Chilling at home

We were going to dump Izzy at nursery today and go for a nice lunch but Alex woke up ill so Izzy and I made yoghurt ice-lollies instead.

Angel Izzy

She likes her Christmas present from Little Sam.

2 ys, 3mths

So we've moved...
The new place is good so far, it's all quiet and there's a decent amount of space (especially since we have a massive garage in which to store stuff). But it's still taking a while to decide what furniture to buy (though all Ikea at moment) so we are still living out of a lot of boxes.

Izzy seems to have taken to it. Though initially traumatised by the lack of television, after we unpacked the TV and bought a DVD player she has only occasionally asked to go to 'the 'nother house'. Each time I've explained we live here now and she seems to accept that. I've stopped short of offering to go back to visit although I feel rather guilty we never said goodbye to our nice neighbours.

The new neighbourhood
But being here is also nice because we've had the instant community of my work colleagues to fall in with, and Izzy can finally have the company of her closest friends on weekends too. The first weekend we were here there was a colleague's Christmas party, the weekend after there was a nurserymate's baptism and, this weekend, just to show we 'ain't prejudiced against the old neighbourhood, we attended Baby Arif's first birthday party in East London.

It's nice. Just don't ask poor Alex about the commute! I think he plans on working at home a bit more.

Speaking of Arif's birthday, one of the great joys I had there was patting his poor daddy's shoulder consolingly as they unwrapped a massive heap of toys. I got this before Izzy was born - this gleam in other parents' eyes which is mostly shared happiness for you over the sheer joy of having a kid. And then there is this bit that is partly 'A-hahaha, you sucker, join the club.' Wait till they see the toys at two.

Back to the community - it's not just people. This week we are also pet-sitting a hamster, Gloria, while her mistress is in Norway for Christmas. Izzy likes and fears her at the same time, which may be a good thing because Gloria gave me quite a nip this morning when I cleaned out her cage. To be fair it was my fault because I wasn't looking at her properly when I was trying to get her out. But Izz loves it when we put Gloria into her hamster ball so Gloria gets to move round the living room. She alternately chases and runs away from Gloria, no thanks to Daddy who takes evil delight in telling her things like 'Ooh she wants to nibble your toes!'

What's funniest though is when she addresses Gloria as she does the rest of us - like a subject who should obey. First it's 'Loria... 'LORIA! GERBIL!' And, after correcting, 'Hamster... 'Loria! HAMSTER! I'm talkin' to you!'

Which brings me to the subject of Izzy and being two. Man I thought I'd seen her tantrum before... but since we moved here she's had two serious meltdowns like never before. The first time involved me getting fed up of telling her to come upstairs to sleep and to stop watching her DVD. 'After it's finished,' she kept saying.

So I picked her up and began carrying her towards the stairs. Amid the beginnings of squeals of outrage and much twisting of her self I heard a plea to walk upstairs 'myself!' (which is a big thing with Izz nowadays). But I ignored it and when we got to the top of the stairs and I dropped her on the mattress all hell broke loose.

SCREAMS of anger, and much kicking of her feet against the wall. I can't even remember what she was saying now - except that there were plentiful 'No!'s - because in my memory it is a solid wall of sound with Izzy's voice being a sort of high-pitch version of Linda Blair speaking in the Exorcist (that's not demon possessionla, that's a two-year-old tantrumming).

After trying to reason with her for a minute I decided it was pointless and left the room with Alex. As we were snickering in the bathroom down the corridor, the screaming suddenly stopped. After a pause there was a desperate thump of little feet running our way, and Izzy thrust herself into our sight again, heaving and short of breath, before throwing herself on the floor to pick up where she left off. Seriously, it's impossible not to laugh.

The second tantrum she had was a few days after. Someone had given her a chocolate at nursery. One second we are in nursery and she is all sunshine and delight, clutching the choc in her hot little hand. Next thing I know she has thrown herself down on her knees on the muddy, wet asphalt, and is crying.

'Whaaat?' I ask. ' What is the matter?'
'Don't want to open it, want to clooooose it,' she is wailing.
'What?'
She proffers the chocolate, which is covered in foil. She's scraped a little part of it open.
'Haiyaaaaaa like that also want to cry.' (She brings out the heartfelt Manglish in me.)
After making her stand up, I show her the chocolate and say 'OK look, it's really easy, OK? I'll close it back for you.' And then I make the foolish mistake of lifting up the foil in order to smooth it close again.
'NOOOOOOOOOO! DON'T OPEN IT! NO, MUMMY! NO! NO!'
She throws her head back in despair, and then starts smacking my leg in anger.
'OK, young lady, that is enough.'

And I bundle her into her car seat - it's like putting a cat into a boiling pot - and then show her the chocolate again.

'Look! I'm closing it for you, you monkey! Just wa-'

But the sight of me pulling up the foil again is more than she can bear and she reaches out, snatches the choc away from me and throws it out of the car.

At which point I lose my temper so I go 'Fine.' And slam the door shut, pick up the choc without her seeing and get in the front seat. 'If you don't want the chocolate Izzy, that's fine, alright? Don't have the chocolate then.'

And in the back seat, the young miss is practically puce and is rendering herself hoarse screaming , 'DON'T OPEN IT, CLOSE IT! CLOSE IT!' And when the car starts moving, there are new fits as she screams 'STOP, STOP, MUMMY! MY CHOCYATE! MYYYYYY CHOCYAAAAATE.'

I'm really quite mad at her at this point but I am also killing myself trying not to laugh.

And so all the way to Little Sam's house (for whom I have cake to thank him for being Izzy's big brother at the Chrismas party I missed) she is a shrieking, heaving mess of tears and snot; she manages to kick off her shoes and one sock, so furious is her angry leg waving and I figure it's probably easier if I just let her get it all out before trying to talk to her.

And then finally, after about 15 minutes of serious hard-core screaming (man I think people should try it instead of exercise to burn calories, it looks serious hard work), she can scream no more and she is just about able to carry out a conversation without being interrupted by too many sobs.

Then I bring out the chocolate. Which I have put into an empty Smarties box. Which has a cap that snaps shut. So there is no ambiguity about whether the damn chocolate is open or close. And I make her say sorry about four times, because I am still quite mad. And then I give her the damn chocolate. And she falls asleep in about 10 minutes.

Tantrums. Not all bad.

"Christmas Pudding"

Festive painting

Boo gets in the Christmas mood with a present from Father Christmas (she has no truck with 'Santa Claus') from her nursery Christmas party. Which I missed again this year because I had to be in London. But I did ask the other of the most sought-after boy in nursery to sit with her so she shared laps with little Sam and he held her hand when she went to get her present from Father Christmas. Never let it be said I don't try.

Madame's latest art work

I wonder if we can pick up any tips from 'My Kid Could Paint That'.

Izz's new chapeau

Finally decide that the product I lovingly hand-knit last year isn't really cutting the mustard now temperatures are heading towards zero. She also got two furry mittens with the hat. I am foolishly drawn towards white clothing.

Making sure she's dosed up on meds

My but she loves taking her medicines. Taking no chances after last night's dramas. She is having all the paracetomol and ibuprofen she is allowed.

The invalid at home

Our first batch of Ikea furniture arrived this morning and we were home to get it because Izzy spent the night hardly sleeping because of a lousy fever, poor thing. We wound up going to A&E at four this morning because she was yelling there were spiders on her legs which freaked us out. Since then we've worked out she meant aches or cramps and that she wasn't delirious thank goodness.

Bye old house

We've finally handed over the keys to our old place - not without some sadness because we really liked it and the neighbourhood - we were a little worried at first that Izzy would miss it, but it turns out that, for Izzy, home is where the DVD is.

Izzy is poorly

But not so poorly she can't insist on watching Barney the Dinosaur for the fifth time today. Fortunately for her we still can't get a decent tv signal in the new house.

Sly Iz

Taunts me with the last Smarties before stuffing it in her mouth.

Adventures in Aga Country

We had a very nice weekend with the usual gang, saying bye to Blighty with the Tangs and having Izzy get better acquainted with 'cow foo' and Aunty Shen Nieu.

Mm Krispy Kreme

Fortunately Izzy is still content with the free hat and not asking for any of our dozen sugar bombs.

The madness of Queen Izzy

For some reason she decided she had to line up all the chairs in my canteen. Wierd girl.

Izzy overjoyed

Eating sushi and watching her favourite dvds Wake Up Jeff and In the Night Garden.

Izzy reads a postcard from yiyi

'One day... There was a birdy go for walk in the garden. Aunty elaine and the birdy go for the walk.'

Boo's favourite lunch

Pho bo at our local vietnamese. Most of the staff recognise us now because both she and daddy would eat there every weekend if I agreed.

Cake for breakfast

Should be mandatory. Is lovely especially since I've now also spoken to all the family and exchanged wishes with my birthday twins. Alex asked Izzy how old I was yesterday. She said 'she's old'.

Adorable no?

Tonight she put all her teddies on their backs so they went to sleep before she did. Only monkey was allowed on her pillow.

Her father's daughter



Apparently Alex also used to cry when his brother jumped on his newly made bed, wrinkling his sheets. When reminded of this story Alex tells me I'm not fussed because I'm a messy-pot.
Better than a crybaby!

Sammy Eimer
This week we picked up and dropped off one of Izzy's little friends from nursery as a favour to him mom who had to go on a business trip. Izzy was so excited the first night she found out Baby Sam was coming with us in the car. So excited she actually got into the car seat and sat down before I offered to give them little boxes of Smarties.

When we dropped him off at another friend's house, I stopped to discuss a number of things - including why he was wearing wellies instead of his shoes - and Izzy walked into the living room and happily began playing with the toys there. When I told her it was time to go, she turned to me and asked 'Where's Sam?'

And I said 'Sam's not coming, baby, he's staying here.'
And boy did I not expect the storm. Her little face screwed up in dismay.
'I want Sammy,' she wailed. 'I want Sammy Eimer! WAA-AAH!'

It was like she's been watching cartoons of bawling children. Down to the head thrown back and mouth curved downwards like a banana. She really howled for quite a bit before falling asleep exhausted. But then was quite cheered the next morning when I told her we were now going to pick Sam up for nursery.

As soon as Sam got in the car she was all sweetness and light.
'Sam!' (utterly delighted tones)
'Hi, Izzy,' said Sam.
'Sammy Eimer!' (I have to teach her how to say 'I'm ever so pleased to see you.' It would be too funny.)
'Hi, Izz,' said Sam.
'I missed you, Sam.'
'She said she missed me!'
'Yes, Izzy missed you loads last night, Sam,' I said.
'Sam, I missed you.'
'She said it again!'
'Sam... Sam... Sam! Sammy Eimer!'
'Yes?'
'Sam, I missed you.'
'She said it three times!'
'I think she's trying to tell you she missed you a lot.'
'Sam, I missed you!"'
'She said it four times!'

They crack me up.

We spent a half hour in the loos cleaning her after an enormous poo but afterwards she got a balloon teddy and ice-cream so smiles all round.

Izzy reads her favourite book and fields a few calls

Izzy's birthday cake and song (one of several versions)

Ah peace...
Alex has taken Boo to the playground so I finally got to sleep in - first time in weeks! She has been going through quite a 'no daddy, I want mummy' phase which is a pain in the backside for all concerned. I get grumpy that she's hanging round my ankles all the time and have been very fed up over the lack of weekend lie-ins, and Alex gets dispirited when he comes home and asks for a kiss and is greeted with 'Nooooo, daddy!' and the duchess imperiously waving him away.

Anyway as this morning has shown it's all pretty much a bluff because bar some wailing for about five minutes she quickly quietened down, settled down to watch Mio and Mao on Milkshake and happily agreed to go on her tricycle with him to the playground. Just as well as this means I can blitz the remaining piles of laundry and crap lying round in time for the housing agent to come view the place.

The house
A hah yes for anyone who doesn't already know - we have found a place near work and WE ARE MOVING! Hurray! Hurray! It's on a road that feeds into a lot of housing estates, which is not ideal, but it's not very busy and it is about twice as big as our current place, has 3 bedrooms (OK more like 2.5) and a living room, dining room AND kitchen downstairs. And the rent is two-thirds of our current rent. Just as well because Alex is going to have to start shelling out GBP420 a month for the train fare. Ouch.

But this means we will be a 10-minute drive from work! And I am already thinking about getting a baby seat for the bike Bel so we can actually cycle through the back roads there and back. Probably won't start doing this until spring though as I want to revel for a while in the fact that it takes me 10 minutes to drive to work. Also there is quite a hill to tackle going up.

It'll probably take Alex and hour and a half door to door to get to his work now but I did offer to stay nearer the train station and he kept insisting he would rather have the extra space. We could have had a place a 7 minute walk from the train station, half again as big as our current place for GBP200 more a month than the rent of the new place. Maybe he also just needs to get on his bike. Then it would take him about five minutes to get to the train station instead of the 20 on foot.

This also means we now need to make some big decisions: buy nice furniture to keep that may not suit or fit a future home? Or make do with cheaper stuff that may be less of a pain to freecycle or give away when we leave?

I'll tell you one thing: It's darn difficult to resist buying Izzy some really nice stuff. I particularly like the stuff in Aspace - eg this Weatherboard one but how to justify when a not-beautiful-but-perfectly-functional Ikea bed can still come in about GBP200 cheaper? O well if nothing else I'm quite keen on this day bed for the living room (look! Drawers to stuff newspapers into!)

Anyway we can decide all that later (fun, fun!). But I think I definitely have my eye on this day bed from Ikea for the living room

A Pollock is worth how much?

Chocolate dummies?

Izz made her first joke this weekend. She was singing the alternative version of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, which goes:

Twinkle twinkle chocolate bar
My dad/mum drives a rusty car
Start the engine pull the choke
Off we go in a cloud of smoke
Twinkle twinkle chocolate bar
My dad/mum drives a rusty car

She sang the first line then paused at the end... and suddenly said, 'dummy' and starting choking on giggles. I raised my eyebrows.

'Twinkle twinkle chocolate dummy?'

Hysterics.

Then she sang on, 'My dad drives a rusty car/Start the engine pull the choke - dummy!'

More hysterics.

'OFF WE GO IN A CLOUD OF DUMMY!!! HAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA'

It was actually quite funny.

Boo loves Aunty Sophie

I don't know if it's the fact that Soph has cunningly plied Izzy with ice-cream nearly every time she's seen her, but since the weekend we met for Raya I've had to have extended phone conversations with 'Soph' at Izzy's behest. She'll make her toy phone ring, then hand it to me. 'It's Soph, mummy, it's Soph!' If I cut the conversation short or hand the phone to Izz, she just rings it again. 'Mummy, it's Aunty Soph!'

But it works to some advantage. Boo is obviously too shy to talk to Aunty Soph but she does want to do what Aunty Soph does, as I realised as I was in the middle of making her eat some porridge with fish. She was refusing all fish until I said 'Oh, and you're eating fish too, Aunty Sophie? Izzy doesn't like fish...' when she suddenly began pointing at the fish and nodding her head enthusiastically. Hahaaa, score one over the monkey!

Battersea park

Last weekend after a late attempt to join another rally for Burma.

The remains of the cake

We got half a butterfly to bring home from nursery after boo's celebrations there. She loved the sprinkles on the cake.

Blackberry picking

For Burma

I am so evil

One of Izzy's favourite books at the moment is Usborne's At the Seaside. It's one of these books with illustrations on each page -the idea being there are lots of things to look at and talk about - and she used to look long and lovingly at a page featuring an ice-cream stall and many happy children eating ice-cream. Then one day I pointed to part of the page, in which a tot carrying two ice-cream cones, is dropping one scoop of ice-cream. There's a dog heading right for the falling ice-cream.

'Look, Izzy, the doggy is going to catch the ice-cream.'
She frowned.
'No, doggy! Not eat ice-cream!'
'It's OK, look Izzy the girl still has another ice-cream cone. Doggy can have that one because it's falling on the floor.'
Appalled look.
'Nooo! No, doggy. Doggy don't eat ice-cream. No!'

Now everytime she turns to what used to be her favourite page, her little brow creases in consternation and she pouts.

'No, doggy, don't eat ice-cream!'

Conversations with Bel

Izzy: Mummy what you doing?
Me: Driving to work.
Izzy: We's driving to work!
Me: Yes.
Izzy: Mummy what you doing?
Me: Driving.
Izzy: Mummy, you driving?
Me: Yes.

or

Me: Here we are, home at last!
Izzy: We at home!
Me: Mm hmm.
Izzy: Daddy not at home.
Me: Nope. He'll come home later.
Izzy: Daddy come home later... Where's Daddy?
Me: Daddy's at work.
Izzy: Daddy at work... Daddy come home later.
Me: Mmm.
Izzy: Mummy...Where's Daddy?

O wow look I can post video! About time they worked his out. Now I just need to figure out why my videos are coming out sideways... BTW more on Boo's bday later.

So we been kind of busy

Boo's developing sense of self is great but also a big pain in the ass because for eg every morning I put on her socks and shoes because she wants to walk to the car. And every morning it begins with her yelling 'No mummy, I do it! I do it!' when I try to put them on her. So cue five minutes during which she puts on her socks then wails in dismay when she can't pull the tips flush over her toes. So I do it. Same thing happens with the shoes - can't pull them over her ankles. Then we go to the car and about halfway to work she'll start pulling her socks and shoes off and then trying to put them on again. Cue more wails of dismay and 'Mummy! I need help! I need help, mummy!' Urrrgh.

This last month she's really started to notice her soft toys in that she's playing imaginatively with them rather than just hugging them or throwing them round. Before, the most she would do was hug them and pat them on the back or feed her baby its bottle. Now though the toy of the moment gets to do everything she does.

Hence monkey gets to go on the swing at nursery, share her juice, wear a nappy etc. She finds it hilarious when I make them act out scenes. Eg when rabbit slurps tea out of a tea cup from her teaset - lovely birthday present - she laughs herself silly.





































Boo likes her kimono from Kao Fu











We made some cookies recently

Which was a mistake because she was all for the stamping out of animal shapes - we were doing what Maisy does when she makes gingerbread - that being one of her favourite books at the moment - but I forgot to reckon on Boo not really having the patience to dip the cookie cutters in flour, stamping down hard just once and then waiting while I cut the rest of the dough away from the cookie. Fifteen minutes after we started I was very frustrated and Alex was laughing his head off. So halfway through I gave up and started making round cookies with smarties in the middle. She likes those way better but I'm quite proud of my animal chocolate gingerbread biscuits. On about half you can even make out the animal.













Besides that, Boo says thank you very much KongKong and PoPo for her keropok! We put her on that bungee thing when there was a fair in a park nearby - she said she wanted to go on and then spent the first five minutes looking both terrified and joyful. Hahaha.

We've finally given her a proper haircut













And some old pix we'd forgotten about on account of not downloading for months...

Boo makes her first cake









Elaine's birthday (or early attempts to coax her to sing)

Park life