement was excellent, Leanne was amazing with Miss trouble and Livi absolutely adores Leanne and Jack, which I think stands testament. If I could just persuade Leanne to move just a little bit closer then I would do it again, law be damned, in a heartbeat.
This is wrong.
In other, other, news. Best weekend this year was just had. Lovely. I needed that. Current Mood:  tired
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Sun, Aug. 30th, 2009 06:46 pm
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......why children don't wait for glorious perfect days, when everything goes brilliantly and you are feeling in full health, to shit *all* over you. No really. Tags: arse, crap, droppings, dung, egesta, excrement, fecal matter, feces, poo, poonami, shit, stool Current Location: home under pooCurrent Mood:  crappy
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Sat, Aug. 22nd, 2009 02:20 pm
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I am *loving* the BBC series " Desperate Romantics", not least because it appears to star some of my lovely friends......so far we have the glorious, erudite, regal, flame haired petrichor_1 playing Lizzy Sidle (Rosetti's muse and lover) and Fanny Cornthorp's 1 radiant, exuberant and infectious smile is strongly reminiscent of xullrae (although it should be noted that all other particulars do differ). I am wondering who else is going to crop up! I will also confess to finding Mr Dante Gabriel Rossetti (as played by Aiden Turner - otherwise famous for " Being Human") to be the first lust interest eye candy experience I have had in a very long time. Hmmmmmmm. (He is of course a person and a probably talented actor (although the jury is still out on that as both characters I have seen him play have been similar in a charismatic sexy leader of men way) and I am attempting to not demean his whole person in any way at all. No not at all, no objectification going on here, honest.) Hmmmmmmmm. 1: Another one of Rosetti's many lovers , friends, tv Current Location: homeCurrent Mood:  happy
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Fri, Aug. 14th, 2009 03:58 pm
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Luckily for me the house bears only sniff creamy vanilla custard leaving poor me to 'tidy' it up afterwards. Posted via LiveJournal.app.
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Thu, Aug. 13th, 2009 04:39 pm
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It has been a very long time since I have read properly. These days I barely manage three and a half lines before falling fast asleep and the days of crawling under a douvet and not getting out until your eyes are bleeding and brain is full and a good book is finally ended are long, long gone. But I have actually managed a couple of books over the last couple of weeks. "The Graveyard" by the excellent Neil Gaimen, and the suprising non-discworld "Nation" by Terry Pratchet. Trouble is that I have the bug back now and nothing to read! Any suggestions out there? (Nothing to taxing as the 'asleep in three lines' remains an issue) Posted via LiveJournal.app.
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Thu, Aug. 6th, 2009 10:37 am
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Last weekend was glorious. It started with sans LJ Anna's extremely civilised hen do and the charming hospitality of petrichor_1. There was cake and tea and extremely good conversation, a hint of a single, unencumbered, London life style. There was also a slight annoyance that I could not stay for longer. The evening saw the joint wedding anniversary celebrations of sans LJ Chiara and Morgan which was remarkably like stepping back in time by a couple of years. Things change and also stay largely the same. There was not enough time to talk to everyone I wanted to and a twinge of excitement about an upcoming LARP system. The evening was notable because I was forcibly struck by the cycles of life. There we were all were dancing to disco music designed to get the feet belonging to 30-something year olds twitching, in what might as well be described as a village hall. There were at least four generations in attendance and the room was filled with a very chilled out and loving atmosphere. I have attended that party before, countless times, as a teenager grimacing in horror at the way the 'old fogies' were behaving. Thus I have traveled full circle again but with a bit more mud about the rim now, and a very different attitude. Which leads me to the not so good when it comes to the cycles of life. I had the pleasure of a mad dash across the country to get a passport in the only passport office that I could get a timely appointment at. The mission for the passport was surprisingly a success and seeing as I was all the way over that way in Peterbourgh I figured I would pop home to see my mum for a day or two. My mother is an extremely lovely lady who I adore, however not all is perfect in Norwich. It would take far far too long to explain the family dynamic in enough detail that this post will make any sense to anyone who is not us, but the relationship between my mother and my sister is so very bizarre that it is a contributing factor in pulling both of them down into a black pit of endless despair. The Freeburn family home at present is filled to the brimming with bitter recriminations and general despair at life. No one has a bad day anymore, they instead nearly get beaten up and nearly crash and die on the M11 and nearly have a nervous breakdown. This is heartbreaking and annoying in equal measure and all of those troubling feelings were nicely re-enforced when visiting robcee's mother two days later who has having exactly the same trouble. Even seeing her grandchildren - which is pretty much the only joy in her life at the moment - was too tiring and difficult. I fear I can see the wheel turning and can hear and see myself in them all. Life has its tough moments and in some senses gets generically harder as you go along. We are all of us older, fatter and less fit and every time you bend a knee there is one less bend left in it before it wears out. It is easy to get worn down by this state of affairs and carry the rather bleak sentiment outlined above into every thought and every action. But I absolutely don't want to live my life like that and I am determined to break that particular cycle. Hilariously though, now that we are concentrating on it and watching and changing innate interactions, I notice how unreasonable bollocks has crept into the vast majority of my communications. robcee and I are tripping up on standard patterns of unhelpful behaviour almost every time we talk. However things are great at the moment so we can treat this with some levity. At the end of the day my life is pretty fabulous, most deep trauma has faded away into history and the biggest thing I have to argue about is whether or not someone has forgotten to turn the heating off at night. , happy, ramblings Current Mood:  thoughtful
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jubilant
aggravated
sad
indescribable