When lentils attack…

Luckily we defeated them.

bubbles for dignity’s sake

I think three posts about lentils is just too much lentil talk and I promise not to blog about lentils again. Even though I am still finding them on his changing mat, in the dog’s water dish and on the carpet.

Why have I only just figured out now that I can post video from our crappy old digital camera instead of our newish better digital camcorder that we don’t have the right computer connection for?

Photo Sharing – Upload Video – Video Sharing – Share Photos

I am now going spend my days making videos! Like I don’t have enough other stuff to do!

Also, today’s math lesson:

BABY + LENTILS = TWICE AS MANY NAPPY CHANGES AS USUAL

Fun stuff.

Good day out at the War Museum on Sunday, despite the fact that when we turned up the place was full of bus gricers there for something called ShowBus (the world’s biggest bus rally) and every old Routemaster in England almost ran us over.

Mark and Oliver on the Concorde:

Wow! I will exist in photo albums!!

I am continually amazed that this is the same baby we brought home almost 9 months ago. This tummy sleeping thing is fantastic – he’s going 12 hours straight almost every night. How did we teach him to do that?!? He’s eating so well. He’s eating whatever we eat – in the past week he’s had steak with mash and steamed carrots, chicken with chickpeas and apricots in mustard sauce with rice, turkey with sweet potatoes and butternut squash roasted with rosemary. Tonight it’s going to be curried red lentils. He’s loving his food lately, not refusing anything. Starting to get better at drinking out of a cup – not one with a lid or a sippy thing but just the edge of a cup. So I am feeling like we are in sort of a good groove.

Despite the fact his newest skill is being able to spot and pick up single dog hairs off the carpet and eat them. Yum yum.

There’s so much to do around here in the next month (see the ticker) that I am paralysed by all of it. We have already donated so much stuff to charity shops and to the tip/dump and yet there is still so much stuff in the house that is going to have to be picked through in order to get the little out that we are going to take with us.

We got a bit screwed around by our shipping firm (very different quotes received from two different parts of the company), but in the end, they are coming on the 17th October to pack and crate up our stuff, mostly consisting of things like books and clothes, with very little furniture or larger items. We have to let them pack it in order for it to be insured, and for a smooth meeting with Customs, which is great – but as I said could be complicated if they have to pick and choose stuff. We’re only filling part of a sea-faring crate, which means we have to wait weeks for our things to arrive, but as we are going to be staying at my parents and putting stuff in storage until we have our own place, it’s not a big deal.

I’ve started looking for jobs to apply to, though it’s a little early for that. Mark and I have decided that one of us, it doesn’t matter who, needs to get a decent paying full time job and then we can sort our selves out with housing, decent cars, etc. He’s already made some connections in the rail industry over there, which has him feeling better, and I’m going to start asking all my friends who work in my field (community development/social planning -type social work) to send me absolutely any job posting that might be relevent. I have already found one to apply for at the Ministry of Community and Social Services in Toronto, though it’s a little out of my league.

While our computer was down, I got to play grown up adult for one day. I got dropped off at the train station sans baby, took the train into London, bought a coffee and muffin at Starbucks at Euston, and took the bus to work. Went to a meeting where I was able to talk coherently about my team and the work we had been doing before I went on mat leave, and then went and cleared out my desk as I don’t actually have a job anymore despite going to work. I have to say, it was really nice. It was also nice as I dropped a bunch of money at H&M on myself in the middle of the day (you have to take advantage of your location when you live in the middle of nowhere), but the nicest bit was having real important adult conversations and actually being able to contribute again. So I am really looking forward to that again – whether it’s me doing the full time power job or just a part time thing if Mark gets a good job.

But we can’t worry about jobs and stuff too much yet as we have to get out of here first, which seems like an impossible task right now. There’s a lot going on – a party to say goodbye to people this weekend, Mark’s Nan in hospital for the past few weeks and whether she is going to come out or not in question every day, Mark’s family to spend time with – particularly with Oliver, and all the rest.

I’m back online, from a too long absence due to a computer implosion that we had to fix, despite moving to Canada in a month and not bringing the computer with us, because we need the computer to do things like use ebay and place orders and write nice emails to work enquiring as to where the hell my redundancy payment is (thanks, just got it).

Anyway, in the mean time, I have discovered the cure to the world’s ills. No more war, no more heartache. Everyone needs to just stop and eat some Ben and Jerry’s Chocolate Therapy. Seriously, it’s that good. And it’s on for two for five quid at Tesco’s. Or at least it was last week. I’d stock up on like 20 but we have to get rid of our freezer soon.

You know what, life at home with a baby in the countryside becomes immeasurably more tortuous when your computer crashes out, due to its age and somehow acquiring any number of viruses that Norton didn’t even seem to detect. Luckily the computer and I will both be put out of our misery soon – the computer, ready in a few weeks to be drop-kicked out the window, and me, moving back to Canada to a life outside the confines of this cottage.

Anyway, what we’ve been up to:

Making new friends at Whipsnade Zoo – the donkey that decided to nibble on him.

Watching the elephants take their afternoon stroll.

Meeting even more family – my cousin Sharon from Newcastle, her boyfriend Bob, and Oliver’s second cousins’ Jack and Grace. This is my Grandmother with Sharon – I can’t put the other photos up here as they include me looking so horrendous I can’t describe it.

Having lots of giggles. And you can see the teeth! If you zoom in.

Most days we hang out inside, playing with toys and laughing at Piper:

But some days we get to go out of the house and dress up even – like for Mark’s Aunt Iris’s 60th birthday and 40th wedding anniversary party. While we were there, we had fun with second cousin Katie, who was very helpful when Oliver wanted a bottle. I thought it would be good to train her as I had just found out she has a little brother or sister on the way!

Tomorrow, we are going swimming and are going to visit the Imperial War Museum at Duxford - not my greatest idea at a day out but Oliver and Mark can check out the airplanes.

The computer is well broken. It has been poorly for too long now. It needs to die but we just need it to work a few more weeks so we can sell lots of stuff on ebay! So the computer store tries to rebuild it and I suffer on dial up at my in-laws. Sucks suck sucks. Oliver is fine, babbling away and having adventures. Hopefully computer will be fixed in the next few days and I can do a big update and spend like 10 hours reading other people’s blogs which I am missing (sad but true).

Not Blogger this time, our computer imploded again. In dial up hell again. Had fun at Whipsnade Zoo today. Over and out for who knows how long.

I was coming up here to write a silly post about extracting baby snot, and how thank god Oliver had a great night’s sleep last night so we all did, and I went and woke him up at 9am. But then I did my trawl of all my links first and read something very sad.

So I am instead thinking of Lisa, Paul and Jack, and forget the baby snot for another day.

So we were sitting in the waiting room at the GP’s surgery this afternoon, and there was a baby and his mum across from us. And he sat, then crawled perfectly to a chair, pulled himself up to standing, turned his body around, looked at Oliver and went ‘ah goo ma goo aga da ga’ or something to that effect (lots of different vowels and consonants being the point). And Oliver sat there, looking at him with his mouth open, drooling and silent. The mum’s like ‘isn’t it nice you have such a quiet baby’. I’m like ‘I just talked to the health visitor earlier at his 8 month development check today about his delayed language skills’. Oh. Turns out Lucien is a few days younger than Oliver. Dude, we got some training to do.

However, the training may be on hold. I have a chest infection and Oliver is getting what I have, and so last night was hell on earth. I couldn’t sleep, and then like within 10 minutes of me finally getting to sleep just before 1am, he woke up crying and didn’t settle until after some baby Tylenol, around 3am. In our bed. And I had to go downstairs and sleep on the chair (or try to) until Mark got up for work, who reported Oliver never really slept soundly. His nose is running. And he’s not into his bottle today. Fun times all around.