2011

Don’t worry Daddy, it wasn’t a wee; it was just a fart!

Sunday 25th September 2011Baggie

You may be forgiven for thinking that I am falling out of love with this project as the frequency of updates has dropped significantly of late. There was a strong start to the year but it has certainly lessened of late. Is it the fact that I have reached the century and sat back upon my laurels? Nothing quite as prosaic; the culprits are simply the combination of work pressures and wanting to spend time with the family. Work is a necesary evil and this website wouldn’t be this website if I didn’t want to spend time with the family, but with the long winter nights drawing in and Éowyn back at pre-school then there may be more activity in the coming months.

So what has happened through the month of September so far? The month started as it has done for the last 45 years with Lucinda’s brother’s birthday. To celebrate this singular event (note for younger readers: In 1949 RCA Victor produced the first seven inch vinyl discs and because of their five minute recording length became the de facto format for singles. They revolved at 45rpm, hence the pun) the greater Cathrall clan headed into Windsor for a chinese meal. It was good to all get together but I now appreciate the a couple of things slightly more than I did. The first is how difficult it is to enjoy a meal and hold sensible adult conversations while you have one eye on one child (and encouraging her to eat) while you are bouncing the other on your knee. However it does lead to the second: the appreciation of the invention of the chopsticks. When you only have one hand free they are very useful tools for shovelling copious amounts of chinese food into your mouth.

Then came my first weekend off in two months. So it was family time and time to concentrate on sorting the finishing touches to our decoration and on helping Éowyn with her toilet training. Bar a couple of accidents she has done really well so far and wouldn’t even dream of wearing a nappy in the daytime now. Ready in time for the start of the new term and her lengthened days. Last school year she only did two mornings (Mondays and Fridays) at school. With her approaching the age of three we have decided to increase that to two full days with the idea of introducing a third in 2012. Our little girl is growing up. Last year she wasn’t always keen on school and she would often say that she didn’t want to go to school (although she always seemed to enjoy it when she got back and told us what she had been doing that day). This year she seems full of it and looks forward to it every day. This is possibly due to the fact that she is doing full days now and so can settle in more rather than just being there for a couple of hours before we came to pick her up.

To celebrate her first day back at school and her migration to ‘big girl’s knickers‘ we decided to pay another visit to Legoland (the Merlin Pass has definitely earnt its money this year). With many school children back at school Legoland was eerily quiet. It was fantastic. We decided to head straight to the newest ride (and the one that usually has the longest queue) the Atlantis Submarine Voyage. A combination of ride and aquarium with over 50 species of sharks, rays and fish. It was fantastic to watch Éowyn’s face as the submarine (or strictly speaking a semi-submersible) glided through the million litre fish tank looking as sharks swam passed the portholes inches from your face. This was the first time that Éowyn had been out on an extended day trip without wearing a nappy (we were carrying a potty around with us – but being Legoland we didn’t get any strange looks!) and so we were quite conscious of asking her whether she needed to go to the loo. So after the ride we headed to the public conveniences to ensure that it did not slip her mind. Lucinda and Éowyn were both impressed that the toilets in Legoland had smaller bowls for the younger visitors and so Éowyn didn’t feel at a disadvantage when using it.

It was approaching Amelie’s next meal time, so we headed to one of the eateries and the adults had tea while Éowyn enjoyed a glass of milk and an ice cream. Then the heavens decided to open. The UK summer has been particularly bad this year (as predicted by me in May) and so it seems a theme that every visit to Legoland has been a wet one. This one took that one stage further. The rain was literally bouncing off the ground and many of the rides closed while the worst of it passed by. We sheltered for as long as we could (and managed one more ride) then decided that once again after sampling only two rides we would head back to the car park and thence home. We are so glad that we invested in a Merlin pass, it doesn’t feel like quite a waste to turn up and go back home before you have exhausted yourself by queueing for every ride.

Sodden, we decided to head home via the local carvery and take advantage of meat and two (well 6) veg and no washing up. As we got to the restaurant we asked Éowyn if she wanted to use the loo. So off Lucinda trotted with her. A little later she is still fidgeting in her seat, so again Lucinda asks her whether she needs to use the loo. Again, off they trot to the loo. On her return from the loo and across a semi-crowded restaurant she shouts, ‘Don’t worry Dad, it wasn’t a wee; it was just a fart!‘ As all eyes turn to see who she is shouting at you have to laugh don’t you? Some people might find it offensive, but hey we have all been there and better that way around than the alternative!

Both of my girls have been on their best behaviours of late. Éowyn’s recent spell of good cheer has continued of late and her bad behaviour seems to be behind her and her sojourns to the thinking step have been very few and far between. Perhaps it is because she is being treated like a big girl with her ‘big girl knickers‘ added to the fact that we have taken the bed guard off her, bought her a new duvet and given her a night light that she can control from her bed. She is growing up fast. While Amélie is definitely growing up too. She crawls around all over the house getting into everything and emptying whatever is in easy reach all over the floor. The minx! She is also beginning to make tentative attempts to reach up so it may not be long before she starts to cruise. Then the trouble really starts!

Amélie is excellent throughout the day, and has now learnt to settle quickly at night and so by 1930 is usually asleep. However, her internal bodyclock alarm is set to 0530 and wakes every morning at that time. It is becoming a little tiresome for she will not go back to sleep after her bottle and if we are not careful her crying wakes Éowyn so it forces us to take her downstairs which means that we are up too! It is ok for me when I am going to work but poor Lucinda then doesn’t get the chance to go back to sleep for the rest of the day. Thus by the time I get home, knackered, from work and want to sit and relax, Lucinda is ready for bed because she, too, is knackered. Not condusive for a great evening.

Lucinda starts back at work at the weekend (something she is obviously not looking forward to) so with that in mind we have begun to introduce Amélie to Jo, Éowyn’s childminder. Amélie is far more chilled out that Éowyn ever was (that probably says more about us than Éowyn) and was non-plussed with being left with a stranger. Bodes well for the future. While Éowyn was quite happy being the big sister looking after her younger sibling. That is one worry off our minds and Lucinda can concentrate on getting back into the swing of employment. At least she will be practised at getting up for an early shift!

I will bid you adieu and prepare myself for the fact that my youngest child will be 12 months old next week.

Peace and Love

Baggie

Cheeky laugh!

Smiler

Amélie and Daddy

Enjoying the trampoline

Close up

Legoland (before the rain)

Moody popstar

Intense Art

Why wear one pair when you can wear two?

Look how pretty I am!

Getting ready to swing

Close up view of the fish

I hairdressered mommy!

Two more victims, err clients!

Keep smiling girls!

I made this

Look at my hair!

Gardening!

Getting the hang of it

Scootering

That’s it I’m off!

100,000 hits!

Tuesday 30th August 2011Wednesday 31st August 2011Baggie

As you may have guessed from the title of this update we have hit a milestone: 100,000 hits! Yes www.baggieandlucy.com has received 100,000 views. This milestone is split over two servers, my original WordPress hosted site (still available as www.afrobaggie.wordpress.com) and the new (not so new now as I have been here for nearly a year) privately hosted site that is www.baggieandlucy.com. It took nigh on 19 months to reach the first 50,000 but the readership has obviously increased (as indeed has my frequency of article writing – though not this month!) and the second 50,000 hits have occurred over 17 months, but at this rate it will still take until Christmas 2035 to hit the million mark. Again as I mentioned at 50,000 hits it maybe only a small milestone that means absolutely nothing in the real word but it feels like a justification for the amount of work that I regularly put into this site. So thank you all for your interest in the ups and downs of our growing family.

There is also a second milestone linked to this update: the 100th post. This may sound like the second time that I have reached this milestone but the previous ton that I mentioned included the 9 major event pages. This is the 100th update since I begun the website, so one hundred little stories of Bagnall life! Again that represents quite an investment in time to sit at a keyboard and pour out the trials and tribulations of parenthood.

This latest update occurs against the busiest time of the year for me at work and the latest phase in our redecoration of the house. The English Premier League has kicked off, completing the hand of seasons bringing us to full speed. The start of this season has been considerably easier than the start of last but frankly it couldn’t have been that bad again. Then again we have not made such a technological leap forward as we did last year, although the spectre of 3D (or stereoscopic to be technologically correct) looms over us in the next couple of weeks. Saying that we have upgraded two of our studios to HD bringing the last of our areas up to the latest specifications and although there is still a hefty snag list their birth has been relatively pain free.

With the start of the season comes long hours at work and with a new flooring and redecoration comes disruption at home, which is unfair on the little ones. So in steps Nanny Fran to help. She was taking a week off work and offered to take Éowyn up to West Bromwich for five days so that Lucy could have half the workload while I was doing such long hours. So while the fitter was laying our new wooden floor Lucy drove to the relative safety of West Bromwich. Relative safety was something that seemed a little perverse when the riots that had been affecting mainly the London area spread across many metropolitan areas including West Bromwich. It is quite often nice to hear your home town mentioned on national television but not when it relates to something as negative as rioting and especially when your wife and two young daughters are in the vicinity with your Mom and kid sister! Fortunately apart from Poundland and Cash convertors West Bromwich emerged relatively unscathed however due to the positioning of the riots and the police attempting to prevent people from entering the riot area, two motorway junctions were closed. The two closest to my mom’s and the two that Lucinda knows. Hence she had a little detour and venture further into the West Midlands to find the way home.

Éowyn had fun at her Nanny Fran’s (it goes without saying) especially since she was centre of attention for a lot of the time but also got to play with Nanny Fran’s other ‘adopted’ grandchildren especially Jonti and Finn. Days out at the Safari park and soft play areas were high on her list. Éowyn takes after her dad in that she loves animals. She is especially fond of big cats, tigers being her favourite. She can tell the difference between Cheetahs and Leopards something many adults have difficulty with. While at the Safari park she saw white tigers, but not content with this colour variation she insisted that she wanted now to see a black one. In the same way that white tigers are not albinos (they still have stripes) so black tigers are not melanistic, however whereas many people have seen white tigers (there are some 200 or so world wide), black tigers are almost cryptozoological with only a scattering of reports throughout history, so Finn was quite correct when he replied to Éowyn, “They don’t come in black.”

She also did her family duties and paid visits both to her Great-Grandma and her Great Great Uncle Albert as well as entertaining some of Mom’s friends before heading back home on Saturday morning.

Amélie is really enjoying the new flooring. The wooden floorboards are not so harsh on her knees and she can slide across them easily. Although she still has this strange body-popping movement. Instead of the traditional hands and knees crawling stance she pulls herself forward with her arms and ‘caterpillars’ the rest of her body to make up the distance. Very cute. She is also everywhere. You turn around and she is right behind you or she is emptying her toy box on the floor. We had forgotten what this stage was like.

We had also had forgotten what a lack of sleep caused by a teething toddler can be like. Amélie has not had a decent night sleep for a month and a lack of sleep is difficult for everyone involved but I can only talk from my point of view of getting up and going into work, but it must be just as hard for Lucinda when she has the girls all day and Éowyn hasn’t been the most well-behaved of children of late.

I think Éowyn has come to realise that Amélie is here to stay and that means that she gets just a little less attention. And with me doing long hours, the house being disrupted with workmen and her sister now actively going after her things, I think she decided to exact a little revenge. She really did enter the terrible twos for at least a fortnight. I think things have begun to calm down a little now (with handy hints from Super Nanny) but it was not easy, especially when I was only seeing her for an hour or so a day and in that hour I would be making her sit on the thinking step or putting her to bed with no supper. It was an added stress that wasn’t needed. However she has been back to her good-hearted nature of late. Which is a relief for all concerned.

As you can guess from the dearth of good photos below (or should I say dearth of variety of photos below) or even the tales that have been regaled in this write up, life has been a little too work orientated for me and so I have not had the camera out as much or indeed spent too much time with the family which is always a little hard. So apologies and I will try to do better for next time (and not leave it so long!)

Peace and Love

Baggie

Hands up, Baby hands up

Sisters, Sisters

Chilling with an elephant and Mommy

Being cheeky with Ruby!

Watch me move!

Yip, there are teeth there!

Little princess

Chilling with my cousins

Princess Sisters

That was a weak ending

Wheee!

I like the swing!

I’ll show you how to do it…

Right behind you!

I’m higher than you!

In the Night Garden

Tuesday 9th August 2011Tuesday 9th August 2011Baggie

It is August. Where has 2011 gone, not that 2011 is over but Selfridges and Harrods in London do have their Christmas displays on show, so whether you like it or not the countdown has begun. The football seasons (yes, seasons, it is not just the English Premier League for us these days!) are beginning and therefore work is ramping up for me the slight breather that is the summer break is over and Lucinda returns to work in a little less than two months. It never stops but at least life isn’t dull!

Éowyn is off school (along with millions of other children) which means that the onus is back on Lucinda to look after both of our daughters and trips to Legoland or other such Merlin Pass venues are not quite as attractive as they were. Éowyn however is still going to Jo’s (our childminder) 3 times a month so there is a little break for her there. I have altered my days off so that my week is effectively Wednesday to Sunday with my weekend on Mondays and Tuesdays, which if nothing else is regular! However the days have lengthened as the workload increases towards the inevitable deadlines that usher in the advent of the seasons! This has meant that most days I have not been able to make it back much before the kids bedtimes and on a couple of occasions after they have gone to sleep. This is upsetting for Éowyn (and hence Lucinda and me) especially when the only way that Lucinda could stop her crying was to phone me up and ask me to speak to her. It is extremely hard to speak to your 2 ½ year old daughter who is sobbing because you are not there to read her bed time stories. It is rare that it happens now but this is the time of the year when it is most likely.

Éowyn however has been in the bad books of late. I think it is a combination of Amélie receiving more attention, more pressure on Lucinda because I have been at work for longer hours and the fact that the turmoil the house was in from the kitchen refit has been replaced by more turmoil since we decided to carry the decorating on throughout the lower floor of the house. That sounds rather grandiose, but it is merely the lounge and dining room and it is merely giving it all a lick of paint and replacing the old decrepit carpet with some hardwearing wooden flooring. However the work invovlved to move all our furniture away from the walls to paint was severely underestimated, especially since the house isn’t big enough to simply move it all into another room. This is going to be a problem when they come to fit the flooring, hence we are erecting a tent and a gazebo as temporary rooms in the only area that can accommodate the furniture – the garden.

So, there is some understanding, if not justification, for Éowyn’s behaviour but just because there is a reason it does not make it excusable. So there is a lot of explaining to Éowyn how disappointed we are with her and taking toys off her rather than shouting or sitting on the thinking step. She also appears to be better behaved when she has had an afternoon nap. It is unfortunate though that she does not relish them and will do what she can to fight the sleep. However she has surprised us a couple of times by saying that she is tired and can she go to bed for a nap.

Of course, all of this is Éowyn attempting to have some control over an aspect of her life and although as an adult you know this, it is still hard especially when Amélie is teething and will only stop crying when you are rocking her (her form of adult control!). It does make the days long, especially for Lucinda who is dealing with them on her own. Éowyn latest form of control is not to eat her meals. Again you want your child to eat and you feel that you are a bad parent if they don’t. So you appease them. Obviously this is wrong because once you have appeased them once they know they have you. So as a parent it is again time to regain power so now if Éowyn does not eat her meals then we do not make a fuss we simply offer her one more chance, then take it away. We tell her that because she has not eaten her meal then she will not get anything to eat until the next meal and if that is the last meal of the day, then it will be breakfast before she eats again. It is really hard to do this because it feels like you are starving your child (one missed meal, even two, isn’t going to cause that much harm) and all your parental instincts go against it but it doesn’t take long for it to bear fruit. A couple of missed meals and she will eat anything you set in front of her. We are still getting a couple of times a week when she refuses to eat her meals but no where as often as before and it doesn’t last very long.

Despite Éowyn’s behaviour she is still being taken nice places. Lucinda had booked tickets for the ‘In the night garden‘ live show her in Richmond Old Deer park way back at the start of the year. At the time, Éowyn was very much into ‘In the night garden‘ however it seems that it is a phase that she is currently growing out of and the show no longer maintains the same level of appeal as it once did. Nevertheless the tickets were booked so Lucinda jumped on the train from Staines to Richmond with her friends Christina and her daughter Arabella and the four of them went on an adventure. As feared she was not that interested in the show but it was good day out and as I stayed behind to look after Amélie it was some quality time for Lucinda and Éowyn alone.

As mentioned Amélie is teething again. Currently there remains only to front two lower teeth but she seems to be in a lot of pain with them of late so hopefully the others will soon erupt. She still is not taking her dummy, which is fantastic news, they can be consigned to the rubbish heap. She has also started to crawl forwards a little. Not as good as she can crawl forwards but we definitely have forward motion. The biggest news for us, as parents, though is the fact that she has stopped walking at 0500 and the last couple of mornings not risen until 0630! Bliss! There is a big difference is those 90 minutes. 0530 is the middle of the night, 0630 is early morning. Hopefully this is not a temporary thing and moreover a sign of the new status quo (the Latin phrase not the band, the new Status Quo is very much like the old Status Quo, status quo if you like. – I’ll stop there!).

Éowyn has also discovered the word ‘why’? Trying to explain gravity to a 2 year old isn’t easy, especially since I lost Lucinda at Newton and I don’t think that Éowyn was listening much after Einstein’s general theory of relativity!

With Einstein and Status Quo both mentioned in the same write up I think I will take this opportunity to stop. Hopefully I can squeeze another update in soon but with time very precious in August, I may not promise that the next write up will be as detailed as they have been of late.

Peace and Love

Baggie