We finally opened our Singapore toy

You gotta love Japanese toys - in this case a sandwich maker.

Mm cutesy sandwiches

O dear the allotment is overgrown

Izzy celebrates her first ballet class

We brought her to a taster class (ie free) at the local leisure centre and she loved it. Probably partly because she got to go with NBF Martha, and they've both been fantasising that they attend ballet classes for a while now.

The two munchkins were hilarious in the class. Izzy couldn't stop grinning and hung on the teacher's every word. When asked what her name was, Martha said: "Martha ballerina." Talk about focus! And both of them kept jumping the queue to do things - like run on tippy toes and then present a scarf to an imaginary giraffe. The other girls, who were all taller and so, I presume, older, were very good about not minding.

The class itself looked like quite a lot of fun. There was a lot of imaginary play - 'Shall we go to the seaside today?' and they mainly acted out a lot of scenarios to go with the actions.

The only basics that were introduced were about pointing the toes - they did some foot pointing work on the floor and a lot of dipping of toes in imaginary lakes and seas. Oh and there was the first position - 'stand as if you've got a big pizza slice between your feet' - and demi-plie. It was quite fun finally coming face-to-face with the reality of it after months of made-up arabesques and jetes (thank you, Little Einsteins and Angelina).

The next morning, and the Saturday after this, Izzy's first question on waking was: 'Is there ballet class today?' So one of these days we'll be going shopping for her leotard and skirt and shoes.

But I managed to harvest these

And these

Swine flu reaches Caversham

S'alright parents, don't panic. All it is, is that a child from the nursery has suspected swine flu. Have been a bit lax looking up current operating procedures at the local clinics but word on the street (ie my colleagues) is that they no longer bother confirming whether or not it is the swine variant of a flu since it appears in most cases to be no worse than ordinary flu.

Now, having not had very many flu bouts before, I am only hoping that the extraordinary number of colds I've had over the last year also add to the immunity building.

Er anyway. It was bound to happen, is what I reckon. So fingers crossed all goes well if we get it too. Heck only knows what happens if both Alex and I are poleaxed at the same time. Fingers crossed, fingers crossed. The last time anything like this happened we got what we suspect was rotavirus within a day of each other. But at least I'd recovered by the time he got hit. Hmm...

Things now

Roz turned herself over and managed to position her arms to push her head up today, making vague crawling movements until she got fed up and started yowling loudly. As you can see in the picture below. Go Roz! She looked very surprised and pleased when Izzy and I both cheered her. She's done it about three times now so I guess I'd better let her play on the carpet a bit more, instead of propping her on a pillow under her play tunnel.

She's also developing a really loud howl, which she deploys when she can see me, and she's howled a few times to be picked up, but I'm not doing it. Usually because I'm having to attend to Izzy's meal or getting her ready for nursery. It's astounding how loud it is - it goes right through my skull - and how quickly she stops as soon as I pick her up!

I weighed her when we got back and she is now 6.9 kgs - or she was two weeks ago, when she was 18 weeks old. I swear she's getting heavier to carry!

Izzy's slotted right back into her nursery routine like she never left. And although she occasionally thinks of family back home - mostly her cousins - she seems quite happy. Already she's plotting all sorts of sleepovers and play dates and unashamedly inviting herself to other people's houses.

We've had Felix and Dex and Martha over, and she's been out with the boys to a baby gym thing these last two weeks, and each time we part company she's moaning immediately that she misses them! Gah.

She's also come back rather more bumptious than I remember and has developed an annoying habit of saying 'I told you so' every time she happens to be right about something (eg Roz not wanting another feed before I take them both downstairs), and quite frequently when she's not as well.

She's also come back more Malaysian. More than a few times now, mainly when I've told her off about something, she huffs 'YOU AH'. Ie the Malaysia YOU-ah. It sounds completely hilarious when she says it with her little Brit accent so I find it hard to tell her off without laughing and have resorted to teasing her instead. If I ask her if she's pretending to be Kai Qing, who most frequently deployed this phrase back home, she gets even more huffy and goes 'Noooo! I'm IZZY!' Ya, ya, I did give birth to you, you know.

And whenever we take the delighted Roz out of the house, she laughs 'SO happy to go kai-kai, Roz? So happy to go kai-kai?' And Roz for some reason finds it incredibly amusing to view Izzy from the lofty heights of my shoulder. All Izzy has to do is skip along behind me and she provokes the loveliest giggles from Roz. When she prances and does a primitive dance, Roz all but splits her sides.

I'm pleased Izzy actually still remembers the song Hui Li taught her.

Yi, er, san, si, wu, liu, qi

Wo de peng you zai na li?

Zai na li, zai na li

Wo de peng you zai na li?

Things then

Darn I was going to post about our holiday home too but now find I should be downing my current bedtime comfort drink of cardamom tea otherwise tomorrow morning will involve another painful half hour of Izzy nagging me to take her downstairs and me trying to sleep just a bit longer.

Guess who's learned to turn over?

We are back. And we are settling into routines again. But the entire month home seems to have left us - well Alex and I anyway - in a kind of daze. For the first week home I felt just like that whatsisname Chinese poet wondering whether he dreamt he was a butterfly or was a butterfly dreaming he was a man. That's what it's like every time we go home. This is the life we could be living. This trip probably affected us more because we also visited Singapore. And most of our London gang who decamped there two years ago are now pretty firmly entrenched.

And we are still making our minds up. While I get increasingly discontented with homes that are rented, as the song goes. But for the first time I'm turning my head to the serious idea of staying that much longer here. The rationale is:

If there's any sort of deadline to go home it would be to put Izzy in a Chinese-language school. To do that she needs at least a year of Chinese kindy to cope. She turns four this September so are we likely to be going home in the next year and a half? If we aren't then there's that deadline scrapped, as she might as well benefit from free education here, which isn't all bad really, though it could do with some turning up on the discipline and fear front.

So plan B forming in our minds is: sort out the kids' education fund - which might do if we get round to buying a house here - and then semi-retire home once that's sorted. If we don't have much of a mortgage to pay off then we can get jobs we really like, be at home with the kids more, and not worry so much about making enough to educate them. Sound like a plan?

Coffee morning

The girls and I are being ladies who lunch today. We need to run some bank errands and buy a buggy board so we can start walking Izzy to nursery.

Two school fairs today

That's what summers are for here in England.

Well we're home

And we brought back two good head colds - so Roz and I had a rather fretful and sleep-deprived journey and first day home. Fortunately it's one of these 24-hour things and today she is sitting happily in her bouncy chair demanding entertainment. And I'm drinking cardamom tea to cling the remnants of our holiday.

Sunshine and beach

Add ice-cream.

Perfect

Our chilli plant is doing well

Yesterday we visited Stourhead

Izzy insisted on having goes with the camera too so in the end I let her have my phone to take pictures with.

The Somerset countryside

Everyone and their dog must be heading to the beach today. Like us. But how lucky have we been on weather!

All about June

It's been one long stretch of holiday since the end of May, when Ma and Pa (that'd be Alex's parents; mine are Mom and Dad) came to visit and we spent a glorious weekend in the southwest. Since then we've also made a trip home and, just this weekend, a trip to Singapore to see Mama (that'd be the babies' only remaining great-grandparent).

And because this will be about the sixth night in a row I'm up later than I should be, I have to list just these points down, so I don't forget about them. Hopefully I'll elaborate later. If not, maybe they'll at least trigger the right memory some time later.

Dorset, Somerset and Devon

Serious paintwork damage: Alex 2 Yin 1

Empress Isabel

Walking for ice-cream

Lyme Regis and the small world

Home

Flying with two

Grandchildren get away with anything

- 24-hour air conditioning

- Ice-cream in any flavour you want

- You sit on the floor, grandpa (!)

The cousin hurricane

Kai Qing and Izzy

Izzy entertains her sister in a slightly deranged way

Chilli with everything

Paean to our food

Heat rash and cornflour

Showers and swimming

Rosie squeaks and squawks

She can grab stuff with her hands

And almost put it in her mouth

She also really laughs now

Singapore

Rosie finds her toes

Rosie says 'Ah Em'

'Oh, peanut butter.'

Our former London gang

The cutest sandwich maker (I heart Bandai)

Mama says bye bye

We're in that awful stretch of holiday that is the last week now. Time to portion out meals and decide who we can manage to see before we go. This one is harder to organise than most as it involves two birthdays and a wedding - and that's not even counting the belated Father's Day celebrations... and failed travel plans for a 60th birthday trip.

Artist and observer

Sniffles all round

Roz has had a spew-filled couple of days as she came down with a cold Sunday. It's not too bad, she just complains a bit sometimes when you can tell the snot is interfering with her breathing. So then I have to carry her upright until it slides down her throat or my shirt, or leave her to cry, which also gets rid of it. 

Joke, joke, popo, don't have a cow. 

She's been her normal self, really, so the only effect of the lousy cold has been her inevitable upchucking of a full stomach once or twice a day, when she gags on snot or coughs too much. So it's been a very laundry-filled week - compounded by the fact we hardly did any last week as it rained a lot - but I think I'm finally down to the last two loads now. Phew. Am sick of having to guess whether the skies will open or not while I'm out and of having to turn sheets on the shelves of the boiler cabinet. 

Next time I will take a fellow new-mom-of-two's advice and head for the laundrette. 

The SAHM old thing, is what

Alex occasionally comes home and asks what I've done all day. With Izzy, this used to slightly infuriate me, even though the poor man meant nothing more by it than what I had done, not 'did you do anything useful'. Anyway now, were anyone to imply I did nothing, I'd be too certain of my relative sainthood to care. 

That's what umpteen loads of laundry a week does for you. That and having to sort out this sort of mindless minutiae: Two ordinary refuse collection days ago, our bin disappeared. I couldn't believe someone would actually steal it, particularly as everyone else's bins seemed to be around. So we called the council and they said the company that deals with it would probably replace it, if it'd disappeared on collection day.

So, two weeks later, on collection day, an unsoiled, new bin appeared in front of our house. I saw it as I left to send Izzy to nursery in the morning. Then, I also saw our bin, with our house number on it, in front of our neighbour's house. Typical, I thought. 

On return from nursery however, our bin-with-house-number had disappeared. But the new bin was still in front of our house. Much muttering under breath later, I secured the new bin. 

So this last collection day, I leapt out of the house right after the bin men had been. Sure enough, new bin in front of our house, old bin in front of neighbour's house. 

Maybe the bin men want to spice up suburban life for us. 

Maybe our thieving neighbours thievingly stole our bin despite our house number writ large if scrawly on it. 

Anyway I secured both bins and have called the council and asked them to retrieve the new bin. The woman I talked to didn't sound very surprised. Now all that remains is for me to redecorate our old bin with our acrylic paints. I'm thinking number 56 painted large, multicoloured and several times on all surfaces.

Entertaining Izzy

Life has certainly gotten busier since Isabel dropped some nursery sessions - she now only goes in the afternoon three days a week. This means three mornings I have to think of something for her to do other than watch TV. To my surprise it's been easier than I thought.

This is only the second week, of course, and the weather now is warm so maybe I'm speaking too soon, but as her best boy friend Felix is also off those days (she makes a great point about best friends being girls or boys - her italics), there's always the option of getting together with him. And once they're together there's at least no need to entertain them. It helps that I really get on with their mom as well so chatting while they play is effortless. 

When it's school holidays there's always the option of looking up older friends who have left the nursery, and I haven't even looked into the activities at a new child centre nearby. Or swimming. Izzy really wants to have lessons but at the moment I'm still a bit loth to leave Roz at a creche, even for only an hour, which would be how long it took. 

Now the weather is warm the playground nearby is proving godsent. We've easily spent an hour and a bit there three times over this fortnight and I feel ever so virtuous that she's getting exercise and fresh air. 

It's been quite a revelation though how quickly the morning goes. Izzy takes an age to eat, brush her teeth and get her socks and shoes on, so I've realised I need to have lunch on the table at noon, leaving us a lot of time to get to nursery by 1330. This effectively means I only need to entertain her for about an hour and a half each morning, as the rest of it is easily eaten up by breakfast and (blush) TV. 

I'm hoping to get her waking at 0800 - because by the time she, Roz and I have had breakfast, changed and washed up it's easily 0930. So then we have two hours in which to do something before I have to prepare lunch. 

The problem is when she wakes at 0700 and then spends half an hour driving me mad, asking when she can go downstairs. Roz, you see, tends to wake for a feed or two between 0500 and 0700. So it's usually just when we've both fallen asleep again that Izzy wakes. If Alex is around he brings her downstairs and gets her breakfast before going to work. 

I do feel bad the little munchkin is all by herself downstairs - she's always asking me to come too - but that extra hour's sleep is the difference between me growling until I've had a cup of tea and brightly asking the munchkin what we should do today. 

I think I'll just have to start forcing myself to sleep by 2300. It's so nice though to be able to read and surf the net in peace in the evening, when they're both in bed and I'm still smiling to myself at the sight of both of them sleeping.

Hmm the downside of an active social life for Izzy on these mornings of course, is that Roz spends equivalent amounts of time in a car seat. Usually she's sleeping but sometimes she's just forced to watch chatting adults and children running around.

I feel bad when I think of the amount of time Izzy had devoted to her. The sheer hours spent in my arms. I'm quite sure Roz spends the same amount of time in a bouncy seat or on the floor. 

And I feel quite guilty that sometimes, after I've picked her up when she's fussing, she refuses a feed and it's apparent she just wanted to be cuddled. I don't think Izzy ever had a chance to get to a stage where she had to ask for a cuddle.

Still, Roz will have Izzy as soon as she can respond to her play. And what else can you do?

So rare that I get a perfect crust

And of course the person for whom this cottage pie was made is already asleep, having woken at 6.30 this morning on her sleepover (what a misnomer).

Izzy's away

She's at a sleepover tonight. After exchanging details regarding her sleeping and clothing arrangements (pull-up pants to sleep, knickers to nursery) with Martha's dad, I watched the door of her little buddy's house close then suddenly realised I hadn't said goodbye to Izzy.

This was partly because she just tore off into the house with Martha on arrival, re-emerging only briefly with a toy already in hand while I was still talking in the hallway, and partly because half my mind was preoccupied with Roz, who was in the car parked outside, as she'd sounded on the brink of crying as we left the car.

So I went home elated at the thought of having a whole evening and morning without the sound of Izzy pounding round the house - she doesn't walk, nowadays, every journey is an excited romp or race and she flings herself onto sofas and beds - but also wanting to weep because I hadn't said goodbye. 

And she didn't even notice!

Roz as a little old lady

She just needs a violet wash and some horn-rimmed glasses, no?

Roz says ah

I swear she seems to watch the shape of your mouth and to copy it. She looked so pleased with herself when she said her first ah. Think she is starting to clock she can make sounds.

Lunch as entertainment

Learned from Felix's mom that pizza-making is a great and not too messy tot activity. Used a pre-mixed pizza flour and yeast pack from Tesco (just add water) and once the dough goes elastic it's a nice warm lump crying to be manhandled. Izzy prefered prodding holes in it.

Spoon on the sauce

I used pasta sauce from a jar with some sun-dried tomato paste mixed in.

Sprinkle on the cheese

Stick on the toppings

Ta da - finished result

One sweetcorn and tomato pizza half and one pissaladierre slightly bastardised with sweetcorn half.

That it produces lunch is a bonus

Roz's pity me cry

The poor bub currently has the sniffles but this complaint was set off by hiccups.

Lunch

Quite proud of it today. Instead of cheese on toast or something similarly easy yesterday's Jersey Royals and asparagus were made into this frittata. The clincher was generous dollops of hollandaise sauce. Having a hard time leaving a quarter for Izzy's Jersey dinner.

Choc mousse at the Henley Food Festival

Superb. Even better was my £4 portion of asparagus risotto with black truffle. Yum.

Tickle fingers

Spent at least some of that promised time cooing with Rosie today. She now knows what it means if I look at her and wiggle my fingers, going 'Tickle Rosie, tickle Rosie!' At first it would need me tickling her sides or chin to produce that barking almost-laugh. But now if she's in the right mood and you just wiggle the fingers she smiles.

Poor bunny woke from a nap earlier tonight wanting a feed, but I was in the middle of getting Izzy ready for bed and so had to ignore her for a bit. She'd already had a howling fit earlier on - not quite sure why because she'd been happy all day - and so reached the really loud bawling stage quickly. 

(Hmm have just clocked that maybe it was because she wanted to be taken to bed whereas I thought she wanted to be carried downstairs and was trying to do so while eating spaghetti carbonara. Doh.) 

Anyway she was screaming the house down. Izzy, though, was high on a large bowl of ice-cream and making silly jokes and laughing really loudly. So loudly that Rosie actually broke off from crying three times to stare at her. And the last time she did, she actually started trying to laugh as well, and not out of mirth. Maybe she thought the aliens had landed and was trying to blend in? 

Can you imagine Izzy laughing more loudly than a screaming baby? Our neighbours must love us. 

The bowl of ice-cream, large, by the way, was her bribe, or positive reinforcement, for my needing to tell her only twice to put her socks and shoes on today. Yesterday it was about ten times before I got fed up and headed for the car without her, leading to drama-rama tears because I've always threatened to leave her behind if she wasn't ready by the time I was. Now I figure I'll tell her three times and start heading for the door with Roz. She gets ready pretty quick then.

Overheard by Felix's mom

Felix: Our mummies help us wear our shoes.

Izzy: Yes, mummies help us wear our shoes.

Felix: Daddies too. Daddies help us wear our shoes.

Izzy: ... (very doubtfully) Sometimes daddies help us. 

Four may have been a bit much

Well I learned a little lesson today. Had Felix and his little brother Dex, who's two, over at the same time, mainly so their dad could attend a quick physio appointment in town. While it wasn't really chaos, there were definitely one or two times when I thought hmmm OK I really need to be able to see all the children - or at least Dex - all the time!

My fault really, as I stupidly chose to get them to make cookies with an untested recipe - one for chocolate amaretti - which was a rather stiff and sticky dough to mix. So they lost interest quite quickly. Then I dumbly allowed them to use their hands to mix the dough since it was so stiff. So then there was then the danger of three tots wandering round with hands coated thickly in egg white, ground almonds, cocoa powder and icing sugar. And of course they all wanted to wash their hands at the same 

Then Izzy had a little accident in the bathroom and required a change of clothes. Ai. 

Fortunately I had thought ahead just a wee bit and had prepared their lunch ahead of time so only needed to throw a pyrex dish of macaroni cheese into the oven. Once lunch was on the table, the pack manners of the nursery took over and all quietened down for a bit. And once that was over, I threw open the garden doors and let them loose outside, deploying wet wipes like a mad woman inside. 

When their dad came back, they'd settled indoors again to some sedate drawing and yoghurt pots and, had you not seen me flying around, voice strained and wild-eyed an hour ago, you might think I was some child-minding genius. Almost - I do have a tupperware of chocolate amaretti to eat now. Am trying very hard to get some packed for Felix and Dex tomorrow, so I don't eat them all. 

Was very impressed with their behaviour regarding Rosie as well. For the most part they ignored her and she happily sat in her bouncy chair observing them. As I was spooning macaroni into bowls for them to eat though, Rosie started crying. Immediately, the three of them crowded round her, and proceeded to stroke her tummy and take turns to bestow kisses on her cheek. This kept her amused for a few minutes and when she started to cry again, they fetched a baby rattle (Izzy) and teddy bear (Dex) for her. 

After a while I had to ask Dex to stop, unfortunately, as he was holding the bear right up against her face and leaning on her tummy when leaning over to kiss her. Rosie was not fond of that. But how sweet was it that they all did this without me saying a thing? 

Poor Roz must have been feeling a bit neglected today, so since Izzy is at nursery all day tomorrow, we'll have a few more hours of cuddles on the sofa. I do feel a bit bad when I think of the innumerable hours I spent carrying Izzy around the apartment nearly all the time when she was little. With poor Roz, any sort of activity for Izzy means that much more time in the car seat for her. 

Once the boys left today and Izzy was at nursery, we had a good couple of sessions babbling to each other and you could see she was definitely happier. Guess we'll just have to do a lot more of that tomorrow.

Gymlet

The other thing we did with the boys today was go to a baby gym session. It's just a lot of baby toys laid out in a proper gym but the children are allowed on some of the proper gym equipment as well, including a floor-level trampoline, mats and balance beams. 

I've put Izzy's name down for potential classes next term - there aren't any spaces in classes this term - as the activities they do look quite benign to start with: bunny hops, log rolls, jumping and landing with both feet. 

Izzy says she's interested in gymnastics and I think it'd be good for her to do a bit to develop her balance and flexibility if nothing else, but I would seriously think twice about letting her do it seriously. A girl I met briefly while on work experience used to be a serious gymnast and, while she stopped any activity something like 10 years ago, she's still doing physiotherapy for over-stretched ligaments. And they still hurt. 

Bunny jumps can only be good though, I think. Really need to start checking out swimming lessons for after our holiday home.

Went a bit mad shopping today

I blame you Ling for getting married and providing me with an excuse to buy cute dresses like this green one (£9) - pricey but must make the most of being able to put Roz in colours I like before, like Izzy, she tells me she's bored of green. Lilac trousers (£8), chintz shirt (£6) and shorts (£7.50) for Izzy, and cute dungarees (£12) for Roz. Next time I must remember to hit Next last instead of first.

Practical must-haves from Tesco

Shorts (£4) for Izzy and rompers for Roz (£4).

Clearance bargains at M&S

Cardi (£3) and organic cotton sleepsuit (£3) for Roz, knickers (£2) for Izzy.

Then couldn't resist a last splurge

Yellow leggings for Izzy (£2.99), the rest for Rosie, all organic cotton. How cute are the prints? There are two other patterns, one of a monkey in beige and blue and one of all the animals. Managed to resist them. Just. Total cost inc leggings £13.99.

'For the display!'

One morning Izzy insisted on doing a lot of cutting and sticking and when I asked what the picture was of she just kept paying it was for a display. Then we had parent's might at the nursery and all was clear.

Lunch at Tesco

Shopping here might be cheaper but I'm sure we end up spending more because of all the cheap junk we also end up buying just because it's there. Izzy wangled that new hair band but I put my foot down over yet another magic wand.

Another family portrait

Rosie in carrier, Izzy - note she's drawn shoes for herself - me and Daddy. Think she's got his face shape right.

The wildlife around here

They're lousy pictures because I only had my phone with me but I may take my camera along to other early morning allotment plot visits in future.

The pheasant

His harem

My colleagues reckon they're his daughters from last year's brood. And you thought allotments were boring.

The things we are growing

Peas - these are the shoots

An enormous amount of spicy salad

Chives - flowers are delicious in potato salad

Chillis, starting to flower

We have takeoff

Got Roz weighed yesterday and she's moved from the 25th to the 50th percentile now; 12 lbs and counting. It was about this time that Izzy started shooting for the 91st percentile. All I know is that there are only so many repeats of her bouncing I can do before my arms start screaming for mercy.

It's quite funny - I remembered being quite excited about capturing Roz's smile (see video below) on the phone the other day. But now that I look at it again I'm thinking 'Hmm what was so special about that again?' And I think that's because since capturing that less than a week ago, her smiling has become so commonplace it now seems, if anything, a rather muted response.

Last night when she was sleeping she laughed twice - proper gurgling laughs, not strangled attempts at them. She hasn't done that awake and I wonder if that was her subconscious working out how to do it first. We shall see. 

Anyway am pleased to report that, like Izzy, thank the lord she seems to be a very laid-back bunny. She's quite easy to work out and, once satisfied, is quite quick to fall asleep again. At home, when I need to do something, she's quite happy to sit in either the car or bouncy seat and watch me. As long as I occasionally break off from what I'm doing - gingerbread cookies, prepping dinner - to coo and smile at her, she'll sit quietly. And smile back. And eventually fall asleep.

Now her cries are becoming a bit more nuanced as well. She has this little whimpering thing she does when she has nightmares, and the more plaintive 'ai, ai' complaint has emerged over the last one or two days. That has been employed when I've misinterpreted her pleas for sleep as wanting a feed or vice versa. Along with the little upturned mouth, these are quite hard to resist. She also does ANGRY - when I've told her too many times I'll pick her up in a minute. 

Bit of a damper

One not so good thing that's also emerged, unfortunately, is that poor Roz has got mild unilateral hearing loss. In normalspeak this means that, according to the hearing tests we've carried out on her so far, part of the routine screening for babies here, she might have difficulty hearing some high-pitched speech sounds - 'f', 's' and 'ch' for example - in her right ear.

It was a bit of a surprise to be told this, after three rounds of tests, because up till the last one, Roz was always just stirring enough during the tests - she's meant to be asleep - to be a bit inconclusive, and so we thought the inability to detect the higher-pitched sounds might have been due to blockages in her ear - something very common in babies - rather than due to some defect in the senses. Anyway at the last one they confirmed it seemed to be due to the cochlea rather than the passageway of the ear.

On the plus side, it's considered mild (the levels are mild, moderate, something else, and severe) and the audiologists carrying out the tests said since it was only in one ear, and mild, the other ear would probably compensate. One said that it was one of those things where, had we not carried out the tests, no one would probably ever have noticed there was a problem.

However they still offer us the choice of having a hearing aid made for that ear. And this is what confuses me. Because on one hand the problem seems mild enough for us to ignore it. But if this were so why offer the hearing aid?

Anyway if nothing else what we do now is wait till she is about eight months old and then we can carry out more tests on her - behavioural ones, apparently. Not entirely sure what this means as I have yet to Google the whole business but roughly I think it means they'll test her to see how she's actually coping practically with the whole affair.

And now we'll be referred to an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist, to see if we can diagnose the cause (it's usually inherited or a problem in pregnancy); to the RNID; and to a paediatrician, who will monitor her hearing from now on as well. The main thing, they said, is that we've identified a potential problem, and to make sure she gets any support she needs to deal with it.

So. Still surprised, if not quite in shock, but will update more once I've gotten round to researching it. I think I'm still waiting to accept there might be any sort of problem at all. And maybe there won't be at all. One thing that cheers me immensely is the sort of support provided by the NHS. Say whatever you like about it, I'd like to see any other system beat it.

Another is that we have two friends with more moderate unilateral hearing loss and not only are they people I like and admire, but Alex knows them both as well and hadn't even realised one had any problem hearing.

It's stupid, isn't it, having to say even that? Because it's not as if I think being deaf - or having unilateral hearing loss - has anything to do with a person's ability. I think it's just having to accept the premise that there might be anything less than perfect about our little bunny. 

Babbling baby

Smiling baby

Baby doing her level best to scrutinise her fist and ignore mummy

Still bitten by the baking bug

Trying not to eat her dinner

'It's so hot in here... my feet are boiling... they're boiling hot!'

(Sigh) 'Why are they so hot?'

'Because... because some other people don't have feet that are boiling hot, but I dooo.'

Rosie gurgles

She has made quite a range of sounds, a bit like an orchestra tuning up. She has quite chatty moods sometimes so if you sit and burble to her, she'll burble back for about 15 minutes. Then, usually, she wants to be carried or fed. And then the urgency on her face builds until she squawks.

Can you tell they're sisters?

According to records Izzy just pips Rosie to the early butterball prize, having been 4.8 kg at six weeks. Rosie was 4.68 kg. Think she might be catching up though. Maybe it's my imagination but she looks a bigger size than Izzy was.

Fashionista alert

Izzy in her new sunglasses. She carries them around in a hideous HSM (if you don't already know you don't want to know) case with two pennies and two five pence coins. You can see her out on the town 12 years from now, can't you? Look at that slouch!

Accident?

Had to sign an accident form for Izzy at nursery today. Usually it involves bumps, cuts or scrapes. Today she apparently caught a finger in the hideous High School Musical sunglasses case she insisted we buy her, to house her new sunglasses, the old pair having broken last week. Is it very mean to want to tell them if it happens again, don't say it's an accident, tell her (with Malaysian accent) 'Ha, who ask you to bring the thing to nursery? Padan muka, main lagilah.'

Today was also the first half-day of the rest of her current nursery life. She spent it following me to the new community centre to check out children's activities, to Waitrose for groceries, and the library to return books. In return for her reasonably good behaviour she got to have lunch 'at the red cafe', ie Costa (aptly named - one panini and two drinks were  £10). She is insisting we make cookies with strawberry icing and marshmallows tomorrow. Help.

Her doing doing face

Roz's favourite thing

Is when you hold her under her arms and bounce her gently on your lap, as if her tensing legs are actually what is propelling this definitely-more-than-10-lbs baby into the air rather than your straining biceps. You have to sing an arpeggio 'doing, doing, doing' as well. Then she opens her mouth wide, wrinkles her nose and, makes a strangled sound which I think is her trying to laugh. Her face is a funny combination of joy and terror. Sadly impossible to take a picture.

We are raising a hippie

She bottle-feeds!

Rosie didn't have so much of a meal but was at least happy so sample some milk from the bottle. Izzy was only too delighted to feed her but needed constant reminding to hold the bottle properly and not shove it into her sister's face.

'Can you bring me some lemonade?'

'Get your own lemonade, cheeky.' 'No, some pretend lemonade, silly.'

This bathroom's for boys

So sayeth Izzy. And to make sure we all know she drew up labels for both bathroom doors. She is nothing if not thorough. Note the short hair on her illustrations of boys.

The face that charms a thousand pensioners

Sugar highs

Have been baking like a mad woman this week. I blame the food channel. First it made me make a lamb tagine, which was lovely. Then I felt compelled to bake a second round of brownies for a party at work tonight because the blinking Barefoot Contessa made peanut butter frosting and I then read Dan Lepard's blog about peanut butter chocolate cupcakes. 

After the brownies and, actually ever since the rolling of the peppermint creams in cocoa powder, I was still craving that cocoa hit. So then I saw this Rachel Allen recipe for chocolate melts. And it was done so quickly I tried it last night. Am impressed. The cookies aren't actually very sweet, you can throw them together in a jiffy, they're easy to do, and they're in an amount easy enough to handle as a snack. Perfect toddler-diverting activity if it rains again this bank holiday weekend. 

But the peanut butter icing is a bit of a letdown. I think it's because I'm so used to the savoury no-sugar crunchy peanut butter I've been eating. Not as roof-stickingly satisfying as just eating peanut butter from a jar. Not that that's something I do. Often. 

Chocolate melts

125 g butter - very soft

50 g icing sugar

50 g cocoa powder

100 g plain flour

Nutella/peanut butter

1. Put oven at 180 degrees C.

2. Mix all ingredients except Nutella/peanut butter, form 24-30 balls.

3. Squash balls flat with back of wet fork.

4. Bake 15-20 mins.

5. Let cool before moving from baking sheet.

6. Sandwich with Nutella/peanut butter or both.

Current favourite brownie mix chocolate proportions

3 eggs + 1 yolk

150 g dark chocolate

100 g dark chocolate chips

250 g butter

300 g caster sugar

70 g cocoa powder

60 g plain flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

cupcake cases

Optional: walnuts, 2 tbsp espresso

1. Set oven to 180 C.

2. Zap butter and chocolate (not the chips) in microwave until melted.

3. Beat eggs and sugar with electric mixer until voluminous. Well, more than before.

4. Mix butter and chocolate with eggs and sugar.

5. Sift in everything else and mix. Add chocolate chips and nuts/espresso at end. 

6. Put about a heaping tablespoon in each cupcake case (I use the mini ones, not the American-sized ones). 

7. Bake er until done. About 20-30 ms maybe, but check with toothpick.

NB The cupcake cases help prevent too much of a mess when cutting up the brownie, which can be a bit crumbly. If you up the 2 tbsp of espresso to 4, you've pretty much got the equivalent of a power bar for long hours at work. Definite way to cheer your co-workers.

I think I need to turn my thoughts to higher things. But as if the economy wasn't depressing enough, now there's just all this swine flu business. Though I did have a good laugh yesterday watching BBC News. The tags at the bottom of the screen read:

BREAKING NEWS

Sturgeon: All steps being taken to deal with pandemic [or something like that]

It took me a while to realise they meant Health Sec Nicola Sturgeon, not that someone had mistyped Surgeon General or something. Still, the image of a fish speaking kept me entertained for a while. 

Doesn't take much on maternity leave.