29 November 2007

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.

19 November 2007

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.'

17 November 2007

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'.

13 November 2007

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.

10 November 2007

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.

06 November 2007


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.

03 November 2007

Izzy reads her favourite book and fields a few calls
Izzy's birthday cake and song (one of several versions)

27 October 2007

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

22 October 2007

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!

07 October 2007

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.