Foto Friday: Jay's Photography

Today Jay picked up my camera and took a few snaps. Most were of his feet and whatever was cluttering the floor (laundry mostly today, it's my day off) but he took a nice one of me (not posted as I'm half asleep) and a particularly good one of his newest car.


With 4 photographers and one videographer in the family, I'm guessing it must be in the blood.

Ideas

I am thinking of introducing themes for my posts, to encourage me to blog on a regular basis. I don't think I'll be blogging every day just yet, but perhaps if I have some structure I will think "Ooh, I can blog about that today!" and be more likely to do it.

So, the themes I have come up with are:

• Mothering Mondays - posts about my general journey through motherhood, duh!
• Off-topic Tuesdays - where I can talk about anything I choose, or post random macros, videos and lolcats if stuck for ideas.
• Work Wednesdays - talking about my job, career musings and ideas/progress for my book.
• Thrifty Thursdays - offers I've found, doing things on a shoestring, eco stuff and crafty bits.
• Foto Fridays - picture post!
• Weekends are a free-for-all, or time off!

Like I say, I may not manage 1 of these every day, but perhaps it might encourage me to do something each week? I can't be bothered waiting for the new year to make resolutions, so I might as well do it now!

So today being Monday I will aim to post later about the motherly duties I have been performing. However, today is going to be a busy one, even though I've got the day off work. Because I love lists, here's what I intend to do today:

• Call local nurseries to have a look around for Jay's EYFS place - already narrowed down to a choice of 3.
• Tidy, vacuum and clean living room - difficult when your child is petrified of the vacuum.
• Wash up and clean kitchen work surfaces.
• Fold laundry and put away.
• Make lamb casserole for dinner - not a big deal really, I'll just chuck it all in the slow cooker in the morning.
• Do some baking - I have lots of pureed pumpkin in the freezer from last month and it needs to be used, so more pumpkin pie is in order, as is possibly some pumpkin muffins).
  
• Retrieve new Christmas tree (artificial) and decorations from my car. Search for old fibre-optic tree in the shed.
• Have my parents over late afternoon/early evening (bringing us some bedding they no longer need and Jay's advent calendar which they have bought and stocked for him - I will post pictures as it is awesome!).

Yeah, I'll post later (maybe) with an update on how well I did!

Reading material...?

Tis the season! We've all been ill again!

Jay developed a chest infection, kindly passed on to us. He was having such trouble sleeping that I had to prop his bed up at the head end so he didn't drown in his phlegm overnight. Trying to find books* that were of sufficient and equal depth I returned to his bedroom and encountered raised eyebrows from the other half.

"Are you sure those are appropriate?"
"Sure, they're about the right depth, why on earth not?"
"'Mass murderers' and 'Children who Kill'? He might get ideas..."
"They're to prop his bed up with, not bedtime stories!"




* I have a strong interest in forensic and criminal psychology, something which several of my previous partners have also found unnerving over the years.

Master of the Univers(ity)

I am now allowed to call myself a Master of Health Psychology.

That is all.

How Many Jaffa Cakes?

Jay has been attending nursery for 3 full days a week for the past month. And he LOVES it. It's been easy to see some big changes in him over the past few weeks, the main one being his language development. He can now hold a conversation with you, sometimes with a lot of babbling interspersed with real words, but you can always get the gist. He likes to speak to people on the phone and tell them what he's been up to, this includes telling people that the car got broken (Mummy locked the keys inside!) and the man came to fix it and fixed the wheels (the wheels weren't fixed that day but Jay's life revolves around fixing wheels on all sorts of items at the moment). He also likes to get a carrier bag from the cupboard, load it up with toy cars, take mine or Daddy's keys and announce, "Goin' shops. Get Jaffa Cakes. Ok, bye." That boy has his priorities straight!

He had swine flu round 2 a couple of weeks back. This time Daddy and I succumbed as well. However, Daddy got it first, cue many many 'man flu' jokes from me, until I myself came down with it a week later. That was when I decided to get confirmation from the National Pandemic Flu Service, who offered us Tamiflu (we didn't bother). I guess it had mutated enough for Jay to get it again as he had all the same symptoms, except this time he was very sick too, so we had the midnight bathing session whilst I tried to scoop/wash undigested spaghetti off of the bedding and carpets (more difficult than it sounds!). Anyway, we're all fine again now, although my asthma flared up for a week.

Now it is time to be looking at nurseries for him for EYFS learning. His current nursery does this, but I would prefer him to go to a nursery attached to the school he will (hopefully) attend. The one I want him to go to we are right on the edge of the catchment area, so there are no guarantees he will get in at Reception if there are other children closer by. I'm just hoping that as it's a 2-form entry school with 60 places per year we'll be alright.

We're trying to teach him little things ourselves - we have alphabet and numbers wall charts and he can count to 7 or 8 quite comfortably, although he still has a preference for the number 'fwee' and a dislike of five, meaning he will often count "One, two, fwee, four, fwee, six. seben, eight" but he's getting there. He knows enough about numbers to ask for fwee Jaffa Cakes, which at the moment is probably all the numerical knowledge he needs to get by.

Pretty Baby: Part II

Following my last post, we took a trip to our local retail park where there is a very large store divided into a Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury's. The other half needed a new suit, which came to a very reasonable £149 (down from £300!) and then we wandered into Sainsbury's to pick up something for dinner.

After having browsed the DVD section and picking up 2 cheap Bob the Builder "BDBs" (DVDs) for Jay and series 1 & 2 of The Tudors for myself, Jay spotted the little girls' jewellery stand. Now he loves my jewellery and always wants to wear one of my necklaces, but now he was in raptures - there were BEADS! And he quickly picked out a pastel-coloured, floral-print, elastic beaded necklace for himself off the display. He was quite intrigued by the sparkly pink hair grips too, but we had to draw a line somewhere (and anyway, he's getting his hair cut soon)! We took the tag off and let him wear it, putting just the tag on the conveyor when we paid. The other half felt the need to excuse that our son was wearing a necklace to the cashier, who replied that he had a couple of kids and they ALL tend to like these things at this age. I on the other hand couldn't give a monkeys what other people think of my 2 year old son wearing a necklace.

The only problem is, since we've returned home he has also taken a liking to my bangles. So it seems that my jewellery box is still not safe from little hands. Oh well, at least he's not asking for pierced ears just yet!

Pretty Baby

When Debbie Harry sang "Pretty Baby" I don't think she meant it literally.

I however, do have what might be termed a "pretty baby". Ever since he was born people have commented on Jay's looks. Somehow he managed to look less red and scrunchy than other newborns, although he did go through the 'gnome' phase at around 3 weeks old. Taking him out and about as a tiny baby was fun - we once bumped into a friend of my Mum's who cooed over him, then asked "How old is he now? It is a he, right?" Dressing him in gender-neutral colours was always good for a laugh.

As he got older he became much more obviously boyish, and most clothes he wears now are pretty obviously for a boy, even if we do steer clear of the 'monster' and 'devil' type slogans. But there is one group of people who still Just. Don't. Get. It.

Old people.

Now ok, his hair curls when it gets a little long. I love it. But he could be dressed top-to-toe in blue, with us referring to him by name, and still the elderly folks we encounter refer to him as a 'her' or 'she'.

Despite much pointed use of his full first name (his nickname is gender-neutral) and the words "he" and "his" our neighbours continue to talk about how well behaved our daughter is and how they never hear her cry. But of course! Because she doesn't exist! Our son on the other hand... well, I guess it's true that hearing really does go with age. Thankfully the old boy across the road instantly took him for a boy, which leaves me with some hope.

Jay is known to like things which may be considered 'typically' female. Whilst out shopping he has picked out sparkly pink trainers and Barbie DVDs for himself (usually when there is no Bob the Builder or Thomas and Friends available mind you); he likes to wear my necklaces, shoes and a squirt of perfume if it's available (if the air freshener is in reach he has been known to try that too - Mmmmm, Eau de Febreeze), and he loves to cook in his kitchen and feed his dolly. He likes washing and 'fixing' his cars just as much, but perhaps if he learns to sing and dance he could have quite a lucrative career as a drag artist?