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| Oliver comes for dinner | In the wars | Poor nose… | |
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| “I’ll just get you a few wipes…” | Chilling out in Spain | Snazzy in pink | Pascale, Nova and Slinky Malinki |
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| Me and the kiddies | What a happy sight | Dreaming of ice cream | |
October 31, 2002Happy Halloween! She looked really great actually, and got a very positive response from the houses we visited: Jenny’s, Pete and Pascale’s, Phyllis’s and Pat and Tony’s. She carried her little Maisie bag to collect her treats, and scored a mini Aero bar, little bag of pink candies, some jelly rings, a bunch of grapes, and a plastic spider. Not bad for her first effort… Home for a quick dinner, and then got organised to receive the few trick-or-treaters we get each year. Sid, Fay and Daniel came by with their parents, then a huge gang of ten-year-old girls who yelled, “Trick or treat! Smell our feet! Give us something good to eat! PLEASE!!” which was kind of sweet. As they were leaving I heard one of them say, “Don’t go next door, or we’ll get in trouble.” We’ve had problems with Anne and John chasing away trick-or-treaters in the past. The first year we moved in, we were sitting around, pumpkin and candy at the ready, hoping some kids would call, when we heard raised voices outside. It was Anne, telling off a group of trick-or-treaters who’d made the mistake of knocking on her door, saying they had no business bothering people, begging for food, making a nuisance of themselves. By the time I’d raced down the stairs to intervene she’d already put the run on them… |
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October 30, 2002Nova had a nasty spill today when Pascale was getting the two girls out of the car. She’d taken Nova out first and set her down on the path. She was just getting Fay out of her car seat when she heard a thud, and turned around to see Nova lying face down on the pavement. Pasc scooped her up to discover she was bleeding from the forehead, nose and top lip. Apparently Nova was very brave, and didn’t cry when Pascale cleaned the scrapes and applied antiseptic. Fortunately, her teeth are fine… The poor little thing looks pretty scuffed up, but the wounds don’t seem to be bothering her. I took some pictures with the little digital camera, but they don’t do justice at all to the technicolour horror that is Nova’s nose and lip. |
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October 28, 2002We got our hair analysis results back from Foresight the other day. Quite interesting actually. In their opinion, our problem is a lack of zinc. I’m about 10% below the recommended minimum, but Adam is almost 25% too low. Zinc is the most important mineral for producing healthy sperm. We eat a pretty good diet, but the best sources of zinc are meat, poultry, and shellfish so I guess it’s plausible we might not be getting enough. I was pleased to get good scores on both iron and calcium, which are problem minerals for many women, while Adam was poor on both of these. I put it down to the amount of coffee he drinks, as caffeine interferes with your absorption of both these minerals. He didn’t score very well on his nickel or manganese either, and had twice the sodium he needs in his system. I had an excessive amount of cadmium (the less you have the better) while Adam was fine, which is strange as the main source of cadmium is tobacco smoke. Adam was the one who grew up with parents who smoked, and smoked himself for about 12 years, while I only ever smoked socially and gave that up years ago. I wonder if growing up in a mill town could be a factor… They recommended an intense regime of supplements, which would cost us about £80 a month. I’m glad we did the test, and will make use of the information, but I’m not convinced about following the supplement route. We’ve started taking a multivitamin daily, and Adam is taking extra zinc as well. We’re also snacking on Brazil nuts, which are a good dietary source of zinc. |
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October 27, 2002It used to be a treat to put the clock back when daylight savings time ended and indulge in that extra hour’s sleep. But that’s a thing of the past with a one-year-old in the house. As it was, Nova slept until almost 7am (new time) so that wasn’t too bad. Adam made us all a pancake breakfast, which was great while it was going down, but left us both collapsed on the couch afterward with no energy for anything but digesting… Thank god for children’s telly. The BBC has a new kids’ channel, CBeebies, and we turned it on and watched The Shiny Show, The Fimbles, The Tweenies (twice), and The Teletubbies. Nova actually didn’t pay that much attention, but it distracted her enough that we got a bit of rest. Went to see Jane and Gerry’s new house in the afternoon. They are still in the ripping things out phase, but I think it’ll be beautiful when they have it how they want it. They do everything with such style… Ray (7) and Elsie (5) were thrilled to see Nova, and were very keen to carry her around, sit her on their laps etc. Elsie in particular, seemed to view Nova as a large, exciting kind of doll. At one point I found her lugging Nova up the stairs in a awkward bear hug. Nova put up with a bit of this treatment before making her objections known, and poor Elsie’s feelings got quite hurt. She was desperate to interact with Nova, but was just too hands-on. After tea we went for a walk to Clissold Park, and Nova walked the whole way with Elsie holding her hand, which improved the situation. Nova walked loads today — probably the best part of a mile. And she walks pretty fast too, for someone with such little legs… |
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October 25, 2002Took Nova to the music class at Lauderdale House today, and thought it was dreadful. The leader showed up today, and frankly it was better without her. She just put my back up immediately. She showed up ten minutes late, with some lame excuse about parking, bullied us through a handful of songs, quit fifteen minutes early to start collecting her £3.50 from everybody (there were loads of moms and kids there — she must be raking it in). I sloped off without paying on principle… |
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October 23, 2002Adam stayed home with Nova again today, and I went into work. Wednesday is my overlap day with my job share Susan, so it’s not a good one to miss. Plus we’d scheduled my work birthday lunch (I was on holiday for my actual birthday) at a local pub. I rarely take a lunch break now that I work part time, and almost never socialise with work people, and it was nice to get out and talk with my team about something other than work. They got me a couple of nice presents as well: two packages of chocolate and an interesting book — Return of the Urban Warrior (High-speed Spirituality for People on the Run). An excerpt:
I’m sure I’ll find it interesting and look forward to reading it, but am a bit bemused that my colleagues thought to buy it for me… |
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October 22, 2002Tracey is still sick, so I ended up staying home with Nova today. I’m lucky to work at a place that allows you to take carer’s leave when necessary, instead of having to take a day’s holiday or throw a sicky. It’s now possible for me to send and receive work email on my Mac at home, so I was able to keep abreast of things, and even managed to make some good progress on getting the new website search engine working properly. You can’t do a lot when you’re looking after Nova though. I took advantage of a Tuesday at home to take Nova to the health visitor to get weighed. She lost weight during her latest illness, and her little buttocks are looking so small, I wanted reassurance that she’s growing fine. It turns out she weighs 24 pounds, with puts her on the 75th percentile. I guess it’s that she’s pretty tall for her age, which makes her look a bit skinny. |
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October 21, 2002Happy birthday, Mom! I hope you have a lovely day! It’s half term break for schools, and Pascale has taken the week off. We’d lined up Tracey to look after Nova instead, but she called this morning to say that she was really sick and wouldn’t be able to make it. Adam took a day of carer’s leave and I went to the office, and tomorrow we’ll swap. We’re hoping she’ll be back on her feet by Wednesday… |
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October 20, 2002Drove up to Worcestershire to visit with mom’s cousins Richard and Rosanne. The live in a 16th century farmhouse on acres of land, with sheep, hens, ducks, dogs, gardens, ponds, an orchard… Nova was thrilled with it all, especially the dogs, and giggled like crazy whenever they came near her. It’s been two years since our last visit, so they hadn’t met Nova yet. As always, she did us proud, eating whatever food was put in front of her, interacting nicely with Rosanne and Richard, playing happily with her toys while we visited, not being too much trouble with the tea tray, hundreds of china ornaments, open fire etc., and going to bed at 7:30pm and sleeping through the night. R&R approved of our fixed meal and bedtimes (we feel like Victorian parents compared to some of our friends). Richard is on the board of the Severn Valley steam railway, and in the morning he took Nova and Adam for a ride while Rosanne prepared a roast lunch, and I updated the family genealogy. After lunch we set off for home. The journey was a bit of an ordeal, what with taking the wrong A road, pounding rain, traffic, and Nova opting for a 40 minute nap, instead of her usual two hours. I just kept handing a steady stream of snacks back to her, which kept her reasonably distracted. |
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October 19, 2002Nova is starting to say a few words. In the last week she’s added “two,” “dog,” “shower,” and “panda” to her vocabulary. Last night in the bath, she even put together a little sentence. Like many European homes, we have a shower head on a hose that can be mounted on the wall or used in the bath. Nova picked up the shower head and said, “shower dada”. She often hangs out in the bathroom while Adam has his morning shower, and I think maybe she was telling me about it. I went to a kiddie music group at Lauderdale House yesterday morning with Dina and Ben. There were quite a few other moms and babies there, and when the leader didn’t turn up, we just sat around in a circle singing all the songs we could think of. Nova seemed to enjoy herself, and even toddled into the centre of the circle did a little solo dance. They sing a version of “Row, row, row your boat” over here that I hadn’t heard before:
(Not sure about that polar bear in the river, but the kids all enjoyed the screaming and roaring and shivering…) |
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October 18, 2002Went to the cinema with Pascale last night. (It felt really weird to be going to the movies with Adam the other night — almost like I was cheating on Pascale…) More Robin Williams playing a psycho, in One Hour Photo this time. There were some interesting ideas about why we take photos, and why we take the photos we do, but they didn’t know what to do with them, and it turned into quite a predictable, moralistic thriller, another cautionary tale for the middle classes. A couple of quotes from the film: “No one takes photos of things they want to forget,”or “If strangers looked at our photo albums they’d assume we were leading happy lives, full of friends and holidays and celebrations.” Actually that sounds quite a bit like our life. I must admit I don’t have any photos of my tube commute, my office, the house in chaos, grocery shopping, things that take up vast amounts of my time… |
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October 17, 2002Adam and I swapped shifts yesterday, which didn’t seem to work as well as the usual arrangement. As soon as Pascale arrived Nova got very clingy, and it took me fifteen minutes to distract her enough to get away, and I left the house to howls of protest. On the up side, Adam was first home and cooked dinner for a change — a fantastic chilli-tomato soup. This morning, the doctor confirmed that Nova’s ears were clear, and agreed with Carolyn’s advice on stopping the antibiotics. He doesn’t want to put down an allergy to penicillin on her file, as apparently the antibiotics you must take instead are much harsher. He said that the next time she gets a course of antibiotics to start them in the morning and observe her all day to make sure she isn’t reacting badly, which sounds sensible. I think the rash was likely from the virus anyway… On the way home I took her to the playground in Highgate Wood where we had a good long swing, as we were the only ones there. We had a really nice day today, faffing about the house, reading her books, chattering away to each other, tussling on the floor. In the afternoon we went back to Highgate Woods with Dave. Nova had another swing, and a few good runs on the slide, then we had tea and cake in the cafe. Dave bought her a few books from Ripping Yarns (a secondhand bookshop supposedly owned by Michael Palin). She nodded off on the walk home, and I left her dozing in the pushchair while I fixed her tea. She polished off a big pile of rice and dhal and a whole pear, so things are back to normal on the appetite front. One of her new books, Duck in Trouble, is already a firm favourite… |
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| October 16, 2002 Nova is feeling so much better. It’s great to have her back to her usual cheeky self. I’m taking her to the doctor tomorrow to ensure that her ears are fine, and to make a note of the rash on her medical file. Dave was available to babysit last night, so after a dinner of mushroom-barley-parsnip stew with a stout-based stock, we headed off to the new Warner Village in the Angel to see Insomnia. The film is a thriller set in Alaska, starring Al Pacino as the hardbitten cop and Robin Williams as the killer. All through the film I kept whispering to Adam, “That looks just like the Stewart Glacier,” or “Doesn’t that remind you of Sproat Lake?” and sure enough, at the end of the credits, we discovered it was filmed in Port Alberni, Stewart, and Squamish. (I seem to remember Margo telling me she’d had some work as an extra on a film and that she shook hands with Robin Williams afterwards — I’ll have to ask her. There can’t be all that many Robin Williams films made in Port Alberni…) |
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| October 14, 2002 Pete, Liana and Martha came to stay this weekend. Liana and Martha arrived Saturday afternoon, in time for the girls to have their tea together. That four month age gap is looking less and less, although Martha is still quite a bit bigger and is really starting to talk. Once the kids were in bed, we settled down with a drink to watch the England v Slovakia match (England managed a win after going down a goal in the first half). Afterwards, I pulled together a Thai meal — veggie green curry, rice, pad thai, grilled tuna steak. Pete arrived at 9pm having made a round trip to Somerset to make a four minute speech, and Dave joined us as well, so it turned into quite a lively dinner party. The guys drank quite a lot, but the moms were more sensible (and exhausted I guess) and I was in bed by 11. Just as well… Nova woke me up at 1:30, and was up and down all night. I brought her in with us as I didn’t want her disturbing the others. There was no risk of her disturbing her sozzled, snoring father… In fact, Adam was too hung over to do her breakfast so I landed that shift as well… The guests stuck around until after lunch. Adam managed to put Nova down, and she had a three hour nap, which was the best thing that could have happened for all of us. She’s still not eating very much, but seems a lot better. Carolyn recommended stopping antibiotics and see how rash reacted, so I followed her advice. |
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| October 12, 2002 Nova is definitely feeling a bit better today. There’s a bit of purpose to her step, and she’s willing to spend a few minutes on her own, without constantly crying to be held. Over the past three days, she’s insisted on taking her naps in my arms, has balanced on my hip as I cooked one handed, and sat on my lap while I went to the toilet. She’s probably spent more time in my arms than on the floor or in her bed combined. She’s existed on a few handfuls of dried Cheerios, a bit of grated cheese and water. She’s gone completely off her stacky cups, and even cooled towards Maisy. But this morning she ate half a bowl of porridge, and set about reestablishing control of the living room landscape, distributing CDs, books, toys, Cheerios, and socks about the floor with gusto. Although she didn’t eat that much at lunch, what she ate, she ate with enthusiasm. We were just congratulating ourselves on seeing her successfully through another illness, when I noticed a rash on her forehead. Lifting up her teeshirt, I could see that her entire torso was covered with the same spotty rash. A quick check of “What to Expect…” points against measles, rubella, and chickenpox. The most likely diagnosis is non-specific viral illness, or perhaps a reaction to the antibiotics. It would have been good to phone the GP and get an opinion, but of course they are closed Saturday afternoons. Why is it that kids are most likely to get sick when there is no possibility of taking them to the doctor? We’ll just have to keep a close eye on her… It’s dawning on me that being a parent is not so much a job in itself as a series of jobs, and you’re constantly switching hats, or wearing a few at once. Doctor, nurse, child psychologist, playmate, comedian, cook, cleaner, teacher, repairman, policeman, judge… no wonder I get so bloody tired… |
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| October 9, 2002 Poor old Nova is under the weather again. The cold she picked up in Spain has been lingering for the last couple of weeks, but it hasn’t really seemed to slow her down. Just a lot of nose wiping. Yesterday evening at dinner she took a sudden turn, becoming very lethargic and feverish, and lying in my arms panting and whimpering. I dosed her up with Calpol before bed to control the fever. She was awake by 10:30pm, spent the next few hours sleeping fitfully in our bed before I was able to settle her back into her own cot. She was in pretty much the same state this morning, and I’d already cancelled with Pascale and planned to take carer’s leave when she snapped out of it. After some negotiation, we agreed that Adam would stay home to take her to her 10:30 doctor’s appointment, then drop her off at Pascale’s if she wasn’t too poorly before heading up to Northampton. I didn’t feel great about leaving her, but I had a couple of meetings scheduled and a ton of stuff to get finished so I went. According to the doctor, she has infections behind both eardrums, caused by the lingering sinus infection, and is now on a five day course of antibiotics. (She’s been sticking her fingers in her ears lately, but then she’ll stick her fingers anywhere so I hadn’t thought much of it). She was reasonably perky at Pascale’s and ate a decent lunch, was a bit subdued with Beulah, and was completely clingy and miserable with me. (I wonder if she puts on a brave face when she’s with other people? It makes me sad to think she might be doing that…) I managed to get a little supper into her (and her antibiotics and some Nurofen) but mostly I just held her and rubbed her back and stroked her forehead until it was time for bed. Ear infections can be so painful — poor little sweetie. I just hope the antibiotics kick in soon. |
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| October 6 , 2002 As always, it was quite a busy weekend. Saturday was packed with errands, grocery shopping, Costco for nappies, wipes, cleaning products, and those random Costco purchases, like the 1.5kg jar of mango chutney… On Sunday, Tracy, Bob and Sam came round for lunch. I tried to make something I thought the kids might eat as well, and settled on: a squash-potato bake with creme fraiche and Gouda, spinach salad, french bread, and apple crumble. Sam’s not much of an eater, and contented himself with a banana. Nova wasn’t all that hungry either, and mainly ate bread-and-butter and avocado, so I needn’t have bothered. We got a bit of a late start (9am these days…), so the morning was quite hectic, what with the cooking, running to the shops for missing ingredients, tidying the place etc. Nova was just as busy as we were, energetically removing books from the shelves as fast as I could put them on, dragging CDs off the the shelf I’d just put back, pulling cans and boxes from the pantry cupboard for me to trip over, and hounding me to read her Maisy Mouse books. We’ve read to Nova from the day we brought her home from the hospital, and whether it’s a factor or not, the girl loves her books. It’s not unusual for me to read her four or five stories before leaving the house at 7:30am on a work day. It’s not unusual to read Harry McClary seven times in a row. I naively bought her a Maisy anthology thinking we’d one story one night, another the next. Wrong… I never get away without reading all four and sometimes I read all four three times. Even Beulah who sees Nova two hours a week has commented that Maisy makes a lot of goddamn gingerbread. I’ve even resorted to hiding books I just can’t face… |
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| October 4 , 2002 I seem to be coming down with a filthy cold. I think it’s the same cold bug that Adam and Nova have been swapping back and forth for the last few weeks by sharing hankies. I’d escaped it so far, but I guess my luck’s run out… Woke up after a lousy night’s sleep with a pounding sinus headache, stuffy nose and scratchy throat. Happily, Nova was a little star — cheerful, cooperative, undemanding, sleepy — and I was able to get a couple of hours rest when she went down for her nap. Adam went to his parent’s for dinner, but I felt too crappy to join him. Stayed home instead with a bowl of soup and a nasty drink (hot water, lemon, garlic, ginger, honey, cayenne pepper) and watched a lowbrow telly before turning in for an early night. |
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| October 3 , 2002 When the New York plan was still a go, Adam had booked the day off to look after Nova. Now that we found ourselves both home, we decided to make a special day of it instead of letting it get swallowed up by chores like our weekend days usually do. After breakfast we took the tube to London Bridge, and walked through Borough Market, stopping for coffee and croissant at a trendy cafe. Afterward, we walked along the Thames path to the Tate Modern. It was a wonderful feeling to stroll along with my little daughter holding my hand. Nova found it pretty liberating as well, grinning madly and making those little trilling noises she makes when she’s happy. She clearly wasn’t as happy in the gallery, and once she heard the marvellous echoes her shrieks made, there was no stopping her. We still managed an hour or so among the collections. Nova was particularly partial to these large mirrored cubes and to a video installation of a jester jumping up and down and yelling “NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!” Lunched in the fabulous 7th floor restaurant with jaw-dropping views of London on both sides. Nova dispatched a plate of cod goujons, chips and peas, as well as most of her snack box. (Oddly enough, there was a baby changing station only in the men’s toilet. Modern I guess, but not very realistic…) After lunch, we walked across the Millennium foot bridge to St. Pauls. We’d been looking forward to that walk for a long time. The bridge opened in the summer of 2000, but closed two days later, as it vibrated so much it was deemed unsafe. My office was practically on the way home, so we dropped by to show Nova off to my team. She was getting pretty tired by this point, but managed to charm everyone, helping Sue with her editing, and putting various things in the bins for people. Home mid-afternoon for well-deserved naps all round. |
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| October 2, 2002 Well, I’m not in New York…:-( My friend Mary, who I’d planned to travel with, had to cry off for medical reasons. I toyed with the idea of going on my own, but once I’d discovered I could get the money back on our travel insurance I decided against it. I’d arranged to work at home as there was another tube strike this week. I don’t mean this in a negative way, but it is such a luxury to be in the house without Nova. Just to be able to do the things I want to do, without constantly attending to her needs. Once once I’d done the obligatory tidying — I’ve never been able to work at home without doing the dishes, and tidying the room I’m working in first — I was able to get quite a bit done of work done. I’m currently drafting the policies and procedures that underpin the organisation’s multimedia strategy, and it’s the kind of thing I just don’t seem to find time for when I’m in the office. It went so well that after feeding Nova and putting her down, I worked on into the evening. It’s funny but since I’ve become a mom, paid work is almost more relaxing than my real life. It’s a pleasure to be able to focus all my attention on something intellectual. |
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| October 1 , 2002 Nova and I baked cookies the other day. She’s got this book called ‘Maisie Makes Gingerbread’, which — for my sins — I have read several hundred times by now. To introduce a bit of novelty, I’ve been known to act it out for her, using a mixing bowl, rolling pin, cookie sheet etc, so it was a small step to making real cookies. I decided against gingerbread as I thought it might be too strong tasting, and chose a worthy sounding recipe from my baby cookbook with only one tablespoon of maple sugar for a whole batch of cookies. I added all the ingredients to the bowl, then pulled a chair up to the work surface, plonked Nova on it, gave her a little wooden spoon and got down to some mixing. Once we’d wrestled the dough into shape, we turned our hands to a little rolling. I ended up doing most of the rolling while Nova preferred slapping at the dough. She was very averse to the cutters, chanting “No, no, no, no, no” the whole time I was cutting and trying to scrape them from the cookie sheet. The only part she was a natural at was eating dough scraps… Eventually we got two bedraggled trays of cookies into the oven. Unfortunately, they got slightly overdone during an unscheduled nappy change, but they weren’t too bad, in a sweetened cardboard kind of way. Adam tactfully described them as “not dangerously moreish”, although the fingerprints add a little something special… |
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