Random ramblings from the Texan in London.

So, an old friend of mine (we'll go with OF for this one) in Texas had a baby right before Christmas.  As you can imagine, I was pretty excited to meet the sproglet and to catch up with those who so cleverly made her.  I proceeded to sort through some of Herself's small things, choosing a few of my favourites to pass on, and a few silly little gifty things, and made plans to pop by OF's parents' house to say hi. Let me just lay this out for you.  I had the whole family in tow, which was understood before we were invited.  Perhaps, hindsight being what it is, I should have arranged for the first visit to be sans bratlets, but it didn't occur to me at the time.  So here we are, jet lagged after the HellFlight and spotty sleep, arriving to meet the fresh baby, and first thing I see is a huge well decorated tree with a pile of beautifully wrapped presents beneath it.  Now, as we discussed in the last post, that's Dude's version of catnip.  So I'm already...

Since we've procreated, we made a deal with our respective families that we'll alternate Christmases.  One year here in the UK, one year in Texas.  This year was a Texas year.  Yee haw. Himself, being the savvy consumer that he is, searched around for the flights.  He found the best deal for the time we wanted to spend in the States and booked it for what was, to me, a staggering £2600.  Just out of curiosity, he checked a few weeks later.  The same flights were up to £4000.  A week or two before Christmas he checked again. £7000. For.  The.  Same.  Flights. Because apparently the Reason for the Season is for the airlines to squeeze as much out of people wanting to spend the holidays with their families as they possibly can.  Gross. Anyway, we piled into the cab on the morning of the 22nd to head to the airport.  Little did we know that the ride to Heathrow would be the last moments of peace we had before we hit the t...

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 walk...

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...

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...

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...

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.