Name of the Day

From The Times, 6th August:

"Zavodna-Reekie-Black. On 29th July 2009, to Magda and Matthew, a first born son, Eduard Charles, Deo Gratis"

Assume 'Deo Gratis' is not part of Eduard's nomenclature, along with his triple-barrelled-surname and vaguely mis-spelled first name.


Am sad that hubby & I didn't think of announcing the arrival of DC in The Times, something along the lines of

"Wilkinson. On 20th March 2009, to Wifey and Hubby, a first born son, 17 days late, very wrinkled in appearance, somewhat pretentiously given three first names in vain attempt at social ladder-climbing."

What's in a Name?

Mostly (or not quite mostly) I am a grown up and I know right from wrong. I know it is wrong to laugh at other people, but sometimes I just can't help myself. There were times in the past when I watched You've Been Framed and nearly wet myself, and this was pre-childbirth so things must have been really funny. Today something tickled me almost as much as seeing an old lady/small child/cute puppy fall in to a hedge/pond/muddy puddle.

Let me give you the background. My job involves reading and indexing the Business section of The Times newspaper. Yawnsville, I know, but my knowledge of quantitative easing is second to none and I bet there's not many people can say that. At the end of the business news comes the Register where you will find the Hatch, Match & Dispatch column, more properly known as Births, Deaths & Marriages. This morning as I was indexing the August 4th edition, my eye came to rest on the Births column, and after a few small smiles at such names as:

Francesca Clementine Aurelia, a sister for Maximilian

Gracie Blue, a cousin for Coco

and

Jonathan Tiger

I must admit I guffawed at the following - this is the announcement in its entirety:

"Whipple On 4th July 2009, to Deborah (nee Lonsdale) and Richard, a daughter, Miranda Zara Susannah, a sister for Edward and Araminta"

Araminta Whipple.

I was so absolutely taken by this name that I decided to Google it, and it would appear that I'm not the only one. If you are of a kindly nature, you probably won't want to look at

http://www.youcalledyourkidwhat.blogspot.com/

Having noticed that this blog hasn't been updated for a year, I might take up where it left off and update you with any choice little morsels I pick up from The Times.

Kitchen Update

All the units are in, the painting is done, the tiles are up, we even have a sink! All that's left is to move the dresser in and get down to some serious titivating and tweaking. Once we've done that, I'll post even more photos. Bet you can hardly wait...

Here's what has happened in our kitchen over the last few weeks:

21st July

Orange pine-tastic!

Finding it hard to believe just how truly horrendous it looked, although admittedly since we knew it was about to be ripped out, we didn't exactly worry about the 'Life of Grime' look that we had going on.

25th July

Health and safety alert - small child in middle of demolition zone. What kind of parent would allow such a thing?

1st August

First units in

3rd August
Lots of units in, plus worktops, but no sink (for a week.) Sinks are for wimps.

18th August

The decorating begins with the most boring bit - preparation; that's why we get someone else in to do the decorating for us. Plus it means it gets done properly and with no arguments.

20th August

Second coat of paint on walls and ceiling; woodwork undercoated; some tiles affixed

21st August

Finished

YAY!

Bounty!

Here's a taster of some of the goodies hubby has dragged home from his allotment in the last couple of weeks.

Suggestions for courgette recipes gratefully received. We have so far enjoyed courgette cake (yum!) and courgette curry (also yum, but not as yum as the cake.)

What luck DC is (very slowly) learning to eat. Pureed courgette, little man?

Food, Glorious Food!

On Thursday, DC had his first taste of something other than milk (if you don't count all of the cuddly toys, rattles, books, muslins, etc that he has 'gummed'.) Baby rice, with the consistency and appearance of wallpaper paste. Luckily for us, he seems to rather enjoy it - not that we should be surprised when you think how much hubby & I like our food (although we don't have a penchant for wallpaper paste.) So, weaning has begun; DC is growing up so fast!

Eager anticipation

Not quite getting the point, although from the looks of it the box would probably taste just as good as the stuff inside

Baby rice, day two



DC has also learnt how to roll over. He can just about manage 175degrees or so and then a pesky arm gets in the way. Every now and then he works out how to move his arm, and can get flat on his tummy. This is all very lovely, except that he tends to like to practice this when we put him in his cot at bedtime. So, there he is lying on his back and we toddle downstairs all set for a quiet evening and then, a little while later, there's a plaintive cry from upstairs and we have to go and rescue a small child who has got himself stuck not quite on his tummy.

A Happy Washing Line

Doing the laundry isn't so bad when your washing line ends up looking this happy.

Who knew that having a baby had such advantages?!

Growing Up Fast

Today we finally got round to changing DC's pram combo so that we are no longer shoe-horning him in to the carry cot part. He's now in the pushchair part and I don't like it one little bit; feels like he's not my little baby any more. Plus there are more straps and buttons and levers and all sorts of other stuff for me to get used to, just when I thought I had it sorted. Would it be wrong to stunt his growth by forcing him in to the carry cot for a few months longer?

(not sure why it looks like DC and pram are in some sort of white-out when he was just in our hallway)

DC's first grown-up outing was to the local cafe-bar for Sunday brunch. Well, DC had a bottle of milk while hubby & I indulged in a bacon butty and lounge breakfast respectively. And then the boys read the Sports section while I enjoyed my latte.

Sink or swim

Let's see if I can't get a few of the many things I need to tell you about all fitting neatly in to one posting.

Last Saturday, the Family W attended a wedding in Henley-dahling, at the rather fancy Phyllis Court, no less. Unfortunately the weather wasn't playing ball, but that didn't dampen the spirit of the occasion and a great time was had by all. The ceremony was held in the Grandstand which overlooks the Thames, pretty much at the point where the Regatta ends - a really lovely setting. Immediately after the ceremony, we set off on a boat ride up and down the river; hubby & I really enjoyed this as we'd never been on a boat from Henley before and it was great to see the town from a different angle, not to mention all of the gorgeous houses we got to admire (enviously) and the wonderful countryside. During the ceremony and while we were on the boat, two friends very kindly looked after DC so we could relax for a few hours; when we returned from the boat ride, they brought him back and he sat very quietly during the speeches and the wedding breakfast - bless him, such a well-behaved child!















Kitchen News

When we left to go to the wedding on Saturday morning the kitchen looked like this:

Less than 36 hours later it looked like this:
Quite an improvement, I hope you'll agree. Not quite finished, and not having a sink all week has been a little awkward at times, but Tim will be back tomorrow and hopefully it will all be done by the end of the day. Except for the painting...

Then on Wednesday our new carpet will finally be fitted (not in the kitchen, I hasten to add. Carpets and kitchens don't mix, do they?), which means that apart from just a tiny little bit more decorating (paint in the kitchen, wallpaper in the bedroom replacing the current upside-down stuff, and wallpaper in the living room) we will be finished, hopefully, and it will finally feel like we can relax and actually start living here.

D.I.E.T. news
So, the plan was to lose some weight in time for the wedding last Saturday. Well, yes, that was the plan. But as Robert Burns wrote: 'The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley'. Very succintly put, Robbie. And so it happened that I managed to lose the grand total of minus 4lbs. And we all know that two negatives make a positive, so I leave you to work out what actually happened...

Busy, Busy, Busy

Am busy being a full-time mum and part-time employee so barely have time to scratch my nose let alone do some blogging in between nappy-changing, bottle-giving, pushchair-pushing, reading The Times business section (that's the work bit, in case you were wondering), proofreading (also work), going out for lunch, going out for coffee, going to a wedding, reading magazines, going shopping. Oops. Looks like maybe I'm not so busy after all.

I need to blog about the wedding, the new kitchen, W.O.R.K., D.I.E.T., magazine update, the office relocation. I know I need to blog, but I just can't seem to find the time, the energy or the inclination to do a full-on posting at the moment. DC wants you to know how sad I am about this situation:

But I promise to get cracking soon.

Work; it's a Four-Letter Word

Remember last week when I said that D.I.E.T. was the yuckiest word in the English language? I may have been wrong. I'm wondering whether W.O.R.K. might be worse. And what about if you start W.O.R.K. while you're on a D.I.E.T. (especially a D.I.E.T. that isn't going too well)?

Well, guess what? I've come to the end of my maternity leave; today I started back to work. I'm now officially a working mum. Whoop-dee-doo! Luckily, I have a job that allows me to work from home and it's just for 21 hours a week, hours which can be done at any time of day or night. So, if the urge takes me to do some work at 1.30am (as if that's likely!) here in my rather impressive office (ha!), I can.

Today I was able to fit in four hours while DC napped and also when hubby kindly took the little chap out for a walk; hopefully DC will continue his daily naps for the forseeable future, thus allowing me to cram in a little work here and there. I had thought originally about putting him in nursery one day a week and it may yet still come to that, but the nursery I wanted him to go to has had a couple of suspected cases of swine flu and, being the over-protective mother that I am, I decided I'd rather keep him at home for the time being. I may come to regret this decision when the work is piling up. Wish me luck!