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Showing posts from 2014

Body image.

I've been pretty open about my self image issues.  The eating disorder, the lack of good judgement when it came to dating in the past, forever being cast as "the funny one" during my teenage (and post teenage) years.  Now, of course, it's the wobbly tummy and saggy boobs from having grown the bratlets.  I've never been happy with my looks, and I can't even remember how old I was when I started identifying as fat. Today, as I walked into town, I began to notice a trend.  The girl walking just ahead of the pushchair was gorgeous, a stately Amazonian warrior princess with fantastic legs showcased in a mini skirt.  She was blatantly going out, maybe a Christmas do, or whatever, but she looked amazing.  The men walking toward us, every single one of them, checked her out from the front and then waited for her to pass so they could see if the back was just as good.  (It was.) Thing is, I overheard the comment from one of the guys to his mate as they walked past

Madamisms.

I know you're all familiar with the old standards.  You know, "ELSE EAT" which graduated to "SOMEFIN ELSE EAT", "whobody give this me?", "wubboo" for "love you", "pooguin" instead of "penguin" (which she still uses, actually), etc.  Times, they are a changin'. Today I boosted her onto my back because her short legs combined with her disinclination to go home was making the trip intolerably long.  Mid wail, she lets out "THIS NOT WORKING FOR ME!!!!"... Last week she climbed on top of me where I reclined on the couch to press her face against mine and say "do you wanna build a snowman?"... I told her my ankle was hurting when asked why I didn't want her to bounce up and down on that foot and she put one hand on my face and with a grimace said "oh, darlin'..." She was mad at me one morning for telling her she couldn't wear a dress that was dirty and in the was

Her Highness.

My baby turned three last month.  In the days since her birthday, she's changed so much it's hard for me to remember what it was like when she couldn't talk... *lol* For instance, this morning in her sleep Madam verbally accosted me with "look what you did to my back!" and violently rolled over, yanking the duvet up over her head.  I found a hat I liked in TK Maxx last week, so I tried it on and asked her what she thought of it.  Cue deadpan face and the assertion that I couldn't buy that hat.  When I asked why, I was informed that I was too old.  This led to a ten minute showdown in the accessories section during which she repeatedly took the hat from me and hung it back on the wall with the reiteration that I was too old to buy that hat.  When she's really mad at me, she says "you t-shirt not perfect."  Shades of a certain Auntie that's a bit of a fashionista... you know who you are. The party was, as per our usual, a total blast.  Hous

Separation lack of anxiety.

There are things I've meant to blog about (like Madam's most epic party) and haven't gotten around to posting yet.  They're going to have to wait. It doesn't happen very often, but sometimes I'm reminded of how much I changed the game by moving five thousand miles away from my family.  I still refer to Texas as home sometimes, like "we're going home for Christmas".  Thing is, I don't really mean it.  Yes, there are people in the states that I care about.  Yes, that's where I spent the first twenty-three years of my life, and I've maintained a few friendships from that time.  It just seems foreign and far away at times. My life has had such a drastic shift in focus in the eleven years since the move.  Some changes I could have predicted.  Some have been way out of left field.  Relationships have evolved, imploded, matured or stagnated on a case by case basis.  On the whole, I'm happier for it. I've had to physically take my

Belated Boy Birthday.

Here we are, six days from Madam's birthday, and I never even blogged Dude's.  Ashamed face. It was, of course, moustache themed.  Perhaps pictures would be the best medium.  Peruse at your own pace. The weather, she was good.  The cake, it was whiskery. The boy, he ate cake. (And lots of other things.) There were bubbles.  (Of course.) The boy worked his imperious arms.  There were multi-boy cuddles.  Costumes were donned.  You know it's been a good party when the guest of honour is unconscious by the end.  And on his actual birthday, he smashed a cake, as is meet on one's first birthday. He's supremely weird and unreasonably tall, completely bottomless and hysterically funny.  He's MY boy, and he's one year old.  Life is good.

Momster.

I'm not proud of myself.  Sometimes I melt down.  Friday morning was one of those times. I've been trying on and off to lose some weight since I had Madam.  Depending upon various circumstances (trips to Texas, market prep, once a month hormonal chocolate ingestion, etc) it's ebbed and flowed.  I went to an Aquafit class last week, and that was really fun, so I decided to do that once a week supplemented by a workout dvd I ordered that boasts a fifteen minute run time.  Fifteen minutes, I thought glibly, I can manage fifteen minutes! My rosy red rear end. About three minutes into the workout (read, had just about managed the warmup) I had already had to stop at various points to handle the following: Two booger extractions from Madam's blocked nostrils One removal of New Kid from the kitchen due to removal of the grate under the fridge One removal of New Kid from the kitchen due to attempts to change the washing machine settings Multiple footing cha

The worst kind of taco.

So, last night we were all hanging out in the front room, Madam was running around with Himself and Dude was lounging in my lap where he'd just taken a nap.  We kept getting whiffs of a bad smell, and Himself mentioned it was something in the park, that he'd been smelling it for a couple of days.  I assumed that's what it was as we had the windows open, but kept catching waves of this noxious reek and finally decided to check Dude's butt. Yeah, it wasn't the park. Himself got the cushion ready in the floor, got the nappy and wipes in place, and I handed Dude down.  That's where shit got real.  Himself merrily whipped Dude's trousers off.   Flinging.   Poo.   Everywhere.   It was all down his leg, up his back, everywhere.  Then, due to the trouser whipping, it was all over Himself, all over the cushion, all over the floor.  Everywhere.  I had to carry Dude upstairs taco'd in the cushion, strip down the rest of him, deposit his pooey

You gotta have faith.

It takes a lot of faith in humanity to leave the house.  We cram ourselves into packed tube trains and walk down crowded streets in the sea of humanity that floods London on a daily basis, trusting in the general standard of behaviour that stops those total strangers from stabbing us as we shove past to get where we're going. Such as the female that accosted me at Tesco as I left the car park this morning.  I had wrestled my squalling two year old into her clothes, her shoes, and the car to get there in the first place.  I then navigated the aisles with her complaining at the top of her lungs that she was starving to death, because it's my fault that she wouldn't eat the toast or banana she demanded of me for breakfast.  I dealt with the tantrum through the store with her wailing, got out the car without giving in and giving her the f*cking cake she decided she had to have, got her and her blissfully happy brother strapped in and the groceries loaded and began to pull out

Current contentment.

I've been ruminating on the nature of marriage and relationships in general lately.  I realised that as of August, Himself and I will have been married for seven years.  That means I've been in the same relationship for eight and a half years.  Anybody who knew me in the pre-Himself days might be pinching themselves about now. I never put much stock in long term relationships.  I had many a short term gig, and I didn't see myself as the marrying type.  If you'd told the twenty-something me that in ten years I'd be living in suburbia with my husband and our two children, smart money would be on a sarcastic response with a side of eye rolling.  If you'd told my grandfather that I'd be a housewife with a catering business, there would definitely have been snorting, possibly even sniggering, with his helping of eye rolling.  *lol* As unexpected an outcome as my current lifestyle is, I'm loving it.  Yes, I get frustrated and tired dealing with a temperame

Be nice or leave.

There's a lot of negativity on the internet right now.  Okay, I might be stating the obvious just a bit here.  Maybe I should have said, "in my face", rather than "on the internet".  Yeah, that's more accurate. I'm one of those awful people, those narrow minded uneducated types, that doesn't keep up with current affairs.  I don't want to read about that child that was brutally murdered by its nanny, or that plane crash that killed two hundred people, or that dictator executing anybody that doesn't agree with him.  I don't want to read about causes.  I don't think there's any one way to do things or that mine is the right one, so telling me that if you're not breastfeeding your child or using cloth nappies or WHATEVER, you're perpetrating a heinous crime...  not interested. I don't want to read the negativity, which means, I don't comment on it either.  I've unsubscribed from a fair chunk of my friend list o

Dude.

Our son is six months old. I remember how long my days felt in the time until Bratface was six months old.  Each day (especially in the beginning, when we didn't know anybody and didn't have anywhere to be) seemed to stretch out in front of me into the distance.  This time, I feel like I blinked, and all of a sudden he's half a year old.   It doesn't help that he's insanely enormous.  When he was born, he was 23" long.  At three months old he had grown two inches to 25".  At six months, and after much struggle, I managed to measure him at 28".  At this rate, he's going to be the only six foot tall five year old in his class.  He's such a string bean, trousers with adjustable waists are the way forward because there's not a 6-9mo size pair in the land that aren't cut for a kid twice as big around as he is.  I need to get sewing on some skinny kid clothes.  What with having all that free time and all. We had to start him on

No drama, mama.

Before I write a new post, I tend to re-read the previous one. I will refer you to said post. That's why I haven't written again until now. *lol* This will be a "cataloguing events" post, rather than a topically specific one. Funny things happen, and I forget to write them down, thus forgetting they happened until reminded by Himself of the omnivorous, omnipotent and omnipresent (to stick with the alliteration, should we add "obnoxious"?) memory. Madam turned two. We had fifty something people at our house. Literally, fifty something. For a two year old's party. I can't wait to show her those pictures when she has a two year old of her own. On Christmas Eve, Himself, his family, the kids and I went to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. It rained torrentially. Think sideways. We abandoned the park for a little jaunt into town for some window shopping, and at one point wandered into Liberty to look at shiny things. While I drooled ge