So what do you want to know first?

[ailbhe]

Since I last posted, we've refloored the back bedroom, had visitors, thrown Emer's birthday party in the community garden, travelled with the visitors from Reading to Dublin for another birthday party, and then the whole two-family tribe set out again for my mother's house on the Aran islands. We stayed there for a week, came home en masse with a slight detour where the children all got to walk along a mainline actual rail track because the magic smoke came out from under the train, and then the five of us came back to Reading on the usual 12-hour door-to-door track.

There was painting and talking and building and arguing and those complicated inter-parent conversations where we try to talk about our own and each others' children without upsetting anyone, and we ended the three-week marathon all still on speaking terms, so that was good.

Then we got home and there was the new edition of Aquila magazine for Linnea and Astrid and I have a horrific cold and Rob brought laundry to the launderette after I sorted it into dark and light and DO NOT TUMBLEDRY.

Astrid walks now, like it's easy or something. And she climbs a lot more.

Emer is FIVE, you guys. FIVE.

I think my new filing cabinet arrives tomorrow, and then we will be organised and nothing will ever be untidy again ever, right?

Google+ still sucks and I am still not likely to get an account on it. Removing myself from Facebook was one of my best moves.

If you are ever on the worst ferry-crossing anyone can remember on a given route, with everyone being horribly sick all around, and you have to travel with children? I know the best five. Also, bring Rob, because he does a good line in nursing care and not getting sick himself.

And if you are ever on a train with a little smoke trouble, and you have to evacuate through the problem carriage and then on to the end of the train and down a ladder to the tracks, and you have to do it with five children? I know the five I'D choose. Also, bring Rob.

And then if you want to eat after both your two days of epic monster train travel? Bring Rob, because he (Rob, of the boil-everything-for-30-minutes-except-fishfingers cooking we loved so much in Wapping) can whip up a risotto apparently without fretting or fuss.

It was a great holiday. We're all exhausted beyond belief.

Comments

[mrs-redboots.livejournal.com]

Glad you've had a great summer! And Emer is 5 - seems impossible, really.

Also glad to hear Astrid is walking. James isn't yet, but I gather that is due to change any time now, as he has started to see the point and walks holding hands, which he didn't do ten days ago! Once he can stand himself up without needing a hand on the wall, it won't be long.

[ailbhe]

Astrid spent almost four months cruising and standing, then went to walking all of a sudden. And yesterday she agreed to walk holding hands for the first time. All change!

[mrs-redboots.livejournal.com]

It's a very odd stage this - not quite a baby, but not quite a toddler, either.... by Christmas both of them will definitely be toddlers, but right now they are difficult to classify.

[batswing.livejournal.com]

Glad it was great. :)
5?!? No way! Seriously? How has the time gone so FAST?

[ailbhe]

Walking singing dancing painting building breaking digging reading running climbing sleeping kissing cooking chopping chatting sulking playing biting romping stroking laughing laughing laughing laughing.

[alicephilippa.livejournal.com]

Glad you've had a good summer.

How in heck did Emer get to be 5?

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

*awestruck, waves hi*

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

FIVE? I think your children and developing a birthday habit.

And the last bit remnds me, when I was 10 I was n a school trip, 80 kids on a ferry, and EVERYONE was puking. My respect for all the teachers involved (mostly for remaining in the profession at all) has grown with distance.

[ailbhe]

I felt awful for the ferry staff, who are already suffering from being with Irish Ferries, and were completely lovely and awesome and wore lots of plastic gloves.

[pauamma]

Sounds like great news all over! (OK, maybe not Astrid eating catfood, but...)

[rosefox]

Hilariously, my response to Astrid crawling around with a mouthful of cat food is "Oh, kitty". (I tend to treat children sort of like cats, or maybe the other way around.)

So glad you're safely back from all your adventures. I hope you recover soon!

[ailbhe]

I am wondering how you get hold of Dramamine. It's a drug I remember being kind of casually used in my childhood (when it was almost never given to children) but haven't heard much of since.

[hitchhiker.livejournal.com]

sounds like a full and active summer! good to see you :)

[ailbhe]

It was only three weeks! Summer is three MONTHS!

[clarahippy.livejournal.com]

I live in Scotland, I think we would have been lucky if all the occasional sunny days added up to three weeks. Worst summer ever :-(

Aside from walking babies. I have one of those too now which is really ridiculously cute except when we have to take her to relatives houses who have no concept of childproof and I spend five hours trying to stop her from destroying herself/the house.

[k425.livejournal.com]

Hurrah! I'd been wondering just the other day how your summer was going.

Emer is FIVE! I cut her nails when she was a tiny baby and now even Astrid is older than that.