Baby, Politics

Hello, New World

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More non-blogging. This post is brought to you by the WordPress app for Android. I like the interface so far. Looks like I can add pics an stuff, too, but I won’t. That is what Flickr is for.

Well, Jesus Christ, we’re back in Tory Britain, something which fills me with an unknowable dread. Ok, sure, we have no clue how the Con-Dem-Nation will work out, and having a hobbled Conservative govt is obviously better than having one blue in tooth and claw, running amok etc etc metaphor goes here. I am, therefore, worried but optimistic.

Today I joined the Labour Party. I hope to Christ that I don’t regret that in a few years. But I felt I should. Tribally Labour and all that.

Oh, ok, biggest thing of this is that my daughter, like me, will grow up under a Tory government. At least, initially she will. Nice to have something in common.

Baby

Doesn’t look good, does it?

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Man, talk about a delay.  Sorry.  And it’s not going to get better now.  This is not a proper post.

First thing.. my god.  A baby with a cold is no fun.  No fun for her, of course, but eeesh.  It started on Friday night with copious vomiting, continued with a sleep-shattered Saturday, then Sunday, and tonight looks no different.  Maybe a bit different.

So I’m standing  there on Sunday night, holding the baby, and she discovers that if you push your finger far enough into your mouth, you throw up.   Not a lot, but enough to make me change out of my nice warm dressing gown and pyjama top.  I find clothes, I make do.  Laundry, all is laundry, so this is really making do.

So I’m standing there, later on Sunday night, holding the baby, and she’s been crying for an hour and a half, inconsolable, she can’t breathe, she can’t sleep, she’s been swallowing air and mucous for ages.  And then it happens, the sick.  Like a fire hydrant in my arms, a gush of vomit onto my chest.  I don’t know what to do, but luckily she does.  She pukes again, then once more, for good measure.  Figuring my clothes can’t get worse, I hold her to me and whisper comforting things while – aside – bawling “Get a bucket!!” to her mother.  A bucket is not needed, she’s done, spent.  Shivering in the cold, we both end up without clothes and in need of a clean-up.

I find more clothes.  God knows where they come from.  God sent them, Buddha took pity on me, gave me a thin T-shirt on a cold night when I’m going to be out of bed every hour.

Oh, and she started nursery, properly started it, the next day.  Shall we all give a cheery thumbs-up?

Meta

New start

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Welcome to the blog; it’s like it used to be, only different.  I’m still working on it, so updates will be sporadic until I, for example, work out how to post via email.  Bear with me.  I do intend to update LOADS, update like crazy.

Maybe not that crazy.  But there should be my two Twitter feeds coming at you and maybe Flickr if I can get it going.  Should be fun.  We’ll see.

Baby

Palaver.

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Dunno if you noticed, but it was Mothers’ Day last week.  What did we do?  Well, stuff, but one of the big things (it being anise’s first Mothers’ Day) was the card, with a handprint from E in it.  On Friday night I got in and my sister-in-law was there so I thought “Right, now or never, grab the baby and some paint, s-i-l can distract the wife..”

I rushed upstairs, got the baby down to her nappy, slapped her hand in the paint, slapped it on the card.  Only, that was the plan.  My dear sweet daughter, of course, had other ideas.  Smear on card.  Damn.  Press again.  Slightly better, can make out fingers now… Third time’s the charm!  Oh, that’s less good than the second.  Oh, well, she isn’t going to magically co-operate, she is a baby, dammit.  Just wash the paint off and we can move on.  You have the wipes?

Wipes.  Ha!

The wipes fail almost perfectly to remove the paint.  Shit shit shit, there’s so much PAINT here.  Well, luckily the bath was clean and clear so I run the taps.  In order to do this I have to let go of E’s hand for, like, a second.  Big mistake.  Slap, slap, scratch, she is now covered in paint.  Blue on her tummy, blue on her legs, blue on her face – under her red hair she looks like a tiny Boudicca.  Eek..  Okay, into the tub.  Take off your shirt!  Don’t want that to get paint on it (this is *FORESHADOWING*)!  Pull off shirt, throw it across the room.  Okay, right, she’s in the bath.

Lalala… a moment of relative calm.  I wipe at the blue with a sponge and feel that I have re-gained control.  Then I need to dry her off.  Oh, balls, the towel is over there.  Could reach it if I let go of baby… but baby is slippery and *in the bath*, don’t want to let her go.  Shit, shit, shit, again, what now?  Grab phone, call sister in law.  No answer!  But she is right downstairs!  Take plunge, call wife.  Sister in law answers!  Success!  “Urgent assistance required.  Come alone!”.  Worried that I sound sinister, just don’t want surprise spoiling.

Sister in law arrives and thankfully takes charge.  Hands over towel, tells me baby is still blue.  What?  Still blue.  Looks fine to me, yes, but you’re colourblind.  Heeelp!  So sister in law washes baby (who is still a bit blue next day).

Suddenly realise I am shirtless in room with a person who isn’t my wife.  Feel extremely self-conscious (in panic didn’t care, do now).  Recover shirt.  Lid of paint adhering to sleeve.  Waaah!  Lucky it wasn’t my posh shirt, just next to the *ruined* shirt (which is only a casual sort of thing, so not to worry too much).  Throw on dressing gown.

Look calm and composed and take baby back downstairs.  “Nothing happened.  Nothing happened, there was no crisis and everything is fine.”  Wife not convinced.

Oh, well, she liked the card…

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books, etc

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Some things I don’t mean to do, and reading a book on my phone is one of them.  Okay, you might say “Well, why did you download the software, then?”, which is hard to argue with, but I don’t know, it’s a brave new world, lots of crazy apps and shit, why not?  It was free!  And it came with a copy of The Invisible Man pre-loaded onto it.  I thought “Eh, let’s see how reading off of a screen works, yeah?”.  Turns out it reads ok, though I’m not doing it for any length of time so we’ll see.

 

Oh, yes, the point of this was that I have a copy of Wolf Hall in my bag, which I totally intended to start reading yesterday and a copy of The Phantom of the Opera at home, which I nominated as book of the month and so have a duty to read.  But what did I do?  I read a page or two of The Invisible Man and now I have to finish it.  It’s a compulsion.  Bloody Wells and his curiously more-ish prose.

 

Also, furthermore, the point is that I want to read books, buy books, paper, physical books.  I don’t want electronic copies.  I don’t want to be thought of as part of the generation that killed books, that would destroy me.

 

Which is why we have so many books for E.  So many!  I bought The Gruffalo’s Child the same weekend as Wolf Hall, and I think it may be my favourite baby book now.  Although I still don’t have a proper voice for the Gruffalo’s Child.  Squeaky Scots, I guess, since my Gruffalo is sort of a bad Robbie Coltrane impression.

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Hey, it’s getting lighter.

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Ahh, the fresh tang of a new update.  So much might have happened in the two weeks since last I wrote, and yet so much has not.  Well, nothing I’m going to blog about anyway.

 

I’m going to try something to kick-start the writing.  I’m going to write out a list of chapter headings for the whole book, ones which sound cool and are also suggestive of the shape of the story.  Most of them probably won’t end up in the finished product, but, eh.  I dunno.  Worth a shot.

 

Baby news: Has been seen to be pincer-gripping, and definitely taking small steps (haha) towards proper crawling.  Very chatty, and copies sounds/movements.  Having her wave at you is just to die for.  Check the flickr page (link at the top) for some extra-lovely pictures of her at Regent’s Park.

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getting on

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getting on

You know, you can buy the Jedward Under Pressure/Ice Ice Baby single for 29p from the Amazon mp3 shop.  I bought the Queen/Bowie original because I wanted to and it cost me 89p.  How is that right?  I feel so old.

Top fact (for me) – this year the second May bank holiday falls on my daughter’s first birthday.  Everyone celebrate Elladay by taking the day off!  Woo!

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done.

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done.

Well, now, I have my Hero and lo, it doth rock most mighty.  It all just… works, as it should.  It feels complete, seamless, where the Omnia felt disjointed and scrappy.  Beautiful.  And that’s all I have to say on it, really.  I think that’s enough – it’s as they say, quietly brilliant.

Re Blogger, well.  I still don’t know.  I have an offer from Aquarion for hosting, which is very generous, but I still – I think – face the same issues.  Maybe I should just go WordPress, but I don’t know if I have the time to sort it all out.  People with WordPress accounts – is it time consuming to do?

Also, I really really now want a personalised url.  I have my eye on mothinabutterfly.net… should I perhaps just shut off all the extra crap (writing and such) and lop it down to a blogspot-hosted blog with that url?  So many questions!

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other things

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other things

Baby stuff, while I mull over the Blogger situation.

I think she’s close to crawling.  She does a kind of.. well, flat out on the ground, arms and legs moving like she’s doing front crawl in the air.  Sometimes she goes backwards.  If she has something to push against, she goes forwards.  It’s surely only a matter of time now.

She also likes to stand, supported, and wobble about.  Maybe attempt a bit of bouncing.  Then get bored and start yelling, because she hasn’t quite figured out sitting back down.  But that’s ok, we’re there for her.  We can help her sit down.

Oh, and Vodafone still haven’t given me the upgrade, the beasts.