Moolies

Crawl space

Nora can crawl.

Not that she actually likes crawling, you understand. It gets in the way of the business of STANDING UP PRACTICE. In fact, if my Mum or Dad try to put me odnw on my front to move some pointless distance between the two of them, I tend to just head for the nearest vertical object so I can STAND UP because STANDING UP is fantastic, isn't it? Look, I can stand up holding on with just one hand! And bend down, pick up stuff, walk around the outside of my playpen, the works. Crawling? Crawling!!!??? Crawling is for sissies.

Meanwhile, in the world of grown ups (and Nora), we're going to visit my Dad in France for a week, so no doubt I'll come back to a sea of comment spam and crap, but you can bet your little monkey nuts, my friends, that I will *not* be logging in in any capacity while I'm there.

I imagine various photos of a baby laughing in different locations will be forthcoming for those who have access (or want it).

Damnit

I've tried really hard to dislike the last Divine Comedy album, given that the great and wonderful Mr Talbot is not involved with it, but - and this is even though several of the tracks are frankly, drivel, and the whole thing has the feel of being a pastiche DC's album it still has some gloriously beautiful moments in. I shall have to purchase. Fuck.

Warren Ellis getting more recognition

...meanwhile, talking of over achievers and men with large ego's (heh), Mr Ellis is receiving more recognition by the mainstream press - to which one can only say: it's about bloody time.

Today's Guardian has a preview of Stealth Tribes, and a frankly ridiculous descrip of warren. Bright young thing of British comics that he is. Never mind that the last *British* comic he had published wasssss ten? Fifteen years ago? However, one should never diss positive publicity, so Yay, Warren.

Regret

There should be no place in one's ongoing life for regret, yet it seeps in to the system, unawares, and can start to colour the vision of your life like the crumb of glass in Kay's eye.

She's got it

there was an interesting article on children who babble using sign language a while ago on Beeb news. Now. What I imagined is that such behaviour would be restricted to babies who might have deaf parents, who are around sign language all the time.

I don't think that's true. Nora has been waggling her hands in a specific and expressive way for about a week or so - very differently to the "Indian classical dancing" way she has always examined her hands pulling them in to delicate shapes ni the air. So.

So. In the last few days she has been making "nearly" signs - experimenting with milk in particular but not actually doing it. On the understanding front, it's been clear for a number of days that she has a clear understanding of what they mean - well, it's less obvious with "More" but you signal milk or food to her and she knows exactly waht you're on about and responds accordingly. Then last night she did the full on fist clench while I was feeding her. I was ecstatic.

Early days yet obviously, but it feels so fantastic that she's begining to do it. We've already begun expanding the repetoir since it was becoming obvious she knew what we were saying - so "water" is the new one, and "poo" or a near equivalent seems to be another appropriately obvious one. "Outside" might not be a bad idea since there's nothing she likes more. She doesn't really get hurt that often so hurt we'll leave for a few weeks until she gets crawling more sorted (she just doesn't want to crawl. It's walking & standing up or nothing).

Other obvious ones would be: Reading a book, brushing teeth, bedtime or sleep.

Yay!!!
Have I said enough recently JUST HOW MUCH I LOVE THAT MUNCHKIN FACE GIRL?
Thought not.
Didn't thi

I have rarely wished very bad things on another human being

But I do wish them on Robert Mugabe.

He is clearly unhinged. Even if he were not diagnosed as being mentally unstable then at a bare bones base level, he is clearly not acting in the best interests of his country, therefore he should be asked to relinquish his post.

Unfortunately that wson't happen. Unfortunately the African Union will not do anything until it's too late, leaving the verbal criticism to countries which are easy targets in terms of ex-colonialism, as well as recent unjust wars. South Africa will not do anything either for fear of instability and because of the role Mugabe played during the apartheid era.

It's just bad. He is bad.

Oh the joys of Mastitis

Not surprisingly, I now know how to take these things in my stride. Being on the receiving end of it only twice thus far in 8 1/2 months of breastfeeding seems pretty good going, compared to the *four* attacks that a friend Becca had in less than four months.

Why does it seem to happen at weekends? I'm currently waiting for a call back from the Emergency Doctor so I can go and pick up a prescription for Fluxcloxacyllin 500.

Stride-ness doesn't stop it from being frankly horrible. Didn't sleep well at all, feel very off key now and as my breast filled up overnight it of course felt worse and worse. By the time I got to feed Nora it felt and looked a bit like an engorged breast from those days at the beginning. All distended and tight looking with a strangely mishapen balloon like surface to the nip. And of course, unlike the old days, Nora now takes great delight in trying to GRAB MY NIPPLES!!!

Not today, darling. Not today.

Ears

Or "ear", to be exact.

So - here's the evidence:

-Mackay noticed today a huge slop of dark brown earwax coming from one of Nora's ears.

-I have often had to clean that ear in particular out (you know, the slight build up of waxy deposit you get in the shell bit).

I-n the last few days, Nora has been leaning over to the left - which is the ear which is currently scudgily bunged up.

-She's in absolutely no pain that we can see. ear infections are so horrible, we'd *know* if she had an ear infection.

God only knows what's going on. Not nice though.

Arse

125 blog spams this morning. That'll teach me to not look at my spam ridden, completly unreadable email for 4 days.

I don't really know what do do, other than abandon email altogether as a communications mechanism. I know many who have more or less given up and I'm close to it myself.

The big problem is that I now can't smtp out of work, so I can't download to my nice Spamnix'd Eudora, which means viewing everything on a predicatbly clumsy web interface with no spam control. Consequently, I rarely actually see email in the hundreds I have in the box that are actually addressed to *me*.

Something which has this morning made me somewhat embarrassed with regard to a certain fridge. Bah! Apologies to Tom.

The most wonderful thing

I was on a course yesterday so managed to get home a mite early. Nora was still having her supper. The new strategy when she's having problems eating is to be very blase about the whole thing, do other stuff at the same time and try to make feeding a fun time. Sometimes it works.

So it's about 5.20 and I go downstairs to the kitchen - Nora predictably erupts in to huge smiles and yelps of pleasure and oh it's such joy to bathe in that lovely welcome for a few moments. Who cares if you get covered in food, if it makes her happy and secure *and* you both get lovely snugs?

So anyway after a brief hiatus we get back down to the serious business of having pudding (with a bit of cauliflower cheese sneaked in there from the stuff she didn't want to eat with her tea). I broke up a gluten-free-lower-sugar rusk to give her something to munch on while she ate. After a few minutes of messing about, eating... stuff, you know... she looked at the lump of rusk in her hand and held it out to me to see if I wanted some.

!!!

Awesome. Big smiles and huge laughs as I nibbled some of it while she still held it. We laughed and laughed doing it over and over.... it was fantastic. I got some pudding/tea on her spoon, got her to hold it and guided it in to my mouth - unutterably hilarious, she then put it in to her mouth, the right way up, and sucked all the rest of the spludge off it. It was such an astounding leap, and rationalisation - Mummy eats sometimes, would she like some? This is how she ate, I'll do that.

The stress of trying to get her to eat the second half of her meal had suddenly become an incredibly joyous event together.

Happy is not the word.