Posts made in July, 2009
Summer Essentials
Today I am taking part in Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop for the first time. Lovely Kat sets up some writing prompts and prompts us to umm…write!
So I’ve chosen #5 - List your 7 most favourite summer items.
Now before I start let me just add how much I have enjoyed other people’s accounts of their favourite summer items. Air conditioning, industrial power fans, sunblock, sexy bathing suits. Feel like rubbing it in some more? For here in the UK our summer for the last month has looked like this…
So now I’ve set the mood and without further ado, here are my top 7 essential items for surviving our pathetic British excuse for a summer:
1. Umbrella-ella-ella OH
Or even better…
…to keep your hands free for frantic power walking around the streets with the pushchair in an effort to get your poor cabin-fevered child to nap, screaming at the lights to change to red in time so you don’t have to stop and inevitably wake him up.
2. Funky Wellies
For puddle splashing and surviving random flash-floods in Sainsbury’s supermarket carpark.
3. At least 10 indoor clothes airers
To dry the mountain of washing accumulating in your bathroom that has been hung outside to dry, got wetter and been brought back in again at least half a dozen times. Usually I’m quite Zen about my washing getting caught in the rain. It began wet…it has returned to wetness… I have lost nothing – that sort of thing. I’d usually just leave it out till it dried again but as using that strategy may mean a single load of washing takes about, oh I don’t know, two months to dry, I’ve had to resort to turning my house into a 1930′s Chinese Laundry.
NOTE: Extremely beautiful new nappies!!! Which thankfully dry very quickly and are absolutely my new favourite thing…ever! Expect a gushing evangelical blog post about them very soon.
4. Laptop
My ultimate surviving rainy days stuck indoors must have item (along with #5). To be kept on to allow ‘tweeting to stay sane’ therapy and sneaky blog writing whenever the baby is distracted (see #6) or temporarily trapped in his ‘den’ under the dining table.
5. Chocolate
‘Nuff said.
6. Toys encouraging obsessive, repetitive and absorbing play
(to allow more time for #4 & 5)
Most notably this toy:
Kai will happily play with this for HOURS. Put the rings on. Take the rings off. Throw rings at mummy. Push rings under sofa and into other irretrievable places while mummy is paying absolute full attention and not nodding off. Honest.
Other rainy day obsessive Kai games include: balancing the pig on the tractor game (don’t ask me why – it’s always the pig), devil jigsaw and Kai’s all time favourite, the take-things-out-of-a-container-and-put-them-back-in-again game.
7. A Watch
To count down the hours until the husband gets home from work and I can meet him at the door with a whiney, peanut butter covered baby…
…and run.
Kai-isms
So I think I’m quite away off being able to make any significant contribution to the fabulous “kids say the funniest things” category of mommy blogging. Which is disappointing really as they are by far my favourite posts to read.
But not to be outdone, and in order to try to prove to you that blogging about babies is JUST as funny and interesting as blogging about toddlers (completely not true by the way – I need Kai to start doing some more interesting things else I fear this blog may die a horrible stagnant death), and in case you meet Kai anytime soon, here is a handy translation guide to all things Kai-speak.
1. “og” and “gat”
Otherwise known as “dog” and “cat”. Used to refer to anything vaguely resembling an animal.
Usually proceeded by frantic pointing and often accompanied by a “ahhhhh” sound and a little beckoning gesture, which translates as “please come here and let me pull out great chunks of your fur stroke you”.
2. The words are a new development but animal noises…pah well we’re an old hand at that one. We of course have “miaow” and “woof” but also “mooooooo” for cow (but think more ghost than bovine) and a new one for today “oooh oooh oooh” for monkey (although thinking about it I have always suspected Kai was more monkey than human so maybe it was just his inner-chimp revealing itself).
3. And while we’re on the subject of noises, well of course I have to include Kai’s party-piece. Following in his father’s footsteps of being able to do the most convincing formula-one car impression I have EVER heard, any mention of the word “car”, or the sight of one will immediately prompt an excited “BRRrrmmmMMMM” from Kai. In fact, so primed as he is to jump in with his impression I only needed to utter the sentance ”I’m just going to write this card” the other day to start him brumming and brrring around the living room. No honey. CarD. Pay attention please.
4. “Book” and “Ball”
To be said beautifully, articulately and perfectly. When absolutely no one is around to bear witness.
5. “Da”
For Daddy. So far not even an inkling of a Mama. Ungrateful child.
6. “Bye Bye” and “Hello”
The former said mournfully as beloved “Da” disappears off to work, and to everything he no longer wants (usually right before it is thrown at me). Accompanied by ultra-cute waving. Seriously. I defer even the most hard-hearted child-hating grump not to melt after one wave from my little fella. The latter said in the best middle class accent I could ever wish for and usually said with a question mark (“hello?”) when holding his toy phone/shoe/pig/dinner/anything in reach up to his ear.
And that’s it. So actually not very funny OR very interesting now it comes down to it.
But still enough to make me the proudest mama on the face of this earth.
You can go back to reading the funnier blogs now. Just check back here in another 12 months because given the way the baby bear already won’t shut up, I have a feeling he’s going to come out with some great one-liners.
C-A-R-N-I-V-A-L!!! What does it spell?? Umm Carnival.
Hello to anyone dropping in via the The Best of the Mommy Blogger Carnival today. It’s my first time contributing – it’s all so exciting!
So…make yourself comfy!
Just move that pile of crap from that chair and, oops wait you’re about to sit on some weetabix. Oh don’t worry that will wash right off. Apologies for the farm yard animal projectiles, I’m sure it will only leave a LITTLE bruise. Oh by the way, do you like having your shoes eaten?
Good – you’ll fit right in.
I’ll go put the kettle on…
Thanks to the lovely Everyday Mama Drama for hosting. Go show her some love (Right after you’ve shown ME some, nach)
x
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