Busy weekend

A rare non-posting day for me again yesterday, I was up North again at the mother-in-laws (got to get used to that description instead of the in-laws). The mother-in-law’s house is now very quiet and mostly tidy, which is a strange comparison to what it used to be like. The brother-in-law and his family, who live near to the mother-in-law came to visit to, I have a feeling that actually (although she was perfectly welcoming) the poor woman could do with some space. Her mother is also ill and in hospital and so has been dealing with that at the same time. We went to visit Mr. Lacer’s Grandma as well, in a very dreary hospital. It’s funny isn’t it, how you spend your whole life looking up at the people ahead of you on life’s path, the big kids at school, the graduates, the newly marrieds, with hope and ambition and then you get to a certain point in your life and you see what’s ahead of you; loss, bereavement followed by ill health and ageing, suddenly you want to stay exactly where you are.

On a brighter more cheery note, we’re off to Ikea today, hopefully buying a midi-sleeper for Girl Lacer so that Boy Lacer can move out of his cot and into her bed.

Of funerals and hospital appointments and really really good blog stats

You may have noticed a rare absence from me in that I didn’t post yesterday. I was off up North to my father in laws funeral, which was a sad occasion in suitably befitting rain. I left the kids in London with my dad, when he arrived, Boy Lacer took one look at him and went “eeeek” in a very high pitched distressed tone which meant “eek, it’s not that strange man again is it”, he then crawled as fast as he could, following me to the kitchen where I was preparing their lunch in advance. However Grandad came bearing late birthday gifts, a toy Iggle Piggle and as far as Boy Lacer is concerned anyone bearing toy Iggle Piggles is actually a good thing, so he was happier after that. I left a detailed list of instructions, including how to get Boy Lacer to nap whilst Girl Lacer was at nursery, but dad decided not to upset Boy Lacer (I warned him he screamed) so he let him play and apparently he was as good as gold. After nursery they all went to McDonalds, which probably put Grandad on an even higher pedestal for Boy Lacer because anyone who takes him to McDonalds has to be a very very nice person. So when I arrived home I found Girl Lacer and Boy Lacer contently playing on the floor looking like everyone had had a nice day.

My day (other than the funeral) wasn’t too bad either, I travelled to the funeral and back by public transport and for once it behaved implecably all day, I’d get to a platform and there would be my train, even on the way back when I could have walked, there was a bus just pulling up at the bus stop, so I took that as a sign . I like travelling by train and tube, don’t do enough of it now I’m a mum, I actively miss commuting, it was a chance to read and listen to music and I like the drama of travelling through central London, all the people, you can feel the stories literally around you. Plus I managed to finish The Quiet American (see earlier post) and read some more of Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer, which is really good, although I prefer Susan Hill’s creative writing course, where she has just written a particularly good post about making the reader do some of the work and not using too many adjectives, which I was worrying about (that I was using too little). Hill has recommended some more reading so now I’ve finished The Quiet American, I think I may try some Dickens in the form of David Copperfield, although I’ve just noticed on Amazon how long it is! Sorry anyway I’m really digressing, I enjoy travelling because it gives you a chance to read, listen to music and people watch. Thinking about music I’ve got some particularly good new(ish) albums on my MP3 player at the moment, my favourite is Newton Faulkner’s Handmade by Robots, which has quite a Jack Johnson vibe and Kanye West’s Graduation (see my music tastes are nothing but diverse).

Well after that long and rambling, flitting all over the place paragraphs, time to move on to today. Boy Lacer had a hospital appointment today with his consultant at Children’s Outpatients, last time he saw her was about January time. She was the one who started the whole ball rolling, did a lot of tests on him, found nothing wrong and then sent him on for a developmental check, which triggered the speech therapy and physio and which we’re still waiting for a follow up developmental check. Anyway this appointment today was principally about his chest which has been absolutely fine since going cow dairy free. The consultant said to carry on keeping him cow dairy free till next summer, when there won’t be as many respiratory bugs around and then try and reintroduce cow dairy slowly and see what happens. As far as the walking (or lack of it) is going, she thinks he’s making good progress and yes he probably has hyperextension but it shouldn’t hamper him too much, as for speech therapy’s communicating with others, she thought (as do I) that he was playing perfectly well with his sister (who was also there) and she’d seen him playing with another kid in the waiting room (and the screaming that resulted when I had to take him away for the appointment).

Finally, I checked my blog stats this lunch time and they actually made me swear in front of my children, I couldn’t help myself! My stats are normally running at a respectable 150 – 250 a day but yesterday it was 798! Today (early afternoon), they’re already at 516! And this is all for pretty much one thing, Nigella Lawson’s Hokey Pokey, which she showed on TV last night (and oh my god it looked good, as did the Rocky Road and the sesame noodle salad). Sorry guys, I don’t have the recipe, well I do, I have a copy of the Nigella Express book but it’d be breaking copyright if I copied it out here and I can’t find a link anywhere else to it, however I do actually really recommend the book, just for her cheddar cheese risotto and french doughnut toast alone, Cook Yourself Thin she isn’t! I definitely think I’ll be trying that Hokey Pokey though.

Saturday

A rare chance to escape today. First of all I took the kids to Girl Lacer’s ballet lesson. I’m really pleased with this new ballet school, the class just seems better and the mums outside are so much friendlier which is far better than the silence I used to sit in outside Girl Lacer’s old ballet school. I took Boy Lacer along to, even though Mr. Lacer is home today, there’s quite a few 1 year olds there, so it’s nice for him to mix with kids his own age.

Anyway after ballet, I dropped the kids back home and off to do some shopping on my own, ahhh the freedom, although I always miss having a buggy with me, as it means not having one means that I have to carry my own shopping bags! The aim of the shopping trip was to buy something to wear to the father in laws funeral and get some birthday cake stuff for Boy Lacer but any chance to have a browse round my favourite bookshops and interior shops to, unhindered!

Buying something to wear for the father in laws funeral was a tough one. I literally (being a SAHM for the past nearly 4 years and therefore live in jeans) had nothing to wear. I used to wear my black suit to funerals (even when working I only owned one suit as I had a casual wear job most of the time), but two breast fed children later and it doesn’t fit anymore. I pondered buying a black dress, one of those woollen knitted things, but feared it was too casual and the more formal ones I tried on weren’t that nice, so I then decided on a pair of black trousers to go with a black jumper I already had at home. But I tried several pairs on from Gap and they were just horrible, I think partially due to my prejudices against black clothes, I subscribe heavily to the old maxim that if you’re going to wear black it has to be black all over or at least mixed with maybe a bit of white or grey, black with any other colour just cheapens it. So I was going round trying on all these black trousers knowing full well I wouldn’t wear them much and when I buy clothes these days they have to work for their money. I did like some pairs of city shorts but definitely did not think that was appropriate. So I tried Marks and Spencer and as long as I wasn’t following the strictly all black trousers / skirt rule, there was alot more choice. I ended up buying a lovely long grey, full skirt with a black rose print, which is lovely and although I can’t see me wearing it down the park, it will be worn a bit more frequently than a pair of cheap black, ill fitting trousers I hated.

Like I said earlier, I couldn’t resist going to the bookshop as well, I could so easily spend a fortune everytime I go in there, but this time I was good and controlled myself, even though there were some very interesting looking books. I’m in the middle of reading two different books at the moment and I have one more waiting to be read, so I couldn’t really justify it. At the moment I’m still half way through Soon I Will be Invincible, it’s just not grabbing me. I’m currently actively reading The Quiet American by Graham Greene, on the advice of Susan Hill’s writing course. She gave the choice of four Graham Greene books and I chose The Quiet American because it seemed the least catholic of the four and I recognised it (from the Michael Caine movie, which I haven’t seen). To be honest, it’s not my sort of book, I’ve never read Graham Greene before and probably won’t after this one, I struggle to keep my interest up after just a chapter however I can see why Susan Hill recommended it. I say it’s not my sort of book purely because of the subject matter, it’s a little too ‘male’ and at this point I vehemently point out that I do not exclusively restrict myself to ‘chick lit’, infact I don’t really read chick lit at all, it’s just The Quiet American is for me too male and there’s nothing wrong with that, men read books to! I can see why the Graham Greene was recommended as good reading for someone who wants to be a writer, he writes in a refreshing, straight to the point manner, which although skipping the flowery adjectives still manages to bring you straight into the story, I’ve got to the point in the story (don’t read on if you don’t want absolutely any spoilers, even very mild ones) were Pyle has told Fowler that he’s in love with Fowler’s girl and that he’s going to make a move on her, honestly I wanted to reach into those pages and give Pyle a good slap! So even in someone who isn’t in to stories about people in Vietnam, Greene has managed to invoke enough sympathy / dislike for the characters to provoke an emotional response in the reader. Anyway I will continue to read it but it’s much in the manner of someone reading it in the view of trying to get through it so they’ve finished that bit of homework.

Stress, stress, stress, arghhh!

A busy time coming up. It’s Boy Lacer’s birthday on Sunday, although all presents are brought, I need to go shopping on Saturday for wrapping paper and cake stuff etc. and Mr. Lacer is complaining I’m gallivanting off and leaving him with the kids, sorry but one of the things I’m also doing is having to find something to wear to his father’s funeral, I don’t normally wear black. I also desperately need a winter coat because the season’s are so screwed up here, summer was in April, it was autumn throughout the summer and now it’s gone full blown (and I mean literally blown, the wind at the moment has such a chill) winter. So Saturday, I’m taking the kids to Girl Lacer’s ballet first thing, then dropping them back home, I’ll then do my shopping as quick as I can, also making sure we have enough food for when my dad is looking after the kids on Monday (more on that in a minute), then I’ll come home, try frantically to make this place look presentable enough for my neat freak dad and make birthday cake.

Sunday, well Sunday’s Boy Lacer’s birthday, the original plan was to go to a nice little farm place we’d been to before with some friends, it’s got some animals, which Boy Lacer would like and a Boy Lacer friendly soft play (although at 2 he will be technically old enough to go into proper rough and tumble soft play, no way, the wee thing can’t even walk yet). However to get there is quite a drive and considering Mr. Lacer will be going up to his mum’s that night I guess it’s a no go. Mr. Lacer’s plans prior to me putting my foot down and saying the kids weren’t going to the funeral, was that we’d go to his mum’s the day before (the Sunday), I had to point out it was Boy Lacer’s birthday, he’d forgotten, I know it’s understandable but well. Anyway plans for the birthday boy’s big day now, I think (weather permitting) I might take Boy and Girl Lacer to Kew which is nearer and at least is a day out. Mr. Lacer’s plans for the weekend was to do diy apparently (he’d forgotten again that it was Boy Lacer’s birthday), he’s not normally such a diy freak but I guess right now needs his cave time and the diy excuse means that he gets it. I think I’ll suggest that I take the kids to Kew on my own.

And then it’s the Monday, day of the funeral. Mr. Lacer will have been at his mum’s from the evening before, my dad will be coming to look after the kids and I’ll be getting the train. My dad will obviously be in my house all day and he’s such a neat freak, unless it’s perfect he’ll be finding fault all day. An added complication to the day is that Girl Lacer’s school are having a celebratory picnic in the afternoon, as the two halves of the school are amalgamating. As a nursery rep I should be helping but never mind, put poor dad, as well as having to fit in to our normal routine, he’s got this to deal with to as ‘parents’ have to go to the picnic to. Still Girl Lacer will love having him there and getting a chance to show him a bit of the school. I mean while will be rushing back on the train, trying to rescue my dad before Boy Lacer goes into complete melt down, as he’s not too keen on his Grandad. My poor dad is not going to have a very nice day is he!

♣

In different news, but still talking about Boy Lacer, he had more speech therapy this morning. Me personally I think he’s doing ok as is, but still someone somewhere thinks he needs it. Today we were working on getting him to ask for things instead of just grabbing, heck even my nearly 4 year old still has issues with this, so to expect a nearly 2 year old?

Saturday (Flylady day 27 – menu planning)

Saturday’s arn’t quite as laid back as they used to be what with Girl Lacer now doing ballet first thing in the morning. I had to take Boy Lacer along this time to and may do that more often as he seemed to enjoy it, lots of 1 year old girls to smile at! After ballet we went into town, to do some much needed shopping that was postponed from yesterday after Girl Lacer was naughty in the morning and an impromptu playdate in the afternoon. By the time we got back home Mr. Lacer had just arrived back home to. It’s odd, feels like we can’t really truely say hello to each other until the kids are in bed. I did a lot of thinking yesterday regarding the kids and the father in law’s funeral and thanks to some wise words from friends who pointed out to me quite correctly when I voiced my concerns to them, that well they are my kids, so I’ve put my foot down, the kids arn’t going to the funeral, my dad’s coming to London to babysit them. Mr. Lacer had planned (when he thought the kids were coming) to go up the day before, even though the service is in the afternoon, I had to remind him, he’d honestly forgotten, it’s Boy Lacer’s birthday the day before. I think I may suggest that Mr. Lacer goes up in the evening the day before anyway and I’ll get the train on the day, I don’t want him getting stressed because my dad’s ‘late’. I’m going to get the train back anyway, rescue my dad before bedtime.

Anyway today is Flylady day 27, we’re meant to be thinking about what’s for the evening meal before you actually start cooking the evening meal. Flylady in general advocates menu planning and I did try it, earlier on in the year and it just does not work for me. Initially it looked great, I was saving money but in the end food was still getting wasted because there’s no way on earth that I know on a Wednesday (when I used to menu plan) what I fancied eating on a Sunday! Plus I’d plan a meal that required x amount of time on a certain day and something would crop up that meant I didn’t have the time to cook it and sorry I’m not about to turn down a playdate or something just because I’m planning on making macaroni or something! Even when I was menu planning unsuccessfully, just because I wasn’t cooking a dish that I had planned, it did not mean that any of us were starving as over the years as I’ve learnt to cook I’ve accumulated a range of quick dishes that can be made with stuff I’m pretty much guarenteed to have in the house at any one moment, so I had this menu plan which I had taken ages to work out and I was cooking the same short cut dishes when I wanted them, depending on the immediate circumstances of the day in question, not what I had thought about the Wednesday before. Maybe I don’t need menu planning? Somehow I suspect Nigella Lawson doesn’t menu plan! My final dislike of menu planning is that although I’m not strictly speaking following Paul McKenna’s ‘I can make you thin’ at the moment, I still distinctly remember the programme’s rules and one of them is ‘eat what you really truely want to eat’ and I can really believe in that, eating should be a pleasure and I just don’t fancy eating something like a chicken dish just because I decided days before that I might want to eat it when really I fancy a salad instead. I believe in listening to your body, if you listen well enough it’ll tell you what it needs then and there (and it’s not always doughnuts!). So I don’t menu plan and I’m not going to start, however I do when creating my shopping list for the week (I do a weekly online shop), as well as making sure I have my staples for my quick short cut dishes, I’ll pick a cook book I fancy cooking from that week and will have a flick through to see if I fancy anything in particular and whether I need to order anything specific. Most of the time I cook those dishes at some point but I’m just as likely to be suddenly inspired to use that cream I ordered for something else.

My day again (must think of more original titles) Flylady day 26

Ugh Flylady is bad for the health, no I don’t mean that really but I was flywashed yesterday into cleaning the bathroom, “Must swish and swipe, must swish and swipe”, you get the drift. I cleaned the bathroom and immediately triggered another bad allergic rhinitis attack. Our bathroom is prone to mould (whether I clean it or not, it’s an old bathroom) and I didn’t think, cleaning one particular corner, I must of disturbed a forming mould patch in it’s early stages, it went right up my nose and yes I’m allergic to mould, I’m not as allergic mould that is undisturbed mind you, but that darn stuff must of seen me coming with my wipe and released one last attack into my nasal cavities with it’s spores. Normally if the mould is visible I get Mr. Lacer to deal with it. So I spent most of yesterday feeling like someone had wrapped a thick scarf round my face three times and I was trying to breath through in between sneezing and coughing violently. By the time it was just before the kids bed time I was sitting on the sofa letting them crawl all over me, incapable of doing anything else. Anyway today, day 26, is just reading more stuff.

Now onto other stuff. I finally received the information pack for Boy Lacer’s new playgroup yesterday, he’s only starting the week after next! There has been quite a saga over playgroups this year, what with Girl Lacer’s playgroup closing suddenly in May, which is the playgroup Boy Lacer would have attended. Girl Lacer’s playgroup was perfect and would have been just right for Boy Lacer with his (trying to think of a better word here but can’t) difficulties. So I spent a large chunk of last summer rushing round the rest of the area’s already oversubscribed playgroups, trying to find him a place. I wasn’t happy with any of them, some were just ‘halls with toys in’, which just didn’t seem supportive or structured enough for Boy Lacer. I did find one good one but it was prohibitively expensive and had a stupid rule, that meant we had to send him more days than we wanted to, which made it impossibly expensive. So I was almost resigning myself to Boy Lacer just not going to playgroup, which would have been a shame as all kids like playgroup (in the end) plus his doctors said it’d be really good for him. Luckily the school Girl Lacer attends nursery at, has a community hall on site and it’s just opening a playgroup next month and Boy Lacer has a place. Not yet opened yet, means I haven’t even seen this one, although I know what the building is like as I’ve been there before although it looks like it’s had some improving building work recently. But I’m fairly confident it’ll be ok, it’s part of the school which has an outstanding reputation and a lot of the staff, even the toys from Girl Lacer’s old playgroup will be there. Still doesn’t mean I’m not nervous though, I wasn’t like this when Girl Lacer started playgroup, who even at 2 1/4 was an independent little thing, Boy Lacer on the other hand is going to hate this. So I filled in the forms, I didn’t even bother filling in the paragraph size box about any medical problems, I’ll be supplying a 3 page word doc. instead.

On to other stuff, Mr. Lacer and his family have arranged the funeral for his father, it’s on 1st October. Mr. Lacer’s mother wants the kids there, so they’ll be there, I’m not happy it about it but if it’s going to provide comfort to her, then they’ll be there. I’m not against children attending funerals per-say, I just think they need to be old enough to realise what’s going on and behave appropriately and I really do not think my two are going to behave appropriately, I can almost guarantee at least one of them will act up, resulting in me having to leave the service with them. Boy Lacer will have only just turned 2 (his birthday is the day before) and Girl Lacer a month short of 4. It’s in the afternoon, slap bang in the middle of Boy Lacer’s nap time (but he’s not the sort of child to nap anywhere but his cot, so no hope of him conveniently falling asleep in an aisle or something) and Girl Lacer has a history of when she’s bored in adult situations (and face it, this is going to be boring for her) yelling at the top of her voice “I’m bored, I want to go home” repeatedly. So like I said, I’ll be leaving the service. I’ve read places (on multiple occasions) rather old fashioned sounding advice that for a happy family a woman should be a wife first and a mother second. I think the logic behind it is probably that if the mother and father are happy, then the kids are happy to, which has some sense. I have to admit at the moment, most of the time, I am a mother first and wife second, our children are small and very demanding, I’m also trying to get some work from home businesses off the ground, so I am aware that poor Mr. Lacer takes a back seat sometimes, something I’ve been acutely aware of at times and it hasn’t been good for our relationship. And of all times at his father’s funeral, I need and want to be a wife first, mother second, not going to happen though is it. Anyway, can’t wait for him to be home, which should be hopefully tomorrow, I’m missing him a lot at the moment.

My day (Flylady day 25)

Just finished my Flylady chores for the day (I have very few chores to do in the evening, as I know I just won’t do them) and I’m now sitting here with my allergic rhinitis (which still hasn’t completely gone after the feather incident the other day) now really bad again. What triggered it this time, vacuuming (including the hard to reach and consequently filthy area underneath the fold down dining table) and cleaning the bathroom. I had to stop mid clean of the bathroom to have a massive sneezing / coughing fit. Doing this I’m disturbing so many allergens but they need to be out of the house! Anyway today is day 25 and you’re meant to be reading more stuff on the Flylady website, which to be frank I haven’t done and probably won’t, it’s all a little bit too much ‘self-help’.

So my day so far, the kids had me up at 5.40am, well Boy Lacer did, Girl Lacer soon joined him. When I get up that early I just can’t start the morning routine straight away, it isn’t morning for a start! So I didn’t get dressed into well after breakfast today and made the most of the opportunity by having a morning bath for a change. The kids made the most of the opportunity by dumping virtually every single bath toy in there with me, but at least they were having fun!

Anyway I’ve got my Flylady done and given myself as a result a nose that sensation wise feels like it should be three times bigger than my head and it’s only a little nose. Mr. Lacer has rung, he’s doing ok, we talked about last night’ Heroes (on BBC2) which was excellent as usual, I loved how now they’ve saved the cheerleader (at least for the moment) they took the opportunity to go back using the trick of sending Hiro back 6 months to answer some questions about the back story and finally put a face to Sylar. I’m loving the Heroes extra bit as well, speaking as someone who would love to write as a profession in the written word and the spoken word for TV and maybe film, I’m loving seeing how they develop the story and the sort of decisions they make about why the characters do certain things / are certain things. I’d love to produce something like Heroes one day.

Anyway like I say Mr. Lacer is doing ok, it’s going to be quite a while till the funeral, they have to wait for the coroner and then they’re waiting for K. to recover from a very minor operation he’s having next week. What to do with the kids is still up in the air, whilst the service is on, I think much as I know the mother in law would like to see the kids it may be best if they stay in London if I can find a babysitter. If we took them along on the day in the hope we find someone to look after them, whoever that person was (and it may well have been me) wouldn’t just been looking after my two but also at least three other kids, so five at least in total and it wouldn’t be much fun (not that a funeral is fun) for whoever it was because Boy Lacer is prone to screaming if he’s left with anyone who isn’t me or Mr. Lacer, so ok he’s probably going to scream at whoever babysits him in London but at least the person would have just two kids to deal with, not five. My dad has offered to drive to the funeral to look after the kids whilst the service was on but I know he was just offering to look after just Girl and Boy Lacer, certainly not my nephews which he would have been lumbered with and it wouldn’t have been fair for him (so I’m going to see if I can drag him all the way to London instead!).