MY BIGGEST BOY

My boy
Originally uploaded by PhylB

Today my first baby turned 11 - (14 minutes ago!) Childhood sure passes quicker from the parents' perspective than from the child's :-(
I can hardly believe he's already up to my eyebrows... what happened to that wee man from 1997?
Anyway, with a glorious day we decided that we should have a family barbecue in the garden to celebrate, which seems to have gone down well. The only (near) disaster of the day being a game of darts. He'd wanted a dartboard for ages so I bought him one hoping he wouldn't be too silly around his younger siblings. All was going well - playing darts with the board stuck on the garage wall - until he decided to see if he could throw the dart from further away than recommended. To compensate for the expected problem of gravity he threw it high and fast. Instead of hitting the dartboard, the dart cleared the garage roof and disappeared altogether. After and exhaustive search the other side of our garage, he entered the neighbour's garden in trepidation - I had suggested he might find the neighbour dead on the other side of fence with a dart sticking out of his forehead. Fortunately he found the neighbour sipping coffee sitting several feet from the dart that was sticking out of his flowerbed. I hope that has taught him an important life lesson!?

ROSE

I love the smell of roses - roses with a smell that is! I planted a beautiful white rose in my garden and found out, disappointingly, that it had no smell at all :-( This beautiful lilac one Thomas bought me, on the other hand, is deliciously wonderful. It is time someone discovered a way to upload smells along with photos. Isn't my photo of it just beautiful?

PHOTOGRAPHIC STUDIO

I got a Bounty Voucher from the maternity hospital when I had Anna. Well I got 4 actually - 4 vouchers for free portraits of the baby (with of without siblings) over a 24 month period.
I decided I had better use it last week given the first voucher covered up to the end of the first 6 months and she was 7 months old last Saturday.
You can choose from Pixifoto studios or Portrait Place photographers.
When I had Marcel and Charlotte, I thought these vouchers were wonderful - the photos were superior to anything I could do - they used Hasselblads back then and I had a Minolta SLR.
Now, however, they use DSLRs - I have seen them use both Nikon and Olympus. That is to say, the actual photographic equipment they are using is no longer superior to what I use at home (Sony 350). Given Thomas bought me umbrellas for my 40th, I now also have the start of the lighting package they use too. Ok, I would need a few extra lights - coloured ones, soft and silhouette lighting but I now think the only thing I am lacking is a room without a window and a black and a white backdrop before I could take superior photos. The reason I say that is, I believe these photography companies are now so confident in their equipment, they are no longer employing decent photographers, assuming anyone with that equipment can take a decent enough photo to flog to the average punter. This of course is true, but a sad ambition. The photographer the other day did a fair job with Marcel and Charlotte as they were old enough to be cooperative but the little ones are more difficult to photograph nicely. He was a sweet enough young guy but he was definitely not as good a photographer as I am. He was happy if he got them all looking in the right direction, assuming somehow that a smile would be a bonus rather than a necessity. I don't believe he had an eye for photography, he simply put the kids in half a dozen pre-rehearsed poses - with teddy, with building blocks etc rather than taking ten minutes to get to see the dynamics of the group and working with that, the way I could in the same studio, given I know the dynamics as their mum and can take a decent photo with decent equipment.
It is frustrating not to have my own studio, not only because I could do better photos of my own family, but I believe I could also do better photos commercially.
I just found this photo on flickr... hmmm I am wondering where else I could keep my lawnmower and bikes, if I was to turn my garage into a photographic studio too!

HOME-GROWN POTATOES

When I was a small child my grandparents lived in a little flat with a shared garden. As there were only 2 storeys, one neighbour owned the back garden, the other the front. My grandparents had the back. Granny grew rhubarb and little white and lilac alpine flowers, Gramps grew cabbage, lettuce and potatoes. I remember digging out potatoes with him. They seemed to taste unlike any other potatoes in the world - buttery and delicious - so good I almost wanted to eat them raw from the ground still with the dirt on. I wonder why it never occurred to me to grow vegetables when I was living with André. I grew tomatoes once in a little plastic greenhouse but we never made a little kitchen garden. Thomas, on the other hand, thinks almost everything in a garden should be edible and last week we had our very first home-grown potatoes. They were almost as good as my old Gramps's.

A VISIT FROM ROGER

About 2 weeks ago I got an email from my old uni professor, Roger Stephenson. It was a group email to a dozen or so colleagues and ex-students saying he was retiring from Glasgow uni, where he's been head of department and professor in German since roughly when I left. (When I was there he was a doctor of German literature).My immediate thought was - what a loss to Glasgow university. Roger's specialities in my day were Goethe and Nietzsche. He was eccentric, as the best of them are. He started many a lecture with an impersonation of Elvis on the stage in the lecture theatre. We drank wine in tutorials together at Christmas. As we got older and studied in his honours class, there were only a few of us in his groups so we socialized - we went to the pub, we went for curries, I even had him home for barbecues. He was an approachable, down-to-earth genius. His stories of his childhood in Liverpool made us laugh.
Roger is probably the teacher I learned most from in this life. He taught me about literature, he taught me about philosophy. He taught me to think and made me grow into the adult I am today.
I am terribly sad for the future students of German at Glasgow university that they will meet a study programme that will be much narrower and less deep. Also that they will laugh and think a little less.
Anyway, when I received his email, I suggested a lunch for old times sake - we hadn't met up since 2001. He and 2 other ex-students, Sheina and Linda, came for lunch on Sunday and funnily enough he hadn't aged a day. He still made me laugh with his cheesy Elvis impersonations and stories of Liverpool.
He suggested making it an annual reunion - the next meeting being in Liverpool where he's moving back to with his wife after retirement. I'll be there.

GRASSHOPPERS

Clown or Grasshopper?
Originally uploaded by Hamed Saber

I'm used to grasshoppers. Every summer I have been in southern Europe and I have fallen asleep to the strange squeals and screeches they make rubbing their legs.
On the other hand, in 40 years I have never ever heard a single grasshopper in Scotland.
Today is a very warm day - Léon and Lots are out in the garden playing in the paddling pool. Anna is naked on the grass... and to my utter amazement I have just heard a grasshopper in my garden in Glasgow!
Global warming????

MORE COLORIZING

Do you think Heinz would buy this off me for use on their advertising posters? Isn't it a cool photo?!

OUCH

Bumps on A head
Originally uploaded by moriza

Today we went to B&Q to buy some wood and screws to put up the kitchen cabinets. We put our purchases in the boot and decided to pop into Lidl for some lunch on the way back. Thomas closed the boot... on my head. A C8 has quite a heavy hatchback :-( Since then I've had a bit of a headache and I'm definitely not quite myself. I put on some potatoes and despite Thomas asking several times if I'd checked them, it was surprising to find that 40 minutes later they were overcooked. Then I offered Léon a bath at 9pm because I felt it was hours earlier. It is like I have lost some sense of time. I also seem to be having a bit of a memory problem. It took me 10 minutes to recall who had won Euro 2008 and the Apprentice and I wasn't overly sure which hand I usually use to cut things! Let's see how my brain's doing tomorrow before I sue the Dane...

A LITTLE ORANGE GIRL

I've been meaning to play with colorizing for a while - I did some last year but then I forgot how to do it. I got up early this morning - before the kids - because I had hurt my neck so couldn't sleep. Too sore to run about like a headless housework chicken, I decided to go through the GIMP colorization tutorial again - Voilà!

LÉON

It is interesting, the difference a year makes to the memory and analytical capacity of a very small child. Last summer, 2007, André took the kids including Léon to visit his mother in France. At the time, I thought he was way too young to go without me (he was 23 months old) but Annie is nearly 80 and had been in hospital with heart problems so I agreed, on condition I could fly over and get him, should he become distressed. Given Marcel and Charlotte were also going, I figured he'd be reasonably ok and they let me know he seemed fairly happy with his family every night when they called. He was too young to understand phonecalls himself. The holiday went ok but when he returned after just less than 2 weeks, he walked into the house, threw himself into my arms and hugged me tightly not letting go for what seemed like about half an hour. Eventually he plucked up the courage to let me go and hugged Thomas 5 minutes and my parents a minute each before again attaching himself to me. He had obviously been wondering if he was ever going to see me again. Relieved at his return, he was fine by the next day with no further repercussions. The normal custody pattern resumed that week without a hiccough. This year, as I mentioned the other day, André again took them to visit his family. I spoke to them for a few minutes most days and every time I spoke to Pudge, I simply said: You'll be home with mummy and Thomas very soon. He understood happily and when he returned on Monday morning he ran in, hugged me 2 or 3 minutes then ran off and got books and toys to bring to me. Periodically, over the course of the day, he stopped and said I need a hug. This he did happily and he recounted the fun he had had with his Oma and French aunt. Today however André was due to have the kids for his fortnightly Thursday overnight stay. He was to pick them up at 5-30pm. I got out Léon's sandals and he asked why I was putting them on. You are going for dinner with Papa, I replied. He went mad - No way! he screamed. I explained he'd be back for breakfast, that this was simply an overnight stay but he cried and held on to me screaming he didn't want to go away again. No matter how much I reassured him, he believed he was being taken away again for 2 weeks. While he likes the odd overnight away, he really is still too small for the holidays. I wish, when the custody pattern was being drawn up, someone had taken that into consideration. When your child is crying that he wants to stay with you, it is heartbreaking to make him go against his will. I assume though when he returns tomorrow, he will realize we are back to the normal pattern when he sees André every other weekend and Thursday - a pattern he does enjoy, as long as it is not overstepped.

BUILDING AN IKEA KITCHEN

We managed to negotiate a batch rate of £1 per cupboard with the kids so they are currently spending their mornings building us an Ikea kitchen. Both Marcel and Lots have the hang of the pictorial instructions and are currently knocking out about one wall unit every 15 - 20 minutes. Léon on the other hand only manages to climb through cupboards and move around screws and wooden dowels, misplacing them. Anna did try to contribute too. She picked up the electric screw driver, stuck it in her mouth, accidentally pressed the on-button and shot 3 feet in the air squealing.
Tomorrow they are going to try base units or a full-height larder.

A SIGHT TO BEHOLD

A chocolate screw driver
Originally uploaded by PhylB

Walking through the streets of Paris the other day I happened upon this in a shop window. An electric screwdriver with a French plug of course. I took a photo and showed it to the kids. I asked them if they noticed anything strange about the screwdriver. They mentioned its European plug, they mentioned that it didn't have a screw bit attached at the front, but neither of the big ones noticed the obvious: that it was in fact sculpted out of chocolate. It looked truly magnificent. Though I doubt I'd be able to take a bite out of it - that would be too great a shame.

A NICE WALK

Louvre by night
Originally uploaded by PhylB

I had intended to take the Batobus like the last time I was in Paris but where the price seems quite reasonable for 5 days, it just feels a bit OTT to pay 28 Euros for 2 days. We decided to see if we could do most of the central part of Paris on foot and only use the metro for going further north.
We set out at lunchtime and it took the best part of 9 hours walking to get from Notre Dame to the Eiffel Tower and back - we didn't take a completely straight route and the GPS was telling us we'd notched up about 8km by the end of the day but the views at sunset were definitely worth it.
Though by 10pm Anna was more interested in a proper feed than another photo-stop imposed by her mother.

OVER FOR ANOTHER YEAR

The worst fortnight of the year is over for another year. I know the 3 big ones need to visit their Oma in France once a year for 2 weeks. When they go, I miss them like crazy, I worry about them like mad, not to mention I spend that fortnight feeling the loss of my French family more acutely than at any other time in the year. They came back this morning so I survived, if only just.

A TRIP HOME

As you know I have spent the best part of 23 years living part of my year in France so this last 23 months have been a testing time for me. Although I cannot go and visit my family, I decided I couldn't stand not visiting my country any more so Thomas, Anna and I nipped over to Paris for a long weekend while André took the kids to his mum's.

It was wonderful to see all my old haunts - Paris is the city I know best in the world after Glasgow. To hear French everywhere again was a breath of fresh air. To smell the smells, taste the tastes and hear the different sounds.
I miss France. It was so lovely to go home for the weekend...

NEW ADDRESS

You may have noticed I have changed the address of my blog. Don't worry if you haven't as I am redirecting traffic from the old site. My new address is: phylsblog.com

GREENOCK TOWN HALL

Town hall
Originally uploaded by jimmy2yk

Thomas and I were at a wedding on Saturday in Greenock town hall. We had received the invite (verbally a year ago) and officially about 6 weeks ago. I didn't think another thing about it.
Last weekend we were having dinner with my brother who works down that way so I asked directions to Greenock town hall. On Saturday we followed google's directions, Derek's directions and with a little help from this tall tower on the skyline we finally found Greenock town hall.
After the ceremony, which was held in one of the side rooms, we were shown into the main hall and it hit me. I've been here before. I looked at the coat of arms, the blue paint, the decorated ceilings, balconies and cornicing. It took me forever to place it. How could I know this room? As far as I could remember I had been to Greenock to visit André in the 80s when he had a student bedsit there, I had often visited my friend Shona in Forsyth street and I had been to my brother's lawyer's office in Union street. So how could I know the inside of the town hall?
Then it hit me - I had taken part in the Greenock festival in 1975, representing my school as a singer in the annual competition (Do they still run it?) It was suddenly clear as day. We'd left Crookfur primary in a single decker bus and driven to Greenock. I was wearing my favourite creamy white winter coat and had felt very important!
Oh, and did we win the singing contest? No, not by a mile but hey I still have it tucked away in my memory after 33 years so it can't have been all bad!

BLOODY HAIRDRESSERS

Cynthia, Karen and I
Originally uploaded by PhylB

What is it with hairdressers? Either they don't listen or they just think they know what is best anyway.
On Saturday Thomas and I were invited to my friend Siobhan's wedding. (A turn around in luck at last. Siobhan is a friend from my old Queen Mother's Breast feeding group. We've been a close group of friends since 1997. We all met when we had our first baby. We all subsequently split from our partners and divorced and Siobhan is the first of the group to remarry!)
So I thought, given my hair needed cutting anyway, if I got it cut Saturday, it would be nice for the wedding.
How would you like it? she asked - granted it was early Saturday morning, the girl looked hungover and apologized for having puffy eyes but she'd been fighting with her boyfriend and crying. I should have known her head was elsewhere. I asked for it shoulder length all the way round. She cut it more or less to the length I wanted, then proceeded to cut layers into it all round without confirming I wanted them, which I didn't. I actually wanted it like a slightly longer version of Karen's (my blonde friend in this photo.) I guess her hairdresser had had a better Friday night than mine.

I KNOW HOW THEY FEEL!

zootrip
Originally uploaded by PhylB

I'm beginning to think this Life begins at 40 is a load of nonsense. I found my first ever grey hair a couple of weeks after I turned 40, and last week I found a second one. Then today I had an eye test and was told I could use some glasses for reading, though my distance vision is perfect. God, I'll be needing a hip replacement any day at this rate! Humph...

MATRIMONIAL CRITERIA

In prehistoric times I guess a woman looked for a man who looked strong and healthy - the type who might bring home a decent sized dead animal.
In more recent times, say last century, I suppose women went for the intellectual type, maybe with a good job or career prospects. Thomas and I were discussing the other day what today's and tomorrow's woman should be looking for in a man - what we would advise Lots, should she ask us in the future. We concluded that in modern times, the single most important trait to look for in a potential partner is his ability to look after the kids. I think any woman marrying today should ask herself - If we end up divorced, would I trust this man to look after our kids alone, abroad on a 2 week holiday? If the answer is no, think long and hard about whether he is right for you!
Cynical, me? Never!

HYACINTH, NOT SMURF, NOT DUCK EGG!

Our kids' bathroom is a bit of a state. The wall tiles are ok, but the floor is a bit scabby and the walls have hurriedly been painted an unmatching creamy colour.
Last week Thomas and I were in B&Q. I decided with the kids away this week and me no doubt moping about the house, what better time to paint the kids' bathroom wall the same colour as the tiles and freshen it up, while distracting me. So I checked the Dulux colour samples and found the exact shade of hyacinth to match the tiles. I had them mix it and I took it home.
Today I opened my tin of hyacinth paint to start on my wall to be confronted by a hideous smurf-shade of blue nothing like the colour on the colour sample chart...Bizarre! I took it back to B&Q and complained. I showed them the colour it was meant to be on their chart, and the colour in the tin. Patently they'd pressed the wrong button. The offered to remix me 2.5l. The guy double-checked the shade and put it in his little machine. It shoogled it a couple of minutes and he opened it, to find again it was nothing like hyacinth, not much like smurf either, second time round. This time it was duck egg - another shade that would clash horribly with my hyacinth tiles. The machine was broken or having an off-day.
I swapped it for an off-the-shelf Dulux, which I am not quite sure will match, however, when they scanned the 3rd pot after me waiting a second ten minutes in the returns queue, the item went unfound so they gave me the 3rd pot free and a credit note for £18. So if this one doesn't match I can always try getting the hyacinth at a different B&Q.
Now I know it was meant to distract me from missing the kids but I didn't mean it to turn into a week-long saga.

FAILING MEMORIES

Marcel has decided he likes Taggart. This is good - I am so sick of Simpsons reruns I think I'd watch anything else instead. He was watching an episode the other afternoon and one of the main characters was a woman called 'Charlie McEwan'. Marcel shouted to me - I know that actress from somewhere, she's been in something else I've seen. I came through for a look, expecting someone well known, only to be confronted by the little-known Scottish actress Lorraine McGowan. Of course he should recognize her - he saw her every day of 2003-04. She was his primary 2 teacher at Kirkhill Primary! I pointed out to him that it was his teacher and he looked more than surprised. Of course, he is now going into Primary 7, so Primary 2 is a fair way off in his scheme of things but I was quite amazed he couldn't place her at all - or maybe he was just thrown by the unexpected setting! I thought I was supposed to be the old one with the failing memory but at 40, I still remember my Primary 2 teacher!

FIRST MEMORIES

My very first memories are of shoes. I wonder if that is because your eyes are closer to your feet as a small child?! I remember being 2 years old and wearing bright red sequined slippers. The next shoe memory is wandering about in my mum's powder blue and powder pink court shoes at 3, feeling like something out of a 1950s American dream. I wonder if Léon will remember these photos being taken when he is 40!

ANNA'S NEW BEST FRIEND

My new best friend
Originally uploaded by PhylB

I remember the first time Marcel discovered another baby in our living room in Dowanhill street. Anna seemed just as pleased yesterday to find one here on our floor in Newton Mearns. They gazed lovingly into each other's eyes for a while, hands quivering in delight. They touched and hugged and kissed. They had quite a discussion about life. I think it'll be some time before I need to try out the blob of cream on the nose test...

GOODBYE LENIN

A few months ago Thomas showed me this sweet movie. Isn't it so refreshing to come across something that isn't American!? I must show it to my kids some time once they are past the we can't be bothered with subtitles stage. Marcel would cope already but Lots would definitely find subtitles off-putting. It will be interesting to watch their reaction given the events of '89 feel like very irrelevant ancient history to them, when they feel like yesterday to me - especially given I was living in Germany in '89.

EURO 2008

Euro 2008
Originally uploaded by Gerej

I had to laugh at the English commentary on the Russia Holland match last night. After listening to them for 120 minutes, I was convinced the Russian team had two players - one sporting the rather unfortunate name Jerk off and one with a strangely Scottish Culloden. Strangely, this morning's papers mention only a Zhirkov and a Kolodin. Why do the English find it sooooo difficult to attempt to pronounce anything even remotely foreign?

LEGO MELTDOWN

Playing with 3 sizes of lego
Originally uploaded by PhylB

Léon rediscovered our large box of Lego the other day. To save time I had simply thrown all the Lego I found after the house move into one large toy box. Léon took out some baby Lego (the large yellow bricks to the left of this picture), some toddler Lego (the tower he is holding) and some standard Lego (on the floor in front of the tower). As you can see, the standard bits do not fit on top of the toddler bits, and the toddler bits do not fit on top of the baby bits. After several attempts at fitting these on top, the usually placid child went into complete meltdown screaming and howling in the most distraught manner, finally pulling himself together just enough to exclaim You're making me very angry, you know to the Lego on the floor!

QUITE A SIGHT

Charlotte bought a new dressing gown at tesco
Originally uploaded by PhylB

Sometimes I have to kick myself. Today, like most days I didn't happen to have my DSLR on me when I went to school to pick up the kids but unfortunately I didn't even have my mobile phone on me. I had forgotten it was Wear your pyjamas and dressing gown to school day. The idea was each child was to come to school straight from bed and bring £1, with the money being sent to Malawi to pay for children's school meals. So the bell went at 3pm and nearly 600 kids walked out in PJs, dressing gowns and slippers. They looked amusing but unified at school but by the time they had got half a mile from school, it did look somewhat comical to see kids in dressing gowns, slippers and bike helmets cycling past the local shops. I had intended to go straight to ASDA from school but decided against it once I saw my kids!

ACCIDENTAL DAMAGE COVER, BUT NOT AS WE KNOW IT!

Has the world gone mad? Mum's just been telling me about dad trying to renew the house contents insurance this week. During a phone call to an insurance company, he asked if the contents would be covered for 'accidental damage' as with their current policy. 'Only unintentional accidental damage' came the reply. Qué? They elaborated that any damage that could conceivably be inflicted intentionally, with a view to claiming a replacement item, was not covered! So if you ruin your carpet with red wine accidentally, tough! If your 2 year old draws in permanent ink on your Picasso, tough too. If you trip and fall through your glass kitchen door - again this is obviously an act of sabotage! Who is to prove a flooded kitchen wasn't caused by you hitting your radiator with a hammer? In fact we concluded that all accidents could be written off as intentional. Dad then pointed out that the bottom line was - any claim he made, would be written off with a letter to him more or less accusing him of being a liar. Needless to say, he is now looking into other insurance policies!

PET NAMES AND TERMS OF ENDEARMENT

I've always had wee pet names for the kids. When Marcel was born he got called Minimec for a while through toddlerhood. Charlotte became Puddiny as a pudgy toddler. Later she became Naughty Lottie on Marcel's request, and finally she is now Lots. Léon was dubbed Pudge by Charlotte almost from birth, which alternated for a while with Nénaw, Léon's own name for himself. When Anna was tiny she became Anna-bits as in bitsy Anna. Léon has obviously been inspired by this. As of last weekend he has sponaneously been calling Anna Anna-cake, a name invented by him alone. Sweet!

A PAIN IN THE FACE

Léon's had a funny little cyst below the surface of his right cheek now for the whole of this year or more. Every time it looks like it is about to clear up, he wakens up with it redder and sorer than ever. He scratches it till it bleeds, then he scratches the scab. I have asked the doc about it several times and am usually told not to worry, it will go away of its own accord eventually. Tired of the whole thing, I decided today to ask for him to be referred to a dermatologist. Now that's done, I probably have to wait a year for the NHS appointment, but at least we are getting somewhere.

2, 4, 6, 8...

what don't we appreciate?. . .
Being woken every 2 hours for milk instead of the usual 4-30am. What's going on Anna?

THE LEGO VERSION

I saw this today and it made me laugh. I won't know what to do with my Wednesdays from now on given The Apprentice is the only programme I watch on TV all week - maybe I should watch a lego episode every Weds from now on! Of course like most people, I would have to say the Kosher Chicken was the highlight of the 12 weeks but last night did upset me - poor Claire was robbed. Sir Alan must be mad!

PROFICIENT AT CYCLING

Marcel's cycling proficiency badge
Originally uploaded by PhylB

Today, after about 6 weeks of dragging his bike along to school (thank heavens I have a people carrier to bring it home in), Marcel finally sat his Cycling Proficiency test. He seemed quite blasé about the whole thing and didn't seem to be studying the Highway Code cover to cover as I had 30 years ago but he bounced out of school today and announced he got an A both for the written test and the practical. Well done Marcel!
I did have to question a few changes since my day however. When I was a kid, back in the nasty old days when people were told they were useless or stupid, rather than always being told they were wonderful, you could pass or fail. You sat the test, you waited a week and then at a public ceremony the names of those who had passed were read out and you went on stage where you received a certificate of merit and a badge. Passing was an important achievement so you wore your badge proudly on your blazer till you left school 8 years later. Marcel seemed less impressed by his new high-tech (compared to mine) badge. He seemed surprised I had kept mine. Oh everyone got one, he said - If you did badly, you passed with a C, if you did well you got an A or B. But everyone got one, he explained. Now I know psychologists argue it is healthier for a child's self esteem to never fail, but is that cheapening success in some way in the minds of the more successful kids? And of course, is it setting kids up for the real world? When someone who has never been given the fright of inadequacy enters industry with the old schoolers of my generation, their self esteem may be in for a really rude awakening!

HOW MANY KIDS?

All my kids in Largs
Originally uploaded by PhylB

Time and again I find myself being asked how many kids I have. My answer often shocks. On a Friday, for example, I take the two wee ones to Mother and Toddlers, and I am often asked things like - How are you finding it now you have 2? Last Saturday Charlotte and Léon were invited to a party so I took them and Anna, leaving Marcel to play golf with my dad. Again I was asked by strangers if Anna was my 3rd baby. Always when I reply 4, people look stunned and invariably, because they have one or two kids themselves, ask How do you cope? I started to analyse it. Obviously I have experience of having an only child - I did that for 29 months. I have experience of having just 2 - that lasted five and a half years. I have been mum to 3 - for nearly two and a half years. And now I'm trying out 4. My experience ironically, given the average number of kids people have, is that the hardest number of kids to have - by a mile - is actually 2. When you have 1, you have to entertain them more but there is no niggling. Personally, I'd rule out 1 as being too high maintenance. When you have just two, especially when they are within a few years of each other, their main pastime, from they learn to talk until they leave home is fighting, arguing, winding, niggling... There is no one there to distract or change the focus so the two kid family is sibling rivalry all the road. When you throw a third wee baby into the mix, 1 and 2 still fight but they are distracted several times a day by this bright shiny new sibling. It brings out their protective instinct - the 2 fighting sibs suddenly find themselves on the same side admiring number 3, loving number 3, playing with number 3. Number 4 simply strengthens that position. It gives more reasons for the older ones to help, love and be on the same side. I think the mistake many people make these days is to get to two, feel tired and stressed and assume coping with any more would just be too hard. I would suggest, given that childcare for 2 is now so expensive many women are giving up working anyway, that more should at least try out a third - just to see if I am right!

ANOTHER COUNCIL RANT!

Here is a photo of my house. The brown building you can barely see on the right is my very old, falling-to-pieces garage. We assumed when we bought this house that replacing this old garage with a new model the same size would be a breeze. But of course I should have factored in East Renfrewshire council's policy of making as much money as possible doing very little or preferably nothing. First of all I was surprised to hear I needed planning permission at all given the starting point is a house with a 10ft by 18ft garage and the end point is also a house with a 10ft by 18ft garage in exactly the same position - simply of a better quality - surely the council would prefer people to look after their buildings thus keeping the price of property high by maintaining its desirability? So I need planning permission and the price of them rubber-stamping something that I am told they won't even look at is £145... or so I thought. When the council looked at the map, they discovered we were not midway up the street but on the corner with a neighbour on just one side. Why does that make a difference you may ask. Well according to the money-grabbing, anything-for-an-easy-buck council, if I have open land on one side rather than a neighbour who can be notified of the change of one garage for another, they need to put a public advert in the local paper so people can complain if they so desire, and the cost of that ad is supposedly an extra £95. So to replace a garage with a garage costs an absurd £240 before you even look at building a garage! Daylight robbery!

IKEA KITCHENS

As I twittered the other day, we've been having fun with IKEA's kitchens. It all came about by accident. Thomas and I went to IKEA last week and were looking predominantly at wooden and white kitchens. One of us, I am no longer sure which, suggested that the high gloss coloured kitchen doors we had seen would be daring but given they didn't have an in-store model it'd be a bit too brave to opt for it in the dark. I googled IKEA to see if they had a picture on their website and realized the prices were in dollars, oops, I was in IKEA USA. I switched and immediately noticed the examples of kitchens and decor in the UK were different. Excellent! That meant that by hopping from IKEA USA to UK to Sweden to Japan to Canada etc I'd get lots of decor ideas.
Above are 3 kitchens as advertised on Canada, Russia and UK respectively. Trawling the 3 sites I found IKEA assumes Canadians won't buy wide drawers, Russians prefer black to green, they don't seem to sell green doors in Russia at all. Looking in detail at all the kitchen ranges worldwide, I became fascinated by the job of IKEA kitchen brochure photographer! Often whole cabinet fronts are changed, the cooker hood is swapped over but the vegetables on the work surface remain untouched. Sometimes a full glass of juice in one photo becomes a half glass in another - I guess whoever changed the fronts got thirsty! Looks fun, though - maybe I'll apply for that kind of photography job just for the fun of seeing how it is done!
Of course another thing occurred to me while I was trotting the globe - a price comparison. I was gobsmacked to find, for example, that IKEA Sweden, the mothership itself, charges exactly twice as much as IKEA Denmark for several of their identical models, despite similar taxes. Naughty - I suppose they are counting on home-grown loyalty. I, for one, would be driving to Copenhagen if I happened to live in Malmö. And even in the EURO zone they don't hide this fact. I found a kitchen being sold for around 1900 Euros in both Italy and Spain retailing at a mere 700 Euros in Belgium! (Dad says there has to be some incentive to move to Belgium!)
All in all I had a fun day surfing my kitchen-to-be!
Oh, and I wonder if I am becoming too frequent a visitor to IKEA... as I turned into the car park yesterday my parents had to laugh when a little voice from the back seat exclaimed: Yeah! Léon's havin' meatballs!

BUBBLES!

Bubbles!
Originally uploaded by PhylB

The first time little kids see bubbles is always a laugh. I don't know how many times Anna tried to catch them on Monday when I was playing with them. Though I guess I was probably even funnier to watch given I was blowing them then jumping for the camera, then throwing that to one side for the bubble bottle over and over! It is really difficult to be the blower and the photographer at the same time without getting the camera all soapy! I need a photographer's assistant.

ASDA JOINS THE POLY BAG MAFIA

ASDA Hollingbury
Originally uploaded by Dominic's pics

Gimme strength! ASDA has decided as of this week to join the poly bag mafia. Get this - you go in the door and they have not one but three big 'Recycle your ASDA poly bags here' bins. They have had for over a year so once a month or so I have remembered to take up all my poly bags and put them in their bin. That is supposed to make me feel I've saved the planet though we all know poly bags are less than 0.1% of the oil problem in the world. Ok I'll go along with this nonsense - it keeps the kitchen cupboard tidier. So today I take up - and I am not joking, a whole shopping trolley of bags as I am tidying out my kitchen this week. I go in the door, I post them all into their bin and I do my shopping. When I get to the checkout the operator asks Do you have your own bags with you? Well I did have but I posted them in your poly bag bin at the entrance - isn't that what it's for? Oh poly bags are an under-the-counter item now, I'm afraid she elaborated. A what???? I want a poly bag for my shopping not a porn movie! You really need to buy reusable ones at 5p each. That'll be bloody likely - the shopping is 30% dearer than last year and I just posted 200 bags in your bin so give me some of your under-the-counter free bags now! If they are going to start charging for bags but not rewarding for the ones you bring back then it doesn't add up. I am happy to recycle all my bags but my handbag is already over-full with nappies, changes of clothes etc so I sure don't want to have to carry 10 polybags everywhere I go in case I happen to need to pop into a supermarket.
I'm off to Tesco - well till they get stupid too :-(

UK CHILDCARE - HOW IS IT SUPPOSED TO ADD UP?

I'm getting more and more annoyed trying to work out how a family is supposed to operate in this country. I have just enquired how much 2 nursery places will cost when I finish maternity leave. I spoke to an average-priced private nursery in the suburbs, not an expensive city one. You can only use private nursery as state nursery only offers a session from 12-45pm - 3-45pm for a 3-4 year old and a place 9am-12pm for a 4-5 year old. That doesn't fit in with any job in this country. So there we have it. I can either have 2 full time places costing £1270.80 a month or 2 morning places (8-30am - 12-30pm) costing £677 a month. Work that one out - either £15249.60 a year or £8125 a year. The diesel I use in my car to get to the office and the nursery is now costing me £1.26 a litre (it was 92p a litre when I stopped for maternity leave 5 months ago). I use on average 160 litres a month, so add £201 a month to the nursery bill (that's assuming diesel doesn't go up at all in the next 6 months, which I guess is unlikely given it's gone up more than 30% in the last 6). If I decide to work full time, I need after school care and holiday cover for Marcel and Charlotte at an average cost of £470 a month for 2 places, ie £5651 a year. So to work full time my annual outlay for just childcare and diesel at today's prices is £23312 after tax. That means to cover just childcare and petrol I need a gross income of £35k+ to break even. Add to that an average £150k mortgage at £900 a month and food and I am left wondering where you get a job you can live off, even as a couple.

PREPARING FOR KITCHENS

We have exactly one week left to prepare two whole rooms in the house for demolition, more or less. So we got up this morning ready to rock. Spurred on by Vista collapsing on my computer for the 2nd time this year, I needed to look for my recovery disc anyway, so I started by bagging all sorts of paperwork and unopened letters left over from the flat days. Marcel and Charlotte negotiated treats for work and then actually contributed nearly 3 hours each. Lots went through old toy boxes throwing stuff out and Marcel packed carloads of rubbish to take to the dump, tidied and even asked if we could point out weeds in the garden so he could help with that. (Did aliens abduct the real Marcel?) Thomas moved the tumble drier and some other boxes amongst other things. We worked from we got up till 5pm... so why does the house look worse now than when we started? We are still knee-deep in rubbish... I decided at one point to tidy the garage a bit as it is next on the list. When tidying one corner, I was a bit perturbed by the fact that it seemed to buzz every time I moved anything. After several minutes observing it, I noticed a line of bees (not wasps - phew) entering and leaving by the door. I doubt they'll be overly pleased when they find out it is scheduled for demolition in about a month's time...
Anyway, time for bed, if tomorrow is to be another hard day... Poor Pudge and Anna are getting a bit bored with all this already.

A CAGED GENERATION

Children in Cage
Originally uploaded by Mr. Guybrarian

I like to watch Child of our Time, given that the 25 kids it is following were all born within days of Charlotte. I generally like the psychological tests and know instinctively whether or not Lots would have conformed to the general outcomes. When they were analysing how the kids conformed along gender lines last week, I just knew Charlotte, if left to her own devices, had she been chosen for the study, would not have come out the changing room in the mini-adult pink sparkly dress all the other girls chose, for example.
This week was interesting on many levels. It followed 24 hours in all 25 8 year old kids' lives. The statistics it gave were dreadful. I felt more and more smug as the programme went on because I realized I was actually doing better than most of the families.

The first surprising statistic was that only 3 of 25 kids ever sat at a table with the rest of their family for an evening meal. The majority ate quick foods in front of the TV on the couch. In some families the mum ate at a table with the kids while the dad came home too late. The last and also popular scenario was one where the kids were fed and sent to bed before the adults even started to think about their meal. Twenty two of the twenty five kids had no concept of a family meal. That in itself might not seem important but the dinner table is a place where families talk about their day. It is a place of communication. Communication between partners but also as your kids get older and want to spend more time with friends or in front TV, a small chance for you to have relaxed communication with your child. Having spent years married to a man who came home and checked the microwave after we'd eaten every night, I set that as one of the rules for my new life. We'd have a meal at the table every night at about the same time and it would only be moved or cancelled in exceptional circumstances. There are 2 more rules in my house: no toys at the table, no texting at the table. This may annoy the kids but it means the family meal is just that - a family meal. I sat gobsmacked watching kids play, read, text, even play play station while eating alone. They did everything but eat and talk.
The next astounding statistic was the number of hours kids watched TV or played PS2 (and the likes). Ask my kids, I am the first to rant constantly that they are turning into zombies, that the TV has to go off and I jump up and down like an irate lunatic. So I was worse than horrified to find out my kids actually were at the low end of the TV hours scale. There were kids watching 9 hours in a row on there!
Next, but no surprise to me were the hot house kids, as I like to refer to them. I see them at my kids' school every day. I mean the kids that are enrolled in so many afterschool activities that they don't actually get a minute to draw a breath. They run from school to football, to piano, to chess, to karate. They have to buy a takeaway and eat it in the car as they don't actually get home till bedtime and their parents are always moaning their kids can't fit in homework. And the parents, of course, never see each other! I sat in horror watching a crazy mother driving her kid to tennis lessons 4 times a week over an hour's drive from home, returning all 4 nights at bedtime. The 8 year old cried a tantrumed in such a dangerous manner beside her in the car from exhaustion, that I genuinely think she should have stopped driving as she couldn't possibly have been concentrating on the road. What benefit is this regime to an 8 year old? I have nothing against the odd afterschool activity - My 2 big ones have tried several: football, martial arts, badminton, swimming, tennis - but an hour, 2 at most a week, never 4pm-8pm every night. Let them have time to relax, play, use their imagination!
Finally, and worst of all I sat with my mouth hanging open as the parents discussed the freedom they allowed their kids. I thought back to 8 - I was allowed to walk to school, walk to a friend's house, walk from my granny's to the corner shop and buy Saturday breakfast - rolls, eggs, juice and a few added extras. I could play in the field behind my house, in neighbours' gardens and generally wander about my estate. By 9 I was cycling to school on the road with no helmet! I can't remember the exact numbers but I know only 1 child in this study was granted the freedom I had at that age. Two, perhaps three more were allowed to play outside their garden but within sight of their parents. They weren't allowed to walk to school either. The most shocking was the fact that many of the kids weren't allowed in their own garden, none were allowed to the park. This wasn't because of traffic levels, which are much worse since we were kids but because people actually believed kids were so likely to be kidnapped or abducted that they wouldn't allow them out. Time and time again parents said they preferred their kids alone upstairs on a PS2 because they knew where they were! Don't people realize that abductions hit the headlines because they are uncommon, not because they are common? How are these kids, caged till 16, going to cope when they are thrown out into the world? When they are forced to leave home to go the uni or whatever, before they have even learned to cross the road alone. What damage are these people inflicting on their kids?
I let my kids cross the road and go shopping alone. Charlotte can go see granny just as Little red riding hood did many moons ago. They can go play football out of my sight in the field. Lots is allowed to go cycling up and down the pavements round the corner in neighbouring streets away from my line of vision. I have given them mobile phones so I can contact them. I am not 100% happy when they are out of my sight, no parent is, but I am 100% sure I am better preparing them for adulthood than by locking them in a bedroom alone. What will these kids remember of their childhoods? What life skills will they lack? How will they know how to parent themselves?

A FLAG-WAVING NATION

I mentioned a few Danish idiosyncrasies last month when we returned from Denmark. A final one, which I overlooked at the time, came to my attention last night. Thomas came home from work full of joy at the realization that Anna was exactly 5 months old. He couldn't bake her a birthday cake as she's too wee for cake so he headed for the fruit bowl and squished her a banana. He then stuck a Danish flag in it! I suddenly remembered Denmark's flag obsession. One of the first things you notice when you walk down the street in a village or even suburbia is that every 2nd house has a flagpole in the garden usually topped with a rather strange skinny version of a Danish flag. When we first arrived at Anna's grandparents' house, they had raised a proper Danish flag in her honour. You can actually buy large (several-metres-tall) flag poles in your small-town sized supermarket, off the shelf along with your bread and sausages! And there is at least half an aisle devoted to flags to decorate your house, your cake, your car, your fridge - you name it! This might not surprise an American reader but as a Scot this is extremely alien. At 40 I have never received a birthday cake topped by a Scottish saltire, I have never once put saltire bunting on my house, waved a saltire or felt the need to buy a flagpole. I wouldn't know where to buy one if my life depended on it... I wonder, if Scotland was to adopt this flagmania, how quick my dad would be to plant a large saltire in the middle of his front lawn (mum-permitting!)?

WHERE TO PUT THE KIDS?

Having just seen this in the flesh in ASDA car park, I am wondering whether they are likely to make a 7-seater version? :-\ It was my first love in cars and though I tend to be a driver of very big cars these days, I still have a soft spot for these. If I win the lotto tomorrow (though I guess statistically this is unlikely given I have never ever played lotto), I will be buying myself one for use on any trips where there are fewer than 4 occupants in the car. It is just stunning, and cute into the bargain. Failing that I guess I'll buy one once the kids leave home...

THE UNEXPECTED QUESTION

7 Green Bottles
Originally uploaded by Sean Stayte

One of the best bits about parenting is the unexpected questions. You've known something all your life, you just accept it. Then you tell your child and they ask you something really wacky.
Today I was feeding Anna so all I could do to entertain Léon was sing. Fed up with Incy Wincy, I tried Ten Green Bottles for a change. Léon listened, smiled a bit and when I stopped singing he asked seriously: What was in the bottles? Now there's something no one ever told me!

A MUDDY BATH

With everyone grumpy this morning, I thought a nice bath might cheer us up. I filled it up, put Léon in and picked up Anna. As I stepped in myself Anna grabbed the leaves on the pot plant on the window ledge and pulled it into the water with us... so I was back to square one. Two grumpy babies and a bath to empty, clean out a refill before we could start our nice bath :-(

RETURN OF THE COWBOYS

cowboy gang
Originally uploaded by sibhusky2

I guess John Wayne and his gang have struck again. We're still trying to get to the bottom of the missing cooker socket in our kitchen. On saturday we had an electrician friend round. We asked him if he knew what the problem was. He went into the cupboard to look at the fuse box and returned, never having been upstairs in our house and asked, knowingly, 'You have an electric power shower somewhere in the house, don't you?' 'How did you guess?' we asked, only to be told that they'd wired the power shower through the cooker switch on our circuit board. Don't you just love our cowboy house?

THOMAS'S TOOL

Thomas's tool
Originally uploaded by PhylB

Thomas at his happiest when he finds a kitchen tool he doesn't yet have. Today he found a machine that not only simultaneously peels and cores an apple but also thinly slices it perfectly to make good old American apple pie. Of course I did laugh myself silly in Tk Maxx watching his delight at unearthing this contraption and subjected him to all sorts of ridicule. Unfortunately when we got home, I actually had to admit that it was quite cool and the apple definitely tasted better like that - Oh god, he's turning me into a kitchen utensil nerd :-(

SUSHI - GLASGOW STYLE

Today Thomas suggested we should go try the sushi bar in Silverburn shopping centre as we needed petrol at Tesco anyway. It turns out you can eat there for a reasonable price and it is fun to choose your dinner by colour-coded bowls rather than actually knowing what you are about to eat! We tried about 10 dishes for £25. The best, I think, was the salmon sushi, though I did like the deep-fried aubergines too. Not all Glaswegians are quite ready for sushi though. Standing in front of the sushi place a couple passed. He suggested 'trying sushi', she gave him a withering look and said she wasn't about to have 'sticky rice and deed fish' for her lunch - (I think you'll find it's raw, not just dead...) I was, however, touched by a slightly more adventurous couple, pictured here in the background of my photo. A grandson and grandmother sat down. He seemed genuinely pleased granny had joined him and asked what she was having. He took a prawn and rice something and tucked in with his chopsticks while she carried on cautiously watching the little dishes trundle by on the belt. Eventually, probably around when the octopus passed, she suddenly claimed not to be overly hungry and reached out to the belt. I was surprised this little old granny had the courage to try but of course she simply took the chocolate cheesecake in a little sushi bowl - one of only 3 desserts I saw passing while he ate all the other fishy delights.

TALKING ANNA

Anna has taken to talking a lot. She does it a bit during the day but her very favourite time of the day for a conversation or monologue is 4am :-( I'm sure what she's saying is very interesting and I can definitely see the beginnings of language in her lip positions. She herself is definitely very serious and passionate about it, but I haven't a clue what she's on about!

If you can't see the attached clip (I have been having a problem seeing flickr videos in Internet explorer, though Mozilla Firefox is working fine) then click on this link.

Talking Anna
Originally uploaded by PhylB

NETTLE NUMPTY

stinging nettles
Originally uploaded by urtica

It's been a bad week for nettles. As Léon mentioned in his blog the other day, he was already suffering all sorts of itches, so the last thing he needed this week was to learn the hard way what jaggy nettles are.

Thomas and I were sitting on a log by the canal having a picnic when Léon decided to join us without warning. He had been at our feet watching the ducks. He crawled up beside us on the log and sat down in floods of tears muttering about nasty plants. He raised the legs of his shorts to expose two legs covered in scores of white sores all the way from his knee to his shin. We concluded he had crawled through a stinging nettle to get to us. Poor wee man, nasty jaggy nettles.

Today we were gardening - I noticed a very large nettle in our garden and remembered poor Leon's pain. Thoughtfully, I took a spade and dug it out from the root. I brought over the organic waste bin. I made sure not to touch the leaves and picked it up by the stalk in the middle. I remembered from childhood that the stalk is ok, it is only the leaves that sting, and given this was a huge plant with a central stem about 2cm wide, I wasn't taking any chances. The bloody thing instantly burned my thumb badly... hmmm was it actually thistles you are meant to hold by the stalk? I am no longer sure - but it sure isn't jaggy nettles - my thumb has been throbbing all day, worse than my last wasp sting, and that was a queen! :-( I guess that makes me a nettle numpty.

FLICKR VIDEOS

Léon at the beach
Originally uploaded by PhylB

I joined youtube ages ago but I never get round to uploading anything to it as Thomas either uploads things to his account, or I am simply never on that page. Over the last few weeks I have been meaning to try flickr's new video uploading facility. After my trip to the beach on Tuesday, I had taken a tiny clip of Léon and figured it was a perfect size to try. It worked fine and was available on my usual site for my usual audience without any hassles. I'll definitely use it for wee short clips in the future.

DARLING NO MORE

This made me smile today - I wonder if there is any mileage in barring him from the petrol stations too?

A TUMMY EXACTLY 15 MINUTES BIG!

breastfed legs!
Originally uploaded by PhylB

My little Anna is funny. Some days she suckles on and off the breast all day, others she is more business-like. Daytime feeds can last less than a minute of hours of comfort but little milk. But during the night, I have noticed over the last few weeks, almost every feed starts around 4-20am and takes exactly 15 minutes - never 14 or 16, exactly 15 - sweet.
Oh, and don't you love what the breastmilk has done to her legs!? How come on a baby those legs are just gorgeous but on an adult woman the same legs would be considered hideous!?

A WEBER CHIMNEY

I know that I am 40 but I have never in my life tried to start a barbecue.
This probably is related to my ex-husband's barbecuing habits. Barbecues with André tended to consist of an hour of him lighting copious old newspapers in a vain attempt to light some charcoal. Thereafter, with dinner running late and family assembled, he tended to throw on the sausages as soon as the coals did finally catch fire, leading to black-on-the-outside, raw-on-the-inside sausages which my family constantly cringed at. I explained at every barbecue that we should wait till the coals heated and the flames died but he was a bit impulsive, so we just never got there.
Consequently, I always assumed barbecues were beyond me.
Tonight Thomas asked me to start one and have the coals ready for him coming home from work. Arg! That's a tall order! He must have had faith in me, though. He has bought a Weber Chimney Starter so I figured I could try and if I failed, I failed.
I took out the chimney contraption. I stuffed 3 pages from the Glasgow Herald in the bottom. I put 60 charcoal bricks in the top and I took 1 match. It lit in less than a minute and 40 minutes later my coals were glowing beautifully. The barbecued food was absolutely perfect.
I think this would be the perfect gift for André. If we actually got on these days instead of fighting every time we try to have a conversation, I'd buy him one, but given we don't, I won't! :-\

THE RIGHT HAND DOESN'T KNOW WHAT THE LEFT IS DOING

I was parked in ASDA car park yesterday in a Parent and Child bay. The stupidity of it got me really annoyed! Why? I don't have a problem given Charlotte has a booster seat, Léon has a child seat and Anna an infant seat. So if I park there I am unlikely to get a £60 ticket slapped on my windscreen. However, imagine Anna was my first child. I drive into the Parent and Child bay completely legitimately, and what do I see parked 3 metres from the bay? I see these wonderful parent-friendly trolleys. Great, no need to waken the little angel up, I'll just take out the infant seat.

I go round ASDA, I do my shopping and I come out to a fine stuck to my window because, by using their parent-friendly trolley, I remove from my car the evidence that I am a legitimate user of the space! How stupid is that? When I finish my trip round ASDA, the last thing I need is to then have to look for a traffic warden to show I do have a child with me, then no doubt to be told that they can't cancel the ticket, but I have to write in some kind of appeal. Especially as my frozen food sits thawing in my fancy baby-friendly/ or not-so-friendly trolley!

Oh and another thing - when is ASDA going to add pregnant woman on to the parent bay, as Tesco has? Personally, I always find carrying many heavy shopping bags to the far corner of the car park when I am 9 months pregnant and ineligible for this space much more tiring than nipping into ASDA unpregnant with Charlotte, when I do qualify because I have her booster seat along with me.

Get the logic sorted ASDA!