Making it up

Buzz, Balls & Hype : The Doctor is In

Any article with

Books saved my life.

in it, is going to get a look from me.

Right at the moment, I’m reading more than I’ve read in years. Last night I finished my second Sheri S Tepper book in a week, Shadow’s End and I’ve also been enjoying some John Irving, A Widow for One Year

I think I might have to try something different next though, I’m getting a bit tired of themes around beaten down women, even if they do get to beat back as it were. Anyone care to recommend something a little less tragic?

HT: Paradise Found

Big watered my mobile phone last night and the errors it it now giving suggest that it is effectively deceased - over a year old and I think it would have to go back to Nokia for repair. I still have about 4 months left on my contract with Virgin (who are rubbish, by the way).

I have looked on ebay for a cheap replacement (Nokia 6230i) and it looks like they come out to about £70 for a good one.

But I can get a deal from The Link on o2, who I had planned switching to anyway. This could be a Nokia 6230i or Sony Ericsson 810i.

O2 250 12 mths WEB EXCLUSIVE 250 anytime x-net 100 texts £15 for 12 mths normally 30**

This is more minutes than I currently use + I don’t have free texts at present so I think that is probably the most cost effective thing to do. All in all, it could be worse.

I think I might invest in a nice WATERPROOF case too.

is as usual. If you don’t know it and would like it, either comment or mail.

Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | An appetite for control

Apart from one or two sentences, this article makes pretty good sense to me.

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

(John Keats)

I ‘did’ this one for English ‘O’ Level. Struck a chord somehow. I am not much into poetry, but I like this a lot. The blackberries made me think of it.

On now!

honey i suckle the kids | hidden lives | five.tv

Just seen an ad for this - anyone we know know anyone on there?

I’ve never thought as elimination communication as more controversial than home education, but it’s possibly got more of a eugh factor. Get the feeling this is going to be sensational rather than sensitive. And isn’t it attach*ment* parenting, rather than attached?

***

Added during show - I really don’t think this is doing any favours to the practises it is depicting If I’d seen this before I started with any of the parenting practises it’s on about, I’d probably have thought twice about trying them!

Can you?

We’re all lollygagging round the place atm, not quite sure what is wrong. Tim summed it up beautifully earlier by describing himself as ‘feeling diffuse’ - I responded that I could probably have done the shopping in half the time if I hadn’t kept forgetting what I was doing at the end of each aisle.

Despite this, we’ve managed bits here and there. I was presented with breakfast in bed again, although I wasn’t really up to much in the way of conversation around it. Big had played chess unsuccessfully with Tim again, so after I’d eaten and regained the power of speech, she brought the chess board to me and we worked through a couple of puzzles. Mainly we concentrated on playing with her having two rooks and a king, and me just a king, and eventually she got the hang of the strategy required, although it took even longer to persuade her it would work against Tim as well. I think she clicked with a couple of other ideas during that as well - the idea of covering your pieces seemed to sink in, and plans of two moves began to be obvious. A good use of an hour or so I think.

Small came to join in eventually, and had his first chess lesson, which involved learning the names of all the pieces. That seemed to be enough, and he legged it again

So that took us through to mid afternoon. Somewhere along the way I got the idea that maybe if I cleared one small area of the house (and I really do mean small) and then worked on keeping it clear and gradually expanded the area, maybe that would be a way to bring some order and control into the house, and by gradual extension, my life. (Yus, I know, grasping at straws.) So I spent some time trying to clear the ensuite, and then decided that was too big an area. So next I chose the top of the chest of drawers next to the unused tv set, that has been housing small’s underwear for the last little while. The underwear is now rehomed in a drawer, or a basket, and I threw out loads of stuff from there as well. Actually, I threw out three bags of rubbish today, not all from that space it has to be said, but got to be good to get rid.

And then I shopped.

I got Big restarted on her hat looming, and she appears to have done several rounds while I was out at Sainsbury’s. I perused the sale racks again, but could only find one pair of dungarees, in size 10 at that, and while these size 12 jeans are driving me up the wall by sliding down every 6 feet, I’m not sure that size 10 would fit. Plus they didn’t have a price tag on them, and I didn’t want to spend 10 minutes trying to find a member of staff who wouldn’t know how much to charge for them anyway

I then restrained myself from spending more money on Simply Knitting magazine even though there was a gorgeous set of bamboo needles on the front cover, and the pattern for a crochet handbag. Let’s face it, I have enough patterns I haven’t used, and I don’t do that much knitting! I wish I did, there are great patterns out there, and it’s much easier to find those than it is crochet patterns.

So that was our day. Now Tim is cutting the grass, and it’s time for me to drown the grumps. Sorry, clean the grumps.

hah! It’s more like yet another procrastination attempt

Anyway, I’ve just built a page on my affiliate links - dragging them all together in one place. This doesn’t mean I’ll stop sprinkling them throughout the daily story, but it does mean you’ll be able to find them at all times should you want to! If anyone wants to know how or why to play with them, do give me a yell, very happy to take ppl through it.

And while I was doing that, Tim was having yet more games of chess with Big. She has got the hang of all the pieces and how they move (actually, she’s known that for a while) so we’re now talking through strategy and planning. Today’s game lasted a lot longer than they usually do.

While they were doing that, Small was eating more weetabix and building a tree house. I love listening to his monologues while he’s playing - the imagination is incredible. Both my children live in a world populated by all sorts of wonderful creatures - and we see so much more of them when the tv is off. Sky went to sleep earlier today, such a shame, and the box has been off ever since. Not a bad thing.

And all of this was after I was brought brunch in bed. Croissants, a cup of tea, and a lovely long chat with my daughter. A good start to the day.

moustaches are vanity.

Says Tim. (He’s now going on about it. As he does )

This was sparked by my rant about one of the characters on CSI suddenly appearing with a moustache. My theory was that he was trying to look older. All it does for me is make it look like he’s trying to look older. Not attractive.

Any thoughts from the audience?

Tonight Big read Night You Were Born (Orchard Picturebooks) to me. We got it at the library earlier this week, when they were selling off lots of books, 6 for £1. And as you know, we’ve a shortage of books here

Anyway, tonight we talked about punctuation marks, I said things like ‘that’s a question mark, and it means that those words ahead of it are a question’, and she completely changed how she was reading. It surprised me that I didn’t need to say anything else.

I almost feel guilty that I said anything at all - from how her reading changed instantly, she obviously knew all about how to read aloud questions and so on, and she would probably have figured it out for herself fairly soon. Or maybe not, either way, her reading has become increasingly fluent recently, and as it’s got more fluent, it’s actually become more difficult to listen to, as she wasn’t stumbling over the words any more, she was stumbling over the story, iyswim.

Gosh I’m tired. Today has been the first day since Monday that I’ve been up and out all day. I spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday in bed with an absolutely stinking head cold (in August! I ask you - how is that supposed to work then?), staggered around the house feeling sorry for myself yesterday, and dragged myself up the M1 for the annual team brief today. Actually, I doubt I will last out the whole day, I’m practically seeing double here.

Looks like Tim and the offspring had a pretty good day too. I’m trying very hard not to be jealous of how much they are enjoying going out with daddy - I feel a bit taken for granted when the holidays that I’ve taken them on and the times I’ve taken them out seem to have just vanished into the mists of time. But parenting isn’t supposed to be a competition, and I should just get over myself. Besides, I got to read bedtime stories while Tim went out for fish and chips . (We really know how to push the boat out here :grin:) I read Angel Mae, which I really rather enjoyed. Bit of a baby theme tonight, especially as both stories were punctuated by howls of frustration from Small, trying unsuccessfully to insert pregnant barbie’s baby into one of his cars for a drive!

I’m a bit incoherent here. Think you’ll probably cope, but I’d better shut up anyway.

Today we went to Roche Abbey

We played hide and seek

Admired the spots on a ladybird

Threw Pooh sticks

And waited for them to reappear

… and Small has learnt to play with the stream…

New toy from amazon

Been playing with it a bit tonight, haven’t quite managed to get it how I’d like and the categories are interesting to say the least, but it’s a start.

liveotherwise books

This morning Sarah-the-speech-therapist came around to assess Small’s progress. We know he is making astounding progress - this is a child who was to all intents and purposes non verbal at the start of this year, who now has a vocabulary I wouldn’t dream of trying to count, and who structures long sentences (I counted one of 11 words the other day). There are still some sounds he struggles with however, and I just wanted someone to check that they are the sounds children generally struggle with at this stage, so she popped out.

She came with a box of toys as usual, and Small was very happy to see her. They did jigsaws and Small proved that he understands all his colours and can sequence activities. He wasn’t very impressed with the silly jigsaw that had the crocodile going on a bus or in a boat, but we reached a compromise in the end Then she got out a couple of South Tyneside Assessment of Syntactic Structures (STASS) books, and went through them with him.

There are some sounds that come and go, but it appears that for other ppl they are coming more than they are going, iyswim. And when she got on to the second book, she didn’t write anything down - it’s all to do with sentences, understanding, prepositions and so on, and there was nothing he struggled with. He’s gone from a child one year ago that the health visitor was quite happy to refer for speech and therapy, to a child talking and understanding hugely above his age - now there’s a surprise

And that’s probably the last time we’ll see Sarah-t-s-t. She’s considering emigrating, early next year. I hope she has a wonderful life in her new world - she’s been a great help to us.

So that’s Small to a t. Shouldn’t have surprised us, as that’s how he did walking. Or didn’t. He took about 3 steps at Kessingland when he was about 13 months old, then didn’t walk again for at least another month, and never did the toddling wobbling thing. He still doesn’t sound as clear as Big did, but I’d guess he’s got at least the vocabulary she had at this kind of age, and he’s started to keep up a running commentary while he’s playing the imaginary games that are coming through as well. He’s taken to building things with lego (proper lego, not duplo) and he tells us what they are and then they have wonderful adventures. Tonight he built a crocodile with roller skates

Now there’s a wonderful blog post title if ever there was one.

A Toy President!

Mind you Hero Builders are good too.

I will pass on the talking Jesus though. I just think that is in terrible taste. Too bad even for me.

tagged by Carlotta

1.Things that scare me:
War
Climate change
Our government.

2. People who make me laugh:
Susan Nickson (writer of two pints of lager)
Small
Robin Williams

3. Things I hate the most:
Reality tv (let me run the word reality by you again).
Soap operas
Prejudice

4. Things I don’t understand:
Reality tv
Our government
Why ppl find it so hard to get the basic principles of object orientation.

5. Things I’m doing right now:
Sniffing.
Watching CSI Miami
Thinking about going to find some paracetamol.

6. Things I want to do before I die:
Write a book.
Discover work life balance.
Declutter

7. Things I can do:
Irritate ppl without meaning to.
Dream.
Procrastinate.

8. Ways to describe my personality:
(Aargh!)
Obsessive
untidy
insecure.

9. Things I can’t do:
Cook.
Declutter
Keep my feet out of my mouth.

10. Things I think you should listen to:
Nope, your choice. As long as I don’t have to listen.

11. Things you should never listen to:
Mozart if I’m around.
Hip hop ditto.
Any ‘love’ song with the words Motherf***er in it ditto.

12. Things I’d like to learn:
Another language. (spoken, although wouldn’t object to more programming languages).
Design patterns.
To have patience.

13. Favorite foods:
Pasta
Pizza
Chocolate.

14. Beverages I drink regularly:
Tea
Coffee
Water

15. Shows I watched as a kid:
Saturday swap shop.
The A Team.
Metal Mickey.

16. People I’m tagging to do this meme:
Andrea at atypicallife
Bob at in at the deep end
Kirsty at The adventures of Firsty McStub

You know, since I had children, I’ve been a little larger than I was previously. It’s a fairly common complaint/ situation, there’s even an entire blog devoted to a celebration of it, the shape of a mother. In my case though, a little larger is still on the slim side it would appear. I bought a pair of jeans today, they’re a size 12, and the bit of flesh that sags over the top of them (they are hipsters, although I didn’t realise that at the time I bought them) isn’t nearly as big as it was just a few weeks ago before I took up swimming again.

So I’m nearly the size 10/12 I used to be before children, and I feel like I ought to apologise. When I’ve talked with friends who are trying to lose weight after children, I’ve always been told, but you’re so slim already. I’m not, you know. Or maybe I am, I guess, but that isn’t the point. I weigh more than I want to weigh, and I definitely have more spare flesh around my midriff than I’d like. Not that I’m aiming for super model status, but I’d like to be fit again, and I’d like to not have to apologise for wanting that. The call for submissions to the carnival of feminists this time talks about “feminism and fat (preferably,…focusing on the positive aspects in a celebratory spirit rather than on eating disorders on the subject of which a substantial body of research/literature already exists – we fat advocates are catching up, however!)” and it depresses me. Not that there are fat advocates - oh no, please feel free to advocate anything you like. But that once again, I’m left apologising for being the shape I am, and wanting to be less of it.

You see, when I was a teenager, I hated sport. Or rather, I hated team sports, wearing grey knickers under too big gym slips, having terribly jolly hockey teachers at my private school (I was on an assisted place, shall I apologise for that too as well?) make jokes about buying me braces by charging ppl who couldn’t score goals. So yes, I hated sport. And running with my dog, or swimming with my friends, or walking up to the stables to muck out, ride and so on didn’t count as sport. So I never realised that I was pretty fit. Then five years of martial arts at university didn’t count as sports either - but all those sit ups and 5 or more 2 hour practise sessions a week did something. My body was used to being fit, even if I didn’t really realise it at the time, and even giving up exercise and having children, it seems to remember what it used to feel like. Give it a few regular sessions of swimming and things are settling back again, and I’d like to celebrate, but I’m terribly afraid I’m going to upset my friends who struggle to lose the pounds, and that somehow it’s not feminist to be happy about being thin.

I shouldn’t have to be ashamed of being any size. If you are happy (and that’s the key point) with how you are, then bully to you. I don’t have any problem with that. Seeing acres of flesh creeping out over the top of too small trousers doesn’t turn me on, but I’m willing to accept that that is the fashion. (And I’ll save the rant about who the hell designs fashion for some other time, right after I’ve hitched my rapidly slipping jeans up, and bought some hipster underwear to get away from the whale tail thing.)

One thing does worry me though.

I bought my daughter a skirt today. My beautiful, tall, active, blonde 6 year old daughter an age 7 skirt. She rushed off to try it on and came down not quite happy. She was going to insist that it was lovely - she adores clothes, expecially feminine clothes(unlike her grossly unfeminine mother who seriously considered dungarees from the sale today) and didn’t want to admit that the skirt was uncomfortable. But I looked closely at her, and realised it was digging into her waist. Or where her waist will be, after puberty kicks in, and where it isn’t right now. She’s a child, she doesn’t have a waist. She isn’t the same size as every other six year old (which I obviously know, given that I bought an age 7 skirt) not that I’ve noticed all six year olds being the same size.

And that’s my point. I know you were all hoping I was going to get to it. How do we expect women to grow up valuing all the sizes that we can be, accepting each other for what we are, when it would appear we expect all six year olds to be the same size? So we are already telling many of our children that they are too big, or too small, too thin or too tall. They aren’t, it’s a joke. They range around some statistical norm just as much as adults do - possibly more. So why can’t we just sell clothes by height and waist, much as we do for adults? Would it really be so terrible to admit that children range in size, that not all six year olds have a 21 inch waist or are within 110 to 116 cm in height?

Just a thought. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m sure I have other things to go off and feel guilty about.

Oh, here’s one more thought. How about if we stopped making each other feel guilty, accepted help and support from one another and concentrated on making life better all around? Do you think it could work?