Bad influence

Littl'un was playing imaginary train journeys at the weekend, he got on the train (beanbag) and I asked him where he was going?

"Only the bookies" he said gleefully.

I really hope he doesn't come out with this at school! Imagine the shame. It's all his father's fault.

Men!

Hubby is famously unsociable and it is more than my patience is worth to try and force him to do anything anymore, hence we have no social life. Yesterday my friend asked us to meet her for a coffee in town, only a coffee, not a dinner dance or a weekend in a cottage in the Yorkshire Dales. Typically he refused. So we went anyway. It was super lovely, and when I got back he had hoovered the entire house! Result. I forgot this happens, he refuses to do something that might be a teeny bit fun, I go and do it anyway, and the minute we are gone he feels guilty and tries to make up with housework. I'm doing this every weekend now, even if it's an imaginary friend I'm having coffee with (we can meet up with littl'uns ghost next week) :)

Kids!

Littl'un was upstairs having a wee. I heard him talking animatedly and then saying "bye bye! bye bye!".

When he came downstairs I asked him who he was talking to?

"Only the ghost," he chirped. And I believe he was!

Then this morning when he was still asleep he said "I don't want to tidy up!". Do you think I have been emphasising this point somewhat in the daytime?!? He's dreaming about being told off! No wonder he has befriended the local ghosts!

Save 6 Music!

How can the Beeb even consider closing down 6 Music?

It is the only radio station on the planet that regularly plays Shed Seven and for that alone it should be saved!

Keep my big mouth shut!

So for 3 straight nights, Baby Babs #2 only got me up once in the night. Marvellous ,I thought, this is the life! After the third night, I started telling people "he only woke up once! Isn't it brilliant?". Every night after that he has woken up three times instead. I wish I had kept my big mouth shut., he'd still be only getting up once then instead of taking revenge on my optimistic nature. Crap!

Inside the twisted minds of children...

Littl'un always comes into our bed at some point in the night, and then complains mightily when even littler'un wakes up for a feed and disturbs him. I asked him why he woke up every night, was he cold, was he too hot, was he unwell? He said:

"maybe there was a man in the garden".

The "maybe" freaks me out more than the man in the garden bit! And I am still no wiser...

Ikea circa 1995...

Being a stay at home mum, I catch a lot of daytime tv. I love antique ones like Cash in the Attic, where rich people sell all their heirlooms to pay for helicopter lessons and the like. But programs like this won't be around forever. My generation don't have lofts full of antique vases and bookcases that fetch £2000 at auction. If they ever came round my house it would be a case of "well here we have a fine example of a Billy bookcase from Ikea, and look!, a cd cabinet from the Argos home collection circa spring/summer of 2002!". It is a shame, maybe I will inherit loads of lovely antiques one day, but then my dad hasn't got much in the line of aged furniture either...unless you count his DFS sofa from the 90s :)

Out of the mouths of babes...

The other day we were on a mini road trip to visit an old friend. As we came over the brow of a hill, you could suddenly see for miles over fields. Littl'un in the back seat piped up in a voice full of awe "I can see the WHOLE WORLD from here!!!." Bless!

Then today we were taking the mickey out of him, he didn't know what to play with and I was listing all his toys. It went along the lines of "play with your cars" "no" "play with your farm" "no" so I tried "play with your willy". Littl'un laughed uproariously at this and said "my willy isn't a toy!!" and proceeded to wet himself laughing at the very idea. A brief look at his father confirmed he was thinking "yes it is son, yes it is..."

Obsessive children

If I have to watch one more episode of Scooby Doo I think I will scream! Why do children obsess about things? It was Peppa Pig for ages, then Thomas, then Spongebob. Now it is Scooby Doo and the Simpsons. Constantly. Perhaps I should be radical and actually turn the tv off! But then I would have to entertain said obsessive child and I am a terrible mother at times, especially when the new born hasn't slept much at night! Oh I feel guilty now...

Misheard lyrics

I barely get to listen to music anymore, mainly in the shower, which explains my recent lyrical confusion...

So I'm loving the new Courteeners song which is being played alot on Xfm. I loved it even more as the chorus seemed to go: "You own a tanktop, you own a tanktop, you own a tanktop". I was convinced it was written about male librarians and was super excited that someone had decided to write a song about them! Then I saw the video on tv.

It turns out the song is called "You overdid it doll" and that is what is being sung, albeit quite quickly, and in a Mancunian accent.

It somewhat spoiled my enjoyment of the track. I am an idiot. Who would write a song to male librarians? Apart from perhaps Morrissey...

Tattoos

So I want to get the boys' names tattooed on me. But where? It is hard to think of a suitable spot. Their Dad has just had his done on his upper arm, but I want one I can see most of the time. Which rules out my arse :) I was thinking of having them on my wrist, but a quick google of images put me off, half of them look like they are trying to hide razor scars which isn't the look I am going for. Someone I know has them on her shin, but then I am not sure about that either. I could do a "love/hate" type tattoo on my knuckles, then I can slap the boys with the hand with their name on (joke Mr Social Services!) - oh it is difficult. Maybe I'll go totally rock and have them on my neck, then when I do go back to work everyone will think I am trouble!

Well technically I can't argue with you...

So my 3 year old's pre-school sent a letter home asking us to practise counting forwards and backwards, and rhyming words together. "This looks easy", I think, and proceed to do some rhyming with the boy.

Me: "What rhymes with 'frog'?"
Boy: "???"
Me: "What SOUNDS like 'frog'?"
Boy: "Ribbit"
Me: "!!!!" (thinking, well I can't argue with that, he is right really)

Help!

Tomorrow is our 5th wedding anniversary. We are going out for a meal, the first time we have been out sans children since last year's anniversary.

What the hell will we talk about??!

I want to staaaaayyyyyyyy!!!

Yesterday while handing a form in for son #1 at what will hopefully be his new school come September, he went loco. He thought he was starting already, tried to get into a classroom and screamed the place down refusing to leave! The secretary looked bemused and said "they usually scream when they are left here, not because they want to stay!". I hope they didn't note his name down as potential trouble as I dragged him out of the school looking like the world's worst mother...

Books? What are they?

While dropping son #1 off at pre-school last week this happened. My librarian genes are still in shock...

To set the scene, a mum & little girl walk in, girl is holding an umbrella. Other people there include a hippy dad, who is a proper hippy and very clever. The mum says to everyone that she wonders why the girl insists on having the umbrella up as it isn't raining. Hippy dad starts quoting from the Winnie the Pooh scene where Pooh has an umbrella. All the mums look blankly at him. He says hopefully: "Winnie the Pooh?" to which the mum says; "oh, I must have missed that episode".

He bleakly says "it is a book."

To which the mums go back to their discussions about boob jobs and chianti. Poor poor man.

Babies

So baby #2 arrived almost a month ago and it is so weird how different he is to his brother! He eats, then he sleeps, and that is about it. He only cries when his bum is changed or when he is hungry, and then he is fine. Me and Mr Babs keep thinking something is wrong, baby #1 cried a LOT of the time and we spent every night trying to get him to sleep (mostly unsuccessfully) for months. New littl'un gets fed and then goes to sleep no problems. It is either that we are a bit calmer having been there before and so the baby is calm, or baby #1 really wasn't very happy. Either way, it is nice to have it this way round, I would hate to have a lovely calm baby first then one from hell! And it makes me pleased that we actually braved having another one facing a repeat of what we went through the first time...

Though saying that, baby (well toddler) #1 is now a lovely happy little boy (most of the time) so I bet by the time #2 is his age he will have done a total about face and turned into real trouble!!

Pointless conversations...

A man called me today about Great Ormond Street Hospital. Yep, I agreed with him, lovely hospital, very good work, blah blah blah. Then he came out with:

"Right, so can you give us £20 a month?"

I actually laughed out loud at that, and had to explain that I would love to but having no money at all would make it quite impossible.

"I quite understand," says man, "blah blah blah, lovely hospital, sick children, now how about giving us £10 a month?".

So again I say, would love to, maybe in a few years, but impossible. Sorry.

"Oh ok," says man, "blah blah blah REALLY sick children, I am sure you appreciate just how SICK they are and how much they and their parents are suffering. How about £3 a month?"

Me: "You can keep asking but I still have no money".

By this point I was quite cross, was he going to keep going till we got to 1p a month or something? Maybe if I'd kept going he would have agreed to give me £20 a month instead. I hate being made to feel poor, and explain why I have no money. He should have given it up at £10 and said "well if you could contribute whenever you feel you can that would be lovely". Instead he's made me really cross, but at least they won't keep ringing me up now asking for money. Whoever trains these people to ring random numbers and ask for money really has the wrong idea, keep going on and on at poor people who have explained why they can't help you is actually having the opposite effect. Barnardos actually launched into a graphic description of child abuse to me one Friday evening and it was only afterwards I realised how offensive they really were - how do they know I haven't been affected by awful things and their idiotic attempts to get donations had stirred it all up again? Grrr. I am learning to be rude to cold callers but I really wish I had told that one where to stick it :)

Holidaying in Essex

Due to lack of funds this year, we just had 4 days in a caravan by the seaside in Essex. I don't think we will be doing it again, staying at home for a week seems preferable at the minute. The "high"lights were:

1) Eating lunch and being disturbed by local druggies arguing over a stolen phone. This included much cursing and "swearing on my kid's life" that the man with the phone bought it "legitimately" off a girl's one night stand who handily nicked most of her stuff in the morning before he left...

2) Walking along the beach and stumbling upon a topless granny trying to top up her tan. This might have worked in Magaluf. Not in a very breezy sunless Essex seaside with the tide coming in.

3) Going out for tea to the local pub and disturbing a bunch of kids smoking dope on the pub climbing frame and blatantly making drug deals on their mobiles. As my 2 year old was breathing in their smoke I got them chucked out and then had husband refuse to speak to me for getting involved. Would he rather we had to deal with a 2 year old on a comedown than say anything?! I am 35. They were probably 16. They can bloody well sod off to the local bus stop and do their drug dealing.

4) The "entertainment" at the park in the evening involved 2 very young and camp reps trying to get a reaction out of about 7 bored and fed up holidaymakers. But we did trounce the competition in a tv themes quiz and won a clock. Lovely. We didn't dare go back after that as they looked quite cross.

5) Spending god knows how much money trying to win a teddy for littl'un on those machines where you have to pick them up with a scoop thing and hope they don't fall off. We didn't win one, they are so fixed. It would have been cheaper to just go to a shop and buy one.

6) Being invaded by ants on our first night. They were marching under the door up 3 big steps into the caravan and we were in peril of being bitten to death. Littl'un enjoyed stomping on the incursion and then a handy application of fairy liquid along the doorframe seemed to stop them for the rest of the holiday.

And the lesson is? Stick with Cornwall, it may be further but it seems to have less druggies and random freaks. Everybody we saw was either disabled, on drugs, drunk, or clearly on the social with several little kids clinging to them while their druggie dad was arguing with someone else. Classy.

Late night munching

So some highly paid boffins have just published a study which says that "eating late at night = weight gain". Honestly, did they really need a study to show that?! How do people get paid to come up with doing studies like this?! It's like asking me to study if pregnancy = weight gain. In fact I am going to submit my proposal to some scientific board and my expenses will be "cookies, ice cream, crisps" and in about 8/9 months I can prove my theory :)

Soul mates?!

In a vain attempt to keep my brain engaged, I've been doing jigsaws - 50p from the local charidee shop, can't be bad! Anyway, so far none of them have been missing any pieces, which made me suspect that someone who volunteers there tests them all before they sell them. Then the last one I got, someone had separated the outside pieces from the inside pieces and bagged them up all neatly!! I am not alone!!!