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Please don't think I'm ignoring you.. It's Blogger. No matter where I blog from, I'm having a devil of a time getting anything to publish. It's almost time to look for a new service to power my site - big time. I suppose I'm getting what I pay for (which is nothing for nothing).
Anyway. We're off to see Monty Python's Spamalot in the west end this evening. Two musicals in two weeks - good lord. If I don't cut it out, people won't take me seriously as an artiste!
whatnot
This is, apparently, my 1,000th blog post. I suppose I have been babbling on a (mostly)daily basis for three and a half years now, so I don't know why I'm surprised.
In case you were wondering.... I passed my driving theory test today. Now, I know you may be thinking, 'but she drives already, doesn't she?' Well, yes - but narrowly on a loophole sorta. Now I'm aiming to be legal and after a few driving lessons (those outta be a laugh a minute, I'm sure) I'll apply to take my practical exam. 10 and 2 and all that stuff.
We went to a Halloween party with Toby and his family yesterday. While the party left a tad to be desired, in my opinion, Mary Catherine had a blast and was very excited to be there. I was just thankful the music wasn't too loud - a fact that I hate to admit because it makes me feel old!
Speaking of me being old - it's almost November and that means that it's almost my birthday. Not that I'm looking forward to it, or anything like that!
half term
Mary Catherine is at 'Wharf School' near my office for the next two weeks. So today we had a little mother and daughter bonding and went to lunch. It was a lovely break from the hum drum of my day. I brought her up to my office for a few minutes before going off to find 'pasta, Mummy, with red sauce no peas or ham'.. she managed to scan my entire paperclip collection (it is actually quite a collection, I'm a very important person, you know) and pick out the single pink paperclip which she then carried like she'd never held anything so precious.
Nothing much to report, really. Andrew and I had our usual date night last Saturday. We had SUCH a brilliant time. I'd booked tickets for us to see Wicked, which is playing near Victoria station. When I first moved to London, Andrew and I lived in a crappy little town whose overground train ended in Victoria, so it was our main stomping ground for a little while. So we walked around the station and found a cheap, touristy pub and had a drink before going to the theatre. Oh, memories.
Sunday we had a disco brunch at Smiths with Toby and his family, which (as always) was a good time. Smiths is next to the trendy nightclub Fabric, who were celebrating their seventh birthday with an all day/night party, which was still going when we got to breakfast at 10am. So we had our brunch to a mighty strong beat and I can admit that yes - if you saw a big lady doing the cabbage patch in Smiths last Sunday... well, that was me. (sorta like this)
Friday
I'm happy to report, dear readers, that we have had movement in the withholding poo camp! I think right about the time I was pressuring the chemist for a suitable solution (which I believe I phrased as delicately as 'do you have anything that will just help that poo fly out of her bottom?') she was doing her business at school. Mother of the year award coming my way any day now.
So whew. And, to top it off - I didn't get yelled at by any hoity toity cab drivers and we had no racial or killing remarks made either. I call that a good day.
MC is out for her very first half term. Most schools do one week this time of year, but Mary Catherine's does two. Actually, two and one day. The good thing is that she will be going to a nursery near my office that she loves and I can go and get her for lunch a few times while she's there. Today, however, I offered that option to her and she turned me down! She was quite looking forward to her packed lunch from home, which included individual catapillar cakes from Marks and Spencer - small versions of our favourite cake. Lunch with Mummy just doesn't compare.
Tomorrow is an incredibly busy day for us as we have swimming and a birthday party topped off by the Nanny coming and Andrew and I going on a date. Hopefully we will still have some energy for intelligent, adult conversation by that point.
Enjoy your weekend.
Euston we have a problem
I was going to write a huge post about how many things went wrong yesterday and I'm still going to tell you about them - but not in as much detail. Heck, it'll probably be more entertaining if I let you fill in the gaps with how much worrying/laughing/frowning I've been doing in the last 24 hours. One thing to note is that work did not feature in any of it, which makes a nice change.
1.) I got yelled at by a taxi driver last night for offering to share a cab with a woman who'd walked away from the rank when there were no taxis
2.) Mary Catherine's book from school contained a note from her teacher that included the words, 'I just wanted to make you aware that this morning Mary Catherine told other children that her book was a magic killing book for black people'
and finally (and you'll have to forgive me for not using nicer words, but I'm tired)
3.) Mary Catherine is refusing to poo. She was constipated last week and had a very erm.. firm and rather gargantuan 'movement' and is now afraid to have it happen again - so she's just not going. Of course, her body is trying to expel said poo which leads to many frantic bits of crying because, of course, it hurts.
We were up with her at midnight, pushing apple juice and a warm bath and even sitting next to her on the bathroom floor begging her to give one good big push. Not really in my top five of things I like to do in the middle of the night.
She is still refusing, so I'm upping the fibre and fluids in her diet and have gone ahead and sent her to school fully aware that I may have to go pick her up when they tire of her dance of rectal agony. Flippant - I know. I plan to go to the chemist here and beg for advice.
So - there you go. I'm a unaware American cab-sharing mother to an un-diverse daughter who has a belly full of poo and is not happy about it. Don't you wish you were me?
Euston is an Underground station in London.
I forgot to tell you - the other day Mary Catherine was playing on her own with her toys and she was making them speak to each other in french! Now it was just simple hellos, goodbyes and 'what is your name' stuff - but I was about to explode with pride that her brain would even begin to think in french!
That school stuff sure is paying off!
Dark is the night
An early morning entry.. Most mornings Mary Catherine joins us around 5am - she's gotten very good at just grabbing her entourage from her bed and climbing into ours. There are mornings that I don't even notice her joining us, and I'm the one she climbs over! She's destined to be a secret agent - or perhaps 5am is my sleepiest time.
The good thing is that she promptly burrows under the covers and falls right back asleep. I'm convinced that she gets cold and the chirpy birds wake her so she seeks warmth. Cold little girl feet are one of life's great punishments when you're snug and warm, I assure you. We're resisting turning on the radiators until we have to, so we have lots of blankets dotted around. MC sleeps under three at the moment but is a very aerobic sleeper, so I know most of her ends up without cover by morning.
Anyway, I digress. This morning she and I were lazing about and I was asking her questions - I thought I'd share her thoughts.
Where money comes from:
From the money lady or money gentleman at the money factory.
Why it's dark now in the mornings:
Because God hasn't told the sun to come up yet.
Why people kiss:
Because they are married.
Why we wear pajamas:
Because you need to sleep in them - they're snuggly.
Why we go to the toilet:
Because your body has lots of water in it.
Well - she's right! Must go and campaign for her to put on her uniform and get myself dressed. More later.
Monday Monday
Good afternoon! I got in to work today to have a colleague wish me a very happy birthday and present me with a bottle of my favourite perfume that he'd bought while on a trip to New York. My birthday is the 16th of November, not October - but I say let the month-long celebration begin!
Check out the picture of MC eating her world famous Carluccio's strawberry Gelati... see that dress? There was a used uniform sale at her school on Friday morning. I sent Andrew with money in hand to see if we could get any deals on uniform bits. Hey, we're gonna need them, why not get them on the cheap! So he scored a very gently used summer uniform dress.
I showed it to MC on Friday after school. She put it on immediately after getting home, slept in it Friday night (aren't I a cool Mom?) and wore it all day Saturday. She's, obviously, a little excited about having a summer dress. I think it's because there are girls in her class who have summer dresses handed down by their sisters. Well, it's either that or the dress has magical properties that I am not yet aware.
We finally got it off her Saturday evening and it's clean and ready to go for either next Spring or whenever she fancies wearing it. She'll have to wait until after Easter to wear it for its actual use.
We had a good weekend - went to an Outlet Mall where I found the world's most perfect winter coat. It was a charcoal grey Ralph Lauren duffle coat and it fit me perfectly. However, the price tag was the only thing that left a little, erm.. lot to be desired. Now, it was the most perfect coat I've ever tried on and I could easily envision myself wearing it around the house, to bed and the like. But at a mere £350 - uh, well.. no.
It was a fabulous coat though and memories of my five minutes with it will last a lifetime. Won't keep me warm - but hey.
ask me and I'll tell you the same again
Hurrah, Hurrah, Hurrah - it's Friday. Actually, I don't know why I'm so excited about it being Friday - the past two days at work have been really good. Now that I've given a few things the heave-ho (which hasn't hurt anything but my pride) I've felt much more content and I have to admit, I have a rather 'screw it' attitude at the moment, but am keeping it in check.
Anyway - dare I say I'm back to the point where I was a year ago - I'm looking forward to going to work each day. Go figure.
Mary Catherine's parent/teacher conference went very well. Andrew, bless him, got on the wrong train and then the wrong bus and ended up in never, never land and not at the conference. Oh well - he'll be at the next one. He looked so distraught (and who wouldn't be after finally just giving up and walking about two miles to get there), I felt badly for him.
Her teacher had very nice things to say about her. She's very impressed and pleased with MC's vocabulary and how well she's doing with phonics. She also mentioned that she was impressed about how much culture Mary Catherine seems to know about - such as the instruments in the orchestra and musical terms like adagio and allegro (our current party trick). I was pleased to hear that because we've really made an effort to expose her to loads of artsy fartsy things (even the Tate Modern, right Mom?). So it seems to have really paid off.
After we finally found Andrew we popped to Cafe Rouge in the village for dinner. We really like it there, not only because they make a fantastic steak baguette sammich - but because the waiters are vey kind to children (and adults) and the food they cook for them is actually food, like fresh fish and not just crappy pressed fish fingers.
When we got there, we realised that we knew two other families dining there! That was a very good feeling. A girl from MC's class was there and she really loved going to their table to visit and having her over to ours to colour. It reminded me of my own childhood when we'd go out after summer camp pick up and see all my friends and run around. Of course, that was around McDonalds (in Dahlonega, GA after Camp Glisson, for those of you who know what I'm talking about) - Mary Catherine gets to run around a nice cosy french restaurant. Ah, the younger generation!
Anyway - need to get MC dressed and all of us out the door. Gosh bless the uniform - we LOVE not having to fight about clothes every morning. Wish I had one.
cheerierish
Hey - it's Wednesday and in our house that means you can officially start thinking about the weekend. Not that we have anything planned other than the usual swimming lesson and coffee afterwards. We haven't been to swimming in two weeks, so I'm sure MC will be happy to be back in the pool. Well, I hope she is.
Tonight we have our parent/teacher conference at her school. Hopefully we'll hear good things. I went into her classroom yesterday and under a picture she'd drawn of herself, she'd written her name. The whole thing! I was pretty proud.
quickie
It's not that I don't love you ... It's just that my life isn't quite right at the moment. I got back to work and within three hours was in tears yet again. It's been a rough two days and there have been changes, nothing that wasn't on the cosmic cards or too serious, but unnerving and confidence blowing, all the same. I'm hoping to start afresh tomorrow and just put my head down and get on with life. Cheerier post tomorrow - promise.
back to reality
So we're back from the farm. Mom and Dad are currently winging their way back to America and we're getting our minds in the right place to go back to work and school. Fortunately, we had a birthday party today for one of MC's school friends - so it was a nice and gentle reintroduction to her new friends. I think she's keen to go back to school tomorrow to see everyone again.
One mum at the party asked us how Italy had been. Apparently, her daughter went home and said that Mary Catherine has been in Italy! Another mum asked us how the farm was as her daughter had reported our absence. Very funny. It was nice to go to the party today and see people we knew through the school.
Anyway - I promised myself not to spend too much time on my computer this evening. I want to enjoy being unplugged just a little longer.
down on the..
Well - here we are... the glorious farm in Cornwall. We're having a really nice time and so far, haven't seen that much of the previously forecasted rain. I'm checking in from the wireless connection here and while it's nice to be back online for a few minutes, it's also nice to think that I won't check again (because, you see, I did check my work email because I'm like that and have bunged back up again) for another few days.
Anyway.. so far we've fed the farm animals every morning and today Mary Catherine got to ride the pony. She loves the pony - what 3.75 year-old doesn't?
Okay off I go. I think it's almost MC's tea time and then off to bed for her. All this fresh air, exercise and masses of grandparental attention make her a very happy, but tired, girl. After she's down - Andrew and I are cooking pizza for everyone. Ah, domestic holiday bliss.
London, school and the stresses of work seem a long way off. I'm very glad about that!
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