Linnea says

a cholyoptera is someone who loves insects and bugs. It sounds like a perfectly cromulent word.

BLOODY NATWEST

OK, there's a reason we moved all our accounts away from them - though they are STILL REFUSING TO CLOSE THEM DAMMIT - and one part of that reason arrived in today's post.

I filled in an ISA transfer form in 2008 and moved my ISA from NatWest to the Cooperative Bank. But SURPRIZE they actually just transferred the funds over and didn't transfer the entitlement to an ISA itself, so I have TWO extant ISAs and although I only saved the limit of £3,000 that year it was in £1200 to NatWest, transferred to Co-op making another £1200, and £1800 to the Co-op direct.

Luckily it's small enough beer, my nonexistent £1200, that the tax people aren't going to do anything other than write me a warning note. But bloody hell, I am so DONE WITH THAT. I have no idea how to make NatWest close my accounts but I think it might involve waiting for my passport to arrive and going into the branch and refusing to leave until I see paperwork showing them all to be closed.

PMS depilation

One of the things PMS does to me is makes me look in the mirror (which is unusual enough) and loathe what I see (very unusual indeed) and particularly loathe my lack of femininity (mm, quite, Ailbhe as masculine, yes indeed) and have a strong urge to depilate the feminine minimum - underarms and lower legs.

Normally, I quash this urge with a strong dose of militant feminism and a strict talking to about setting the example of being comfortable with my body image for my infant daughters. And it passes within twenty-four hours.

This month I succumbed and shaved. And remembered why it's such an awful idea. It felt better for less than two hours, and then it got really annoying, and as it grows back, it's getting worse and worse - the growing-back effect is annoying enough I may do something drastic just to avoid having to tolerate it, like, ew, shaving again.

The only upside is I feel slightly more confident in a skirt or dress which shows my lower legs, and really, that's part of why I DON'T shave normally. Me and my hairy ankles have a right to learn to feel comfortable in public.

Ho hum. Ailbhe, tool of the patriarchy, strikes again.

Xylitol ho!

On our way back from BfN / library today (15 Rosemary Sutcliffs FTW) I popped into a chemist to ask for xylitol again, and was told the didn't have any, and explained its uses to the pharmacist and got sidetracked into a conversation about his brother who used to live in Stavanger, Norway, and wished he'd had a family because families were so well-treated there. Er. I think that was because Linnea was wearing my honeymoon hat, which I bought one morning in Flåm for a fiver because I'd left my own one in Reading.

Anyway, as we were leaving I went to tidy the things the girls had looked at while I was talking, and one thing was a box of Dentinox toothpaste, which I had seen the_changeling mention but since the Dentinox website doesn't mention it at all, I couldn't work out where to buy it. So I bought that. And told the staff that it contained xylitol and if they'd only known that when I first asked two months ago or more, we'd have all been much happier, hah.

So now we have xylitol toothpaste, which we can use after the fluoride one, just smear it on her teeth last thing, without washing the fluoride one away. Yay. I may experiment with putting both kinds on her brush at once, too.

I really do want to ask the dentist. I hope there's some improvement the dentist can see.

'scuse me, I'm going to go melt now.

Emer: I want a bun with 'pread on.
Ailbhe: Shall I cut it up for you?
Emer: Yeah, and 'pread on.
Ailbhe: You like it with spread, don't you?
Emer: Yeah. You 'ike it with 'pread on too.
Ailbhe: And I love you.
Emer: And you yub Nea.
Ailbhe: Yes, I love ALL my children.
Emer: And Daddy.
Ailbhe: Yes, and Daddy.
Emer: And a helf.
Ailbhe: A shelf?
Emer: No, you.
Ailbhe: I love myself?
Emer: YES! You lub you helf.
Ailbhe: Oh, yes, yes, I do.
Emer: And you helf lub you. pats me on the arm.