Moolies

Waiting.

Until tomorrow.

Cross fingers eh.

3am

Well. 2.53 to be precise.

It's not 08.30. Today I will officially start work at 9.30.

That gives mew an hour.

Goodnight.

Teef

James seems to have teeth sprouting all over the place. It's no wonder that he's had eczema erupting all over his mouth and chin for what seems like weeks. After tooth number two hung around under the skin for an age, we have the two top teeth both at once all of a sudden on the surface PLUS get this, tooth number 4 is all alone, next to his bottom one on the right and even more weirdly, after a gap of about two to come, there's another lone one, further to the right. Don't ask me what's going on. I'm guessing there's a combination of him chewing like crazy on very hard objects plus that they have hung back for such a long time they all want to sprout at once.

It's a bit odd. But, we've got our lovely, laughing baby back. He's been shouting the odds and being generally miserable for more than a couple of weeks. Today's gift was letting me know he could understand me when I was playing with him. I played with putting his dummy in his mouth, putting it in between my teeth backwards, and putting it toward his mouth. He laughed and laughed and I could see it was at me having, but not having the dummy. So I put it in my mouth properly and that was apparently hilarious. Giving it to him, I said "Put the dummy in my mouth". So he did. Laughing his head off.

We played along those lines for so long McK came in to see what the hell was going on.

He can crawl for England now, and is so happy that he's mobile, pulling himself up to stand up at every opportunity. Rather unfortunately in the classic stylee, he's getting rather a lot of blows to the head. Today's prime corker, falling on to the edge of the bunk bed leg ie: the corner and I could hear the thump of the corner in to his skull before he hit the floor. An enormous, vicious lump right on his temple and tears pouring down his creamy soft, crumpled face; a mix of confusion and pain.

Awww my love. I'm so sorry. At least you won't remember it all. Many, many bruises to come though.

The other day on the way home, I saw a picture of a baby gorilla that had been picked up and saved by a charity. It was only just about a year old. Its mother had been shot and butchered in front of it, and when it was found, it was tied to a bed in a village, being pelted with rotten vegetables and rocks by the local children. It has the soft fuzz of baby hair that has never been cut - that is so luscious to run your fingers through, and it must have been about James' size. The look in its face... of loss, in that innocent baby face was overwhelming and I nearly cried on the tube. I've rarely seen a more evocative picture of a great ape. Our cousin, lest we forget (and we so often do).

That's not to say that somehow my prioties are skewed; that because I have feelings for this lovely, beautiful little creature that somehow diminishes my emotional reactions to a human tragedy so appalling that it can barely live in the mind's eye for more than a second before overwhelming horror and grief sets in. I can't see how that poor baby can live through something like that. Jesus, even her father, grabbing her.. oh dear God, even he received terrible scalds on his arms and she was directly underneath. One wonders what sort of crass cost cutting exercise or shoddy workmanship was behind it.

There aren't really any athiest phraseology sets to cover the same sort of ground as "I thank God we've been spared thus far" but you know what I mean. The random hand of horror has not touched us thus far, and if I thought there was some sort of karmic balancing act then I'd give away everything I owned including my kidneys, etc to safeguard Noo and Jamie.

Meanwhile... Nora's third birthday is coming up, and we've been struggling through multiple viruses and nastiness throughout November thus failing - oh the shame - to organise her birthday party. I wave away the inevitable howls of criticism by saying oh c'mon! Winter vomiting disease? Surreal colds one after the other... forget it! So, we've decided to have a party in January, and meanwhile we're going to go to London Zoo with Nora and hopefully her nursery friend Leanna the day before her birthday.

Nora is getting very excited. And boy, is her reading coming on apace. She's reading words in different books she's never seen before as well as shpieling off whole texts that she has by rote rattling around in that massive memory machine of her brain.

Hurrah for kids. Hurrah for viruses. Hurrah for Madonna boinging through La Isla Bonita.

Shock news: still ill but:

Slowly getting better.

The cold is in my chest at last, some 6 days after my first symptoms! (surely this is the worst cold I've ever had?). Anyway. so I should be either in bed or doing housework, but instead I'm watching Madonna live in London on C4. She's so fit it makes this particular mother of 2 feel somewhat awkward confronted by a mirror. She's also an interesting mix of big but not overwhelming talent plus dogged determined hard work. I admire her a great deal. She is a great dancer too but again, not one of overwhelming talent.

Anyway. Slowly getting better. Children news to come!

Health of the nation

This cold is still hitting me in the brain / nose full of goo territory, after some 3 days of it. This is relatively distressing needless to say.

I'm hoping with several crossed toes that it will go to my chest tomorrow, at which poit it will become merely annoying.

As usual, I do probably have a ton of things I could say, but I'm exhausted and sick so must retire gracefully. Bleg.

Crawling through the wreckage

I'm reaching a point now where i'm beginning to not be able to cope.

I managed (thus far) to avoid the latest round of winter vomiting disease - McK and James had it (James it barely touched - he threw up a couple of times and seemed a bit bemused, is all).

...but I did manage to get a stinking, snot filled cold! Wahey!

Brain's like putty at this point.

Uganda

Our cleaner, Alex, is from Uganda. She's a gentle, self effacing woman who is kind and wonderful to Nora. She was one of the people I sms'd from hospital when James was born.

So today while James was asleep, Noo and I decided to look up photos from Uganda (to remind Alex of home). we found a wonderful map and many, many fantastic photos of what looks like an incredible place on the Uganda tourism site. Alex smiled alot and showed Nora where she was born on the map, and Nora explained "This is the flag!"

So now the photos of a bunch of ugandan women at a feeding station; someone taking home bananas; a mighty, contemplative silverback gorilla, the map and the flat are all bluetacked up in Nora's room. A mini African project!

Apparently it costs £600 to get over there. Ah well.

Crawling

We have crawling.

Very wobbly, but it makes Jiminy cricket so much happier to be a little bit autonomous. He's been smiles as well as coughs and cryings, all round.

the usual 1.30am, 4am, 5.30 am type mindnumbing traumas mind you.

Oh blimey

I live my life in total exhaustion or backpain.

James still waking up throughout night with or witout virus.

He crawled! He is crawling, wobbly like.

New bike saga - one day will have energy to explain.

Nora's busy learning how to write letters.

Goodnight.

Yep, still here

Just thoroughly exhausted. More to tell. More croup. Bad backs. Work beginning in earnest. Cold weather has arrived at last (heating went on *today*).

But am shattered, and James is sick as a dog so I must resist the temptation to blather and go to bed.

Day 1 of foreworks weekend seems to have gone off relatively smoothly. No crying, no waking - and that was with the municipal display on Streatham common reverberating viciously around all the houses in the street for half an hour. Hopefully the locals with their own pipsqueak versions won't be too bad.