long leggety beasties

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Great moments in parenting: loaded the kids up the other day and drove to the furthest reaches of the Hutt Valley to get my violin professionally fettled. After a long hot drive, reached our destination and pulled into the driveway with a small exclamation of triumph. From the back seat came the following rejoinder: HLWWWUERGH-ARGLE.

Fortunately, the fiddle-fettler's wife has eleven grandchildren and insisted I brought Maggie in for a bath and provided me with a bucket and sponge to rinse the lumps out of the car seat. You can often depend on the kindness of strangers. And we had a very nice time at the zoo afterwards, once I'd been home to change my top.

Here, and not before time, are some photos of the kids at their Halloween party at crèche. Maggie is dressed a tarantula, in case you were wondering.

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time tripping

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Am continuing to add photos from the archives to the Flickr page. Here's one of Becca and Jack in our garden in Cambridge, taken when she was about three months' old.

We loved living in the UK and it was a tough decision to come back. One I'm very glad we made, but I've never missed the UK more than last Saturday, when Chris and Melanie got married, in Stow-cum-Quy, I believe it was. Congratulations, and may I add about bloody time too, y'bastards!

I still have the lurgy, but have recently discovered that pseudoephedrine is wonderful stuff. Wheeee!

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hit Shift five times and click your heels for good measure

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

This week: feeling like crap*; updating Flickr page; wondering whether to do yet another degree; wondering where Doris Lessing has been all my life. Becca seems much better though, thank heavens: taking her to the GP for a follow-up tomorrow.

Last week: went on a Course; learned about link spatter, the evils thereof. Mea maxima culpa...

Oh and working, it turns out, for the former Witch King of Angmar**. Welcome to Wellington...


*Generic winter spring lurgy (bah!)
**Had always considered librarians a faintly wraithlike breed; worst fears now confirmed. Can only speculate as to how my next performance review will pan out: YOU ARE FAILING TO MEET YOUR KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS!!! [unsheathes bloody big sword: smites desk...]

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with nothing on my tongue but hallelujah

Friday, October 03, 2008

Fun episodes in parenting: spending most of yesterday in the children's ward with a grey and shaking Rebecca while they tried to figure out whether she has a kidney infection. After much prodding, poking, palpating and osculting and one prolonged and particularly fraught attempt to obtain a blood sample (against vociferous and dare I say speaking as her mother impressively articulate not to say compelling objections from the hapless patient) the jury is still out. So we have been sent home with a bottle of pink antibiotic syrup while we wait for the lab to analyse the urine sample it took us about 6 hours and I forget how many frantic dashes to the loo to obtain.

Now I'm at home with a rather more cheerful little girl, planning a quiet day. We may sit in the sun. Or go for a gentle walk. And be thankful it doesn't seem to have been more serious.

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best-laid plans

Monday, September 22, 2008

Oooh, work has nice gym. Hadn't set foot in a gym in five years, not since finding I was pregnant with Becca, thinking 'Ha! but I am going to be one of these mummies who works out right through her pregnancy' and then the vomiting started, and that was that really*. For five years. Went back on Saturday, and then again tonight: now have v sore arms, but it's a smug sort of sore. Best bit: having entire, pristine, swimming pool to myself; floated on back in the middle, bobbing up and down all meditative like Juliette Binoche in Trois Couleurs: Bleu. And not an Elastoplast in sight. May never leave the Parliamentary Service.

Off to Auckland to visit distaff side on Wednesday. May also go to the zoo.

*is remarkably good abs exercise, if you keep it up for long enough. Like, say, for nine frickin' months.

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start turning purple

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Maggie has taken to bursting in on my violin practices and doing a little jig while flapping her arms and making excited noises. We've decided she's got gestational klezmer: as Jack says, like gestational diabetes, but funkier.

And don't get me started on 'Zvezda Rok-N-Rolla', by Russian ska-punk band Leningrad: a recent addition to the Rebs repertoire, it's now Becca's absolute favourite song in the world ever, eliciting screams of joy when we play it in the car, and pleas for repeat hearings. After months of which she can now produce a creditable imitation of the Russian lyrics, which are, sadly, of such surpassing filthiness that we're unlikely to take her to Russia any time soon lest acute social awkwardness ensue when she decides to start singing the rather rousing chorus: it'd be like taking her to the US and having her break into 'Too Drunk To Fuck'. My word, I'm a bad mother.

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nsfw

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

This will almost certainly appear on the Daily Show; call me puerile, but it did cheer me up at the end of a long day with the kids.

Becca is no longer throwing up. Although it didn't take her long to work out that claiming to need to is a great way to prolong an already long day. Now if she could just manage to stop smirking while she's doing it. Next week we're taking them to Auckland and unleashing them on the grandparents; Becca got very excited when we told her about our travel plans, before gravely informing us that it was a good thing Gran had plenty of ice cream containers, as she would be able to vomit into them. The war stories look likely to continue for some time...

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