Bullet-point blog-post

[ailbhe]

• Had awful dreams; did not mention them on waking, because it's two years since Nollaig and Tadhg died and I couldn't talk about it.


• After coffee, I had a bath in the new bathtub, surrounded by raw plaster and holes in the walls. The tub is fabulous; it's slightly shorter than the previous one, so I can sit in it without an extra prop for my feet. I love the taps, which are lever rather than turning, so that I can turn them easily. The bath was a bit hot because we're not used to mixer taps yet and the old rule was to put hot in first, but that won't happen again.



• After my bath I got dressed, and Rob went to work, and Emer woke up, and I let the plumber into the house.


• Then Linnea and I had a morning-groan at each other while I sorted laundry. I put away five bazillion litres of children's laundry and some of mine and Rob's, and sorted out a load of whites to go on. Emer and I set the machine up and I checked with the plumber before setting it going.


• Linnea condescended to wake up properly and we all had breakfast. If anyone knows how to discourage children from leaving bowls full of milk after they've eaten all their cereal, please enlighten me. I had two mugs of coffee, slightly interrupted by (a) the plumber, and


• (b) polystyrene. The doorbell rang while I was filling the dishwasher and preparing breakfast, and it was our medicine cupboard being delivered from Amazon. After eating had officially ended, the children and I opened it, and I set the packaging aside. However, polystyrene is wholly irresistable, and Linnea sneaked it away for Emer to dismantle (she wanted to do that part herself but knows she's not allowed). It took ages to clean up, with associated wholly failed attempts to get the children to help against their will. Eventually they helped willingly, when I reframed it as keeping the place tidy so that we could have visitors and space to play. Children helping to sweep up tiny polystyrene balls is not helpful. Trust me on dis.


• My coffee went cold and I didn't care.


• Eventually we were all dressed and I had a list made and I asked the plumber to let us use the bathroom for 15 minutes. He went out to collect some stuff and we promptly blocked the toilet. And then it rained on the dry nappies which were still in the garden waiting to be brought in.


• I found a single Pampers disposable under the dining table - no, I don't know either - and put it on Emer, and unblocked the loo very quietly and urgently without shouting at anyone because honestly, it's not anyone's FAULT that it got blocked the day the plumber might be removing it, and brushed people's teeth, and we went out with wellies on and rainsuits in a bag. Wisely, I did not put the laundry out, because the forecast was for more rain.


• The sun got hotter and hotter and hotter.


• I got cash at the post office. We tried to buy bananas at a few places on the Oxford Road because the children claimed to be hungry, but the bananas were all too green. When we got to Moondogs, Craig gave them a banana to share for free, and couldn't find the record of what I owed him.


• The children used their pocketmoney to buy cake and "squash" - dilute orange juice. I had cake and coffee.


• After Moondogs we went to the Broad Street Mall and bought various things; I discovered that Rob had the card I needed to buy other things, and that there was a softplay area set up in the middle of the Mall. So we waited there while he brought the card and then the children and I went to TK Maxx and failed entirely to buy a sweeping brush or a bra but did buy a two-tier steamer.


• Linnea started to run away between the displays but was lovely about carrying the steamer "for Daddy" to the till and after we paid, we rushed through the pound shop for presents, paper, glue, glitter, tissue paper, and other similar things, so that she and Emer could go back to the softplay area for a while. Then the softplay packed up and we walked (via the Co-op bank where I dropped off some paperwork) to the Globe Cafe to eat lunch.


• The children had a baked potato with tuna and sweetcorn, and I had Ethiopian bread, split pea curry, and potato something, followed by hummous and pitta bread. It was magnificent.


• We had bought Fia's present already (chosen by the children based on what they most wanted for themselves, approved by me as something a one-year-old would enjoy, Fia was one on the 12th), and went looking for Sadhbh's - she will be 6 on the 5th of August. We chose her a pretty notebook with a relief picture of elephants and flowers and fish on the cover. It's lovely and childishly girly, and also made of elephant poo - what's not to like?


• After lunch Linnea's behaviour and digestion deteriorated and we walked to John Lewis to buy Phoebe's present - she's two years old on the 17th - but first stopped off to look at bras, and after establishing that they have no nursing bras in my band size at all and no regular bras in my band+cup size, we bought some emergency pants and went to the bathroom, where I cleaned and changed both children and didn't hit either of them. My life is full of minor triumphs.


• Just after we reached John Lewis toy department, Rob called to say he was finishing work, so I handed the children over to him to finish shopping. Pheobe's present - pre-checked with her mum for suitability - and a desk-tid for toothbrushes and the like in the bathroom. It takes the toothbrushes (two small child ones, one large electric one), toothpaste, spare toothbrush heads, and has space for rings. And it spins, for some reason. Of course, the cheapest one came pre-stuffed with pencils and so on, which we didn't need, but there you go.


• Absolutely nowhere sells mops and sweeping brushes with interchangeable heads so that I can have one stick and one stick only. I may try the ironmongers in case they sell oldfashioned wooden ones.


• Just as we were preparing to leave town, we realised Emer needed a change, and went to Boots to buy nappies and nappy cream. She was clearly unwell and had developed blisters. In an afternoon. All hail Kamillosan, say I.


• Emer and I went to True Foods to do shopping while Rob and Linnea went home so that I couldn't shout at her. And Rob hung the rest of the laundry out.


• Rob and Linnea brought the trolley to True Foods to bring the rice milk home and we packed up relatively cheerfully and came home in a torrential downpour the likes of which I haven't walked in since Linnea was a baby in a pushchair with a raincover.


• Also, at the market I met someone who had had a wonderful waterbirth 10 days "late", at the hospital where I had Linnea and Emer. Times Have Changed, I feel.


• Dinner was ratatouille from a tin with white pasta, late, and then the children went to bed and I wrote this while Rob started to make flapjacks. Tomorrow we're meeting a friend at the community garden and on Thursday we might meet Mary in town. I don't think we have plans for Friday yet but Saturday has the garden's BBQ and Phoebe's birthday bash, and Sunday is Meeting followed by friends' tenth anniversary party. Also, I really need to choose some bathroom accessories, like a towel ring and toilet roll holder and stuff - if we're getting this done 'twere well 'twere done quickly, as Jeeves might say.


• But didn't.

Comments

[serene]

If anyone knows how to discourage children from leaving bowls full of milk after they've eaten all their cereal, please enlighten me.

I kept reducing the amount of milk I put on their cereal until there was only enough to moisten it, not enough for it to float. They got used to it that way.

How does one pronounce Sadhbh, please?

[gool_duck]

I liked cereal with very little milk.

I recently put swedish blueberry preserve in my cereal (for sweetness) and it coloured the milk purple and that made the milk tastier. The strawberry jam I have does not colour the milk, but real strawberries would. Milk that is not white is more fun. I think. I have not actually experimented with food-colours and milk.