POOR PUDGE

Poor Pudge seems to have broken out in a terrible eczema rash in the last 36 hours. Who knows what has set it off, or what to avoid in the future - I just know I have to get him to the doc in the morning to get something to ease his itching, poor wee guy. And hopefully get some allergy testing set up so we can avoid this in the future. What a worry...

GOODBYE ROSE

Place of conception
Originally uploaded by viralbus

It went through! The flat sale finally went through on Friday at around 1pm. We got an email confirming they had released the keys to 'Eleanor', the new owner, and later in the afternoon, we passed her coming out of the front door (and interestingly going straight into the letting agency next door - curious!), so she must definitely have coughed up the money, even if it'll float around some intermediate place for a couple of weeks before finally showing up in Thomas's account so we can clear all the credit cards that have got us through since September 07.
What a relief... though I'll miss free(ish) parking in town and the ability to quickly run to Sauchiehall street for a quick shopping spree, or Cambridge street for an Italian meal.

YUCK!

I passed this yesterday on the south bank of the river Clyde and I must admit it turned my stomach. I know I am not much of a drinker but find it hard to imagine anyone could face 'Alcohol at 8am' except my old deceased Gramps of course!

POTTY ABOUT HIS POTTY!

At last! After a week of clueless pee and poo everywhere around the house, in pants and everywhere else, followed by a week of pee and poo in the wrong places but at least accompanied by an embarrassed look, Léon has finally got it! Completely. He says potty, he uses it, he pees over and over looking very proud, and wants to carry it by himself to the loo and even waves it goodbye as he flushes it away! And he poos in it too - hurray! We're definitely on the right side of the hill now - a week from now, I estimate, we'll even manage ASDA in a pair of pants - what a clever wee man :-)

DO BLONDES HAVE MORE FUN?

Having looked at this, I am absolutely convinced no one actually suits blonde hair - in fact I'm away to dye mine dark brown!

SNOW PHOTOGRAPHY

The BBC liked my pegs :-) (Number 7)

EASY TO PLEASE

As you know, the past 5 months have been difficult. Two mortgages taking the entire salary on the first day of every month, no child maintenance and latterly 4 kids and me on maternity leave, has left few spare pennies for enjoyment. Santa is crumbling under the weight of his visa bill at the moment. With the flat sale potentially going through tomorrow, (fingers, toes and eyes crossed), Thomas asked the kids where they would like to go for dinner next week to celebrate if they could choose any restaurant in Glasgow... Charlotte jumped in immediately with: Can we go for meatballs in Ikea? I am speechless - she really is a child of minimal ambition!

PROUD OF HIS BIG BOY BED

 

Now Léon is getting the hang of potty, we thought we'd let him move into his big boy bed, complete with car duvet as a way of acknowledging his achievement. It was love at first sight. He looked happier than he had on receiving his Xmas presents, and definitely more proud. He went happily to bed without a moan and fell asleep quickly.

POST-IRONING PONDERINGS

I've just been ironing for about 4 hours - why did I think a family of 6 was a good idea? Anyway, I know I used to ponder socks while dealing with laundry (I still do - I will blog my odd socks next time I have a spare minute). However what struck me tonight was the different stages kids go through with relation to underwear... depending on their age and sex. Now, I was doing about 6 days ironing, so as you may imagine the basket contained 6 pairs of adult female pants, 6 pairs of adult male pants, and even, slightly surprisingly 6 pairs of little 8 year-old girl pants - however there seems to be a huge difference between boys of 2 and 10 - and I am in doubt as to which is best! My basket contained only 1 (yeuch) pair of 10 year old boy pants, and 18 (yeuch) pairs of age 2 boys pants!

CHARLOTTE

 

Charlotte was thrilled to find it had snowed for her 8th birthday! Pity it didn't lie longer.

A DECENT-SIZED FRIDGE

I already moaned about this house's cowboy appliances. We happened upon a thermometer in the flat the other day so decided to measure the temperature inside our dodgy built-in fridge - an impressive 11°C. Over Xmas Thomas had turned off the heating in both the porch and the kitchen-to-be in order to store extra drinks and vegetables for the big family meal on 26 December. We measured it - a slightly better 6°C. So I have just suggested we turn off the fridge altogether and move everything to the porch until we can afford a new fridge :-\

SIBLING GENETICS

Siblings are puzzling. Take Marcel and Charlotte. When they are sitting about downstairs with us, Charlotte appears on the surface to be more willing to help with setting the table, or tidying the living room. She argues and grumps less when asked to lend a hand. One might even be tempted to conclude that she is less lazy, more helpful and tidier. However, when you set foot in their own rooms, a whole other story shows itself. If I open Marcel's bedroom door, I may find the odd sweetie wrapper or empty coke can, and if I open his wardrobe, the clean washing I have asked him to put away is there inside neatly in piles of T-shirts, underwear, school clothes etc, all on separate shelves, much as I would do myself. Charlotte's room, on the other hand, if you can get the door open, is a minefield of dirty clothes strewn on the floor, her wardrobe has everything I have just ironed, thrown in together on one shelf and often mixed with dirty clothes she has put back in the wardrobe (arg). This is as far from my own personality as you get. Even looking in her wardrobe makes me a nervous wreck. I couldn't bear to live in such a chaotic way. I find it interesting that on the surface I feel she is more like me, while scratching it shows quite the opposite. I think Marcel is fairly lazy but likes order, whereas Charlotte, though dynamic and helpful, can tolerate a much higher level of chaos. It will be interesting to visit their homes as adults. I fear Charlotte's student dorm may be so scary, I may find myself twitching nervously for days after a visit! And to be quite frank, I think they would both do well to work hard at school, as both would function better as adults, if they manage to earn a salary high enough to pay for 'staff' ;-)
I wonder what Léon and Anna will bring to the chaos in a few years time?

SNOWMEN

As Léon mentioned on his own blog, he found his first real encounter with snow yesterday linguistically challenging. Over breakfast, he kept pointing at the garage saying 'snowman house', this was later followed by my car being described as a 'snowman car'. As the morning went on however, it became clear, Léon simply lacked the words 'snowy' and 'made of snow' in his vocabulary and was therefore using a word he knows well from Charlotte's early childhood fetish, assigning it these meanings!

EXTRA WASHING

In the washing basket
Originally uploaded by viralbus

I think it is fair to say we have now calculated, in real terms, the maximum number of inhabitants a house can have in winter in Scotland without a tumble drier and still continue to function. Unfortunately that number seems to be 2 adults and 3 children. At that point, doing a daily washing, using a clothes horse, all free radiators, door tops and the backs of the dining room chairs meant we seemed to have reached a static all in use always situation. Throwing a dribbly, pooing December baby into the mix however has made the status quo untenable. Roll on the flar sale so I can order the tumble drier!

ALL THE BUCHANAN GRANDCHILDREN

How likely is it that you get 5 kids, including 3 babies all sitting nicely and staring in the right direction for a group family photo? Amazing, no? So how bloody infuriating is it to upload it only to find out the silly plonker, whose camera you borrowed to take it, has it set on a resolution of a mere 800x531 pixels - ie something you can't even blow up to the size of a postage stamp to print for the living room wall or office desk. Now that'd be bad enough if it was taken with a 2 mega pixel mobile phone but it is a bloody Nikon DSLR no less. DAD ARE YOU INSANE????? Why buy a DSLR and set it on 800x531 as a standard?? Our Sony alpha is set at approx 3500x2323 standard, that way if you get a nice photo of the grandchildren you can blow it up to A4, and if you don't you can simply resize it before you save it. PLEASE stop using a Nikon DSLR to take photos at a worse resolution than Thomas's mobile phone - or swap him your Nikon for his mobile phone at the very least, you crazy old fool!

GLASGOW, XMAS 2007

The Great Santa Escape - Glasgow Santa Dash 2007
Originally uploaded by euan_pics

Pity I was too busy having a baby this Xmas to multitask - looks like I missed a bit of a photo opportunity in the city centre a couple of weekends back! :-)

POTTY TRAINING - THE UPDATE

Today's potty training didn't seem any better. Today Léon managed one pee on Charlotte's back, while playing horses, one pee on his aquadraw - making for an interesting shape, and one poo in a nappy during a trip to Tesco :-( So much for the nice new Bob the builder and Thomas the Tank Engine pants...

MONOPOLY, MODERN STYLE

monopoly, modern style
Originally uploaded by PhylB

Thomas's parents bought Marcel monopoly for his birthday in July. With a 2 year old and an 11 day old baby, we couldn't find a function to attend to bring in the new year, so decided letting the big ones stay up past midnight to play monopoly while drinking shloer, was a reasonable compromise. The first thing that struck me about the new monopoly was the inflationary hike in prices. My 1970s London version gave me £200 for passing go. This new Danish version gave me 2 000 000 Danish Kroner (about £200 000).
The chance cards were also more modern: I won a million in a reality TV programme and was fined for using my mobile while driving!
Even the tokens were modern: a mobile phone, a hamburger and a roller blade boot!
The hotels (see photo) are now NY-type sky scrapers, but the most radical, if you look at the photo has to be that there is no money any more! Thomas is paying his 1 million fine for landing on Marcel's hotel by VISA, and Marcel is registering it on his electronic card reader!
I feel old!

POTTY TRAINING

Potty training
Originally uploaded by bombhead

With us all home for the next 2 weeks, now seems like the optimum time for potty training. I had intended to start about 8 weeks ago but as I was completely unable to bend over to scrub the carpet, I decided it had to be on hold till after the bump arrived. So today we started. Two potties were strategically placed downstairs, old pants were looked out, bribes of chocolate were offered, we explained how big a boy he'd be to use his potty, how only babies needed nappies etc etc. And the result 12 hours on? No pees in the potty, 4 wet pairs of pants and, I believe absolutely no clue of what he is meant to be doing! :-( Tomorrow I am going to take him to choose some 'big boy' pants of his own in the hope that will inspire him slightly more...

DÉJÀ VU

German Wasp
Originally uploaded by markopoulos

Is it something about January? You may remember my rant when I was unexpectedly stung by a wasp in January last year. That was in the flat in Glasgow, so imagine my surprise this evening when Thomas came down stairs in the house holding another dead wasp, explaining he'd encountered it walking along our upstairs hall - give me strength. Is it global warming, or just victimization?