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be back soon!

Posted on November 20, 2009

Gone to visit my folks. might post. might not. See ya in December.

the one with the sunglasses

Posted on November 17, 2009

What a busy week­end we had. On Sat­ur­day we went to a friends house for yummy pizza, nice wine and good com­pany. It was my day to drink so slurp! Then on Sun­day we met up with friends at Dun­ham Massey. It was loads of fun and I loved see­ing my friend Biff. We used to email a lot when I was in the US but now that I am 30 min­utes away we hardly ever see each other– boo!! Can we say HELLO DIVA? I was at Gap the other day just look­ing around when I spot­ted this hat.  I almost knocked peo­ple over in my rush to grab it.  I LUUUVRE it.  I think it’s a fab­u­lously over the top hat and it makes me laugh every time Squidge puts it on. Luck­ily for me I think my love for that hat is infec­tious because she wants to put it on every time we go out.  She is becom­ing more aware of things and the other day it was bright and sunny and she wanted her sun­glasses. She hasn’t worn them since out trip to the states this sum­mer.  Ahem… Man­ches­ter isn’t exactly known for it’s bright sun­ni­ness.  So yes­ter­day as we were get­ting ready to leave she asked for them again.

She was a HUGE hit at Dun­ham Massey in this outfit.

We had a fab­u­lous time and I can’t believe I’ve never been there before now. It’s prac­ti­cally down the road from us and being National Trust mem­bers we get in free!

the one where I rant…

Posted on November 12, 2009

As I men­tioned on my last post we’re in the midst of try­ing to fig­ure out where to send Squidge to school.  One of the things I am doing in the hopes of increas­ing her chances of get­ting into school #1 is vol­un­teer­ing at the tod­dler group asso­ci­ated with school #1.  I enjoy it, I make tea, chat with some of the mums, laugh at the chil­dren, clean up, make more tea, clean up some more… all  in all not bad.  Today I was chat­ting w/ a  mum I know from another baby group we used to both attend.  Her daugh­ter is the same age as Squidge and she now has a lit­tle boy.  The ques­tion of school came up, of course.  I men­tioned my issues w/ my local school and how I wasnt’ sure what we were going to do.  So she tells me that I shouldn’t dis­miss the crappy local school because all the kids might be nasty lit­tle shits with par­ents who can’t be both­ered to par­ent at oth­ers schools too.  Weeee­heeeeeeeee­hell!  I wanted to pop her in the head I was so angry.  She lives across the street from one of the best schools in the city accord­ing to OFSTED.  A school w/ so many eager, intel­li­gent, edu­cated, well informed par­ents that they can’t help but do well.  I have seen how the chil­dren at my local school behave.  I have seen the par­ents and I KNOW what I know.  I know that the local school will spend more time and energy on the squeaky wheel.  I know that my daugh­ter, who we believe is highly intel­li­gent and clever beyond her years, will end up being aver­age.  Will her inquis­i­tive­ness be nur­tured?  Will she be lis­tened to when she notices some­thing or says some­thing clever?  Prob­a­bly not as they’ll be too busy ‘teach­ing’ the kids w/ froot shoots run­ning through their veins.  The ones that can barely get to school in the morn­ing because they stayed up passed 11.  Don’t eff­ing tell me I should take a chance on the school because you don’t think it’s that bad.  I don’t see you try­ing to get your kid into the school.  What I do see is some­one who bought a house across the street from an excel­lent school w/ an eye to get­ting your kids into the school.  So thank you very much for your kind words and your advice but I hope it doesn’t offend you if I tell you to stick it!

When I got home from the tod­dler group and told Wal what had hap­pened he just smiled, really what else could he do?!?!  He reminded me that we’re mov­ing.  He reminded me that things might change.  He reminded me that in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t mat­ter and I shouldn’t get soo stressed out.  I know he’s right. So I’m hav­ing a cup of tea and tak­ing some deep breathes. I’m remind­ing myself that all that mat­ters is my pod. That giv­ing this lit­tle girl the best pos­si­ble start and oppor­tu­ni­ties is what matters.

the one with the schoolin’

Posted on November 10, 2009

Oh the joys of par­ent­ing.  We’re deal­ing with try­ing to fig­ure out where to send Squidge to school.  I filled out the online appli­ca­tion last week and sent it in.  Our local school isn’t very good so there isn’t a chance she’s going there.  We decided to try to get Squidge into a Church of Eng­land school.  We have 3 which are in our local area but only one that is in our catch­ment area.  The one that is in our catch­ment area is very good and over sub­scribed to the point of ridicu­lous­ness!  We attended (albeit not con­sis­tently or reg­u­larly) church, had Squidge chris­tened there but still that is not enough.  When­ever we attend church we need to get a card stamped to prove atten­dance.  Still that is not enough to get Squidge in.  Because I didn’t know we needed to get any­thing stamped until recently we are now waaay behind on our stamps.  The card holds 20 stamps we only have 3 and there aren’t enough Sun­days before we have to send the card it to get all 20!  One of those things I am kick­ing myself over.  We used to attend reg­u­larly but then stopped about a yr ago.  Squidge was turn­ing into a pain in the butt and even w/ the creche they pro­vide all she wanted to do was run laps around the church.  It was eas­ier to stay home.  Then when I knew she had out­grown that stage it was just eas­ier to stay home watch­ing “Some­thing for the Week­end” and drink­ing tea in my jam­mies.  We’re con­tem­plat­ing send­ing her to pri­vate school. The thing with pri­vate schools is that they cost money– yah who wouldda thunk it!  We’re cur­rently pay­ing for pri­vate nurs­ery so it’s not like we can’t afford the tuition, it’s the extras she’s going to want– dance, music, sports, trips, MILK (yes one of the schools charges an addi­tional £16 for milk). So the seri­ous debate of going back to work begins.  We have always planned on me going back to work once Squidge started school full time.  The ques­tion becomes do I go and get a ‘real’ job or con­tinue with my pho­tog­ra­phy which at the moment is pro­vid­ing me with a spotty income at best.

On Sat­ur­day I went to my friends house for a bit of bak­ing.  We wanted to try The Pio­neer Woman’s cin­na­mon roll recipe and since it makes enough to feed a small army we thought we’d do it together!  It was loads of fun and she has such a fan­tas­tic kitchen– I was seri­ously drool­ing over it the entire time I was there!  We had hoped that the kids would play together but I kind of sus­pected this would happen…

the kid is a sucker for bak­ing so I brought along her apron and bak­ers hat– just in case she needed it. It was won­der­ful chat­ting w/ Rachel about liv­ing in the UK, being a work­ing mum, Eng­lish hus­bands and miss­ing with and deal­ing w/ our fam­i­lies back home.  She’s also an ex-pat so she gets it!  She’s been in Man­ches­ter for 10+ yrs so she’s a lit­tle more with in than I am but hey I’m get­ting there.   I had been telling her about my desire to move and about want­ing to work, feel­ing a bit rud­der­less… you know a good old bitch­ing fest w/ some tea and cin­na­mon rolls.  It was nice to have a dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive on par­ent­ing.  I some­times get lost in how I feel and what I am miss­ing out.  I KNOW I’m soo self­ish that way!  It was good for me to hear about how Rachel strug­gles with being a work­ing mom.  The guilt she some­times feels.  How she holds off on dis­ci­pline some­times because she doesn’t want to spend the time being nasty when she only see’s him for a cou­ple of hours at night. It’s not that I am happy that she has these strug­gles, it’s more that it was good for me to see that the other side is not as green as I thought it was!  It was like a wake up call.  Hey  you’re self­ish– be HAPPY you get spend all this won­der­ful time with your daugh­ter.  Be HAPPY she loves to help you bake.  BE HAPPY you ninny!  So that is what I have been doing.  I’ve been enjoy­ing the fact that Squidge is FAB and funny and smiley.

Thanks Rachel for the fan­tas­tic time– loved the bakin’, the talkin’ the good advice and the com­pany.  I think next time we should try some mon­key bread!

the one where I wonder what it’s all about.

Posted on November 6, 2009

Oh inter­webz I’m in a mood! We’ve all been sick and I think it’s affect­ing my tem­pera­ment.  Squidge wasn’t feel­ing well for a cou­ple of days then looked like she was feel­ing bet­ter so I got her dressed and off to nurs­ery we went.  We made it to the nurs­ery gate before she spewed all over her­self and the ground.   So off back home we went where she dete­ri­o­rated until I finally called the NHS Direct (on call after hours med­ical helpline). After answer­ing a series of ques­tions it was deter­mined that she had a sus­pected case of swine flu.  I spent the rest of the night cradling her in my arms as her fever spiked to about 104 and she hal­lu­ci­nated her butt off.  The hal­lu­ci­na­tions would have been funny if I wasn’t soo wor­ried. In the morn­ing I headed off to one of the tam­i­flu col­lec­tion points in Man­ches­ter to pick up her meds.

Wal and I fig­ured we would be com­ing down with it too con­sid­er­ing Squidge had been cough­ing and sneez­ing in our faces for a cou­ple of days.  Sure enough both of us got sick but thank­fully not of the pork vari­ety!  We were all house­bound for an entire week and it sucked.  I went to BMF this morn­ing for the first time in a week and when I told peo­ple Squidge had a sus­pected case of swine flue they ACTUALLY took a step back!  OMG PEOPLE!!  They did this after I told them I stayed away from BMF for a week until I felt bet­ter and knew I wasn’t con­ta­gious!! Idiots!   We’re all feel­ing much bet­ter thank you for asking.

Need­less to say no work was done on the bath­room.  We are sooo close to being fin­ished I can smell it!!  I’m hop­ing it gets done this week­end and then we can call the estate agent and get the house listed.  We are plan­ning on redec­o­rat­ing our bed­room but will have the house on the mar­ket before we start on that.  I’m sick to death of think­ing about mov­ing.  I have wanted to move since I found out I was preg­nant w/ Squidge– that’s a long damn time peo­ple!  I’ve been on right­move again and have found a few houses that would be great.  It’s hard com­ing to terms with what your money will get you here in the UK– noth­ing much is the answer in case any Amer­i­cans were won­der­ing.  Still I slog on look­ing at house after house in our price range.  Won­der­ing if we should up our bud­get and get into real debt.  I think it’s the only way we’ll get what we want but it makes me ner­vous.  Still, oth­ers do it, they get into seri­ous debt for that fan­tas­tic fam­ily home.  There is some­thing in me that doesn’t want to do that.  Some­thing inside me that tells me peo­ple shouldn’t be mort­gaged up to the hilt.  Any­way this house thing is really get­ting me depressed.

On a pos­i­tive note I’m head­ing to Mass­a­chu­setts on the 20th!  Squidge and I are really look­ing for­ward to see­ing our new baby cousin Ella.  We’ll be stay­ing for 2 weeks so gob­ble gob­ble we’ll be home for Thanks­giv­ing too!  This will be Squidge’s first Thanksgiving!

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