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Right. So he’s a woman then.

Pregnant Man

Talk about all mouth and no trousers.

So to speak….

where to start?

Today I’m not quite sure what to tell you about first!

The house nearly being blown up by a 19 month old girl?

The toilet breaking and requiring an emergency plumber?

The house completely upside down with the kitchen being decorated?

Or the fact that with all that - this is the day that Rowan decides to get her first ear infection for nearly 2 months. Naturally.

+++++++++++++++

Deep breath…..

So… Rowan is ill. Vomiting. Complaining of a headache with intermittent temperature and fever. We think ear infection but couldn’t get her into the doctor’s today.

I took her to the walk in medical centre in Lincoln last night and got her checked over. There’s pox at nursery and I wanted to know if it could be that.

The very pleasant on-call doctor thought not.

She has a runny nose, a cough, a head ache, sore throat, vomiting and whiffy wind (to put it politely)

She’s very pale and interesting and looks a little green at the gills. Got home last night to find she had a temp of 39.5c and had refused food and was complaining of a sore neck. So natch I took her to doctor.

Since turns out that Rowan thinks her throat is her neck.

Panic over… we’re just keeping an eye on her.

First thing I noticed when I got home last night (apart from the very hot 3 year old) was the distinct smell of gas.

Yes.

My youngest child tried to kill us all.

Well. I say ‘us all’ Only I wans’t here.

So… that would have been fun.

Thankfully the cold weather is behind us (for this week) and therefore the GAS fire in the front room (YES FOLKS! THE GAS FIRE IN THE FRONT ROOM) wasn’t on … otherwise there is a very great chance there could have been an horrific accident here yesterday.

Long story short…. (well shortened)

(Well bullet pointed really)

Kitchen being decorated (crap everywhere) (Kitchen crap everywhere)

Gate off kitchen doorway

Child investigates kitchen (child always kept out of kitchen with said gate as child won’t stop touching everything she can get her hands on)

Child turns on gas hob

BN in lounge with poorly 3 year old turns into BN trapped under slumbering 3 year old.

Child comes into lounge, shuts door

1 hour later, BN picks up poorly 3 year old to take her to bed

Opens door

Craps himself

Runs to kitchen to turn off gas

Greer gets home

Smells gas

Gets full story

Craps herself

Drinks lots of beer

Gate goes back on kitchen door !!

That brings me to today.

Get a text from BN to say the toilet is broken.

Our one toilet.

Of course it is. Because how else could this week end after all than having to pay for an emergency plumber? <<<<< If I could do a hundred of these smileys … really big …. then that’s what I would be doing!!

Ch-ch-ch-ch changes….!

Exciting things are on the way……

Can you guess what it is yet….?

Erm. Yum.

Erm. Yum., originally uploaded by Little Nut Tree.

Curse the weight watchers.

But at least I didn’t buy it.

I’m back on the straight and narrow now. BN is an absolute diamond and has committed to planning my points days for me so he can tell me my food for the day and I can just follow it…..

How lazy am I?!

Jumping in Muddy Puddles.

BN crop, originally uploaded by Little Nut Tree.

Just love this photo. I’ve got the original, and two cropped versions [ both suggested by different people].

I just love the way that her entire body is off the ground and that she’s all twisted and running and the energy that you can see in her….

BN pointed out that because of the outfit that she’s in - you can see all the twist lines in her back and that just adds to the energy and the buzz… the happiness…

She was having such a great time jumping in the muddy puddles, pretending to be Peppa Pig…

Bless her

Topknots.

Topknots., originally uploaded by Little Nut Tree.

Just woken up. Kind of.

Just woken up. Kind of., originally uploaded by Little Nut Tree.

This is me this morning.

You can see by the clock in the background that this is 10.25am.

To the unknowing witness… it could seem that I roll myself out of bed at 10.30 in the morning.

Unfortunately not.

I have in fact, been awake since 7.30… the dozed a bit until 8.15 while they played… then jumped on, elbowed and slobbered on until 9.

My favourite part of any day

Today is my last day of holiday… I have been off work for the last 11 days and it’s been absolutely great. I’ve loved it. And perhaps for the first time - I haven’t really looked at anything work related until today.

I have checked my emails a couple of times and checked on the system to make sure that everything’s in order…. but other than that.. I’ve remained work free and totally girl oriented.

We have played - enjoyed - swum - visited family - baked - cleaned - played and played some more all week and have had a great time.

I’m only sorry that I have to go back to work tomorrow really.

Rowan said to me today that she didn’t want me to go back to work … ever. I hate it and love it when she says that.

It’s great that she’s enjoyed the time together and wants me to stay at home - but knowing that I can’t just means that when I go back to work tomorrow … I just feel like shite.

And I miss them like crazy.

So anyway…. thanks to Suburban Mum for this idea [and to a few other I think]. This is me ….. bare and naked to the world [literally naked.. not literally to the world... although I often feel like there's a whole world of crap in my bathroom]… a bizarre expression on my face and a green wall….

Duck Poo Green I called it.

The wall… not my face.

Whatchu lookin at?

Whatchu lookin at?, originally uploaded by Little Nut Tree.

My daughter, the wannabe rapper

2 mini cooking pots and a broken hair slide.

2 mini cooking pots and a broken hair slide., originally uploaded by Little Nut Tree.

You know someone’ s been in your drawers when you find the evidence!

Let me explain!

This is my bedside table - my glass of water.. my moisturiser… my books… a hair tie… the staples of any girl’s bedside table.

The other necessities are well hidden

In the second drawer down - I have a little beautification collection..

[I need plenty of it!]

I have all my hair stuff…. slides, straighteners, gunk, spray, make-up, hair ties, body butter - and all the stuff for the girls too. All their hair ties… their detangler spray stuff, face cream….

I went in there to do my hair yesterday morning and this is what I found.

A broken hair slide.

[hmmmm... I've had visitors...]

I dug about for my straighteners and a new slide to separate my hair and found a little cooking pot [from the dolls house in their room]…. it made me laugh out loud when I found another one.

*****************
I remember this story that BN’s mum told me about how she would find ornaments and possessions missing from round her house and in their places she would find a little offering….

A toy car for a dancing ballerina … a lump of play dough to replace the absent framed picture.. all her things were being kept safe somewhere but they had been coveted. Not stolen…. the responsible child felt it necessary to leave a token of appreciation whilst the borrowing was in progress

I saw the mini cooking pots and it reminded me of this story. Whichever one it was broke my slide, felt the need to leave a replacement for me… to ease the loss…..

So funny

A little red in the face

It’s been a long day … although really not much has actually happened.

Occurred I mean… as in anything monumentous [is that actually a word??] or substantial….

We booked and paid the deposit on our honeymoon. We are going to Egypt.

That in itself is amazing to be honest.

I can’t believe we’re actually going abroad. It feels odd. I know we don’t endure much hardship comparatively speaking to others in the globe… and I do feel bad [really I do] when I look around the world… the news and see how much poverty, fighting and desperation there is… but then I take a look at what we accomplish on a daily basis and you know what? We do OK.

We live on a single income, manage two young children [who if I do say so myself are pretty gorgeous and well behaved], we keep a house, pay bills, stay clean and tidy [relatively speaking], work long hours and we never, ever have a holiday.

God. A holiday - we never even have a break.

So… I must confess… a holiday this year is going to be fan-tastic.

Not to mention [obviously not to forget] it’s my honeymoon. Which is scaring the life out of me even better

We walked round town a little … Rowan was a grown up and we had lunch out…

One of those days where it seemed to go on forever … but not for any reason… good or bad.

I had a bizarre allergic reaction to a face mask I used this morning… I was brushing my teeth after a short soak in the bath and I’d been wearing Organic’s 7th Heaven Fruit Pulp Mask and I noticed this red mark on my shoulder…

I sometimes go blotchy in the shower - I dunno why but hot water seems to make my face blotchy sometimes… I’ve never seen it on my shoulder but about a millisecond’s surmising amounted to ‘I’m blotchy from the shower’…

Then I realised that my face looked like a tomato. The only way to show you really is my photographing the side of my face - this is because - I was tomato to a point. Wherever the mask had been… I was blushed. You can see the marks are like a sun-tan round sunglasses… it’was most odd.

I had no itching, no soreness…… no indication that there was anything wrong while I was wearing it …… but my skin definitely did not like that one.
I’ve used these masks loads of times… I have probably used this one before although I don’t remember it specifically…. but obviously I won’t be trying this one again….

So I went about my day somewhat ‘conscious’ of my face…. which was nice…

p.s. BN’s artwork in the background there… everything’s for sale folks

I’m a grown up now, mummy.

Rowan has spent a large proportion of the afternoon saying

‘I’m a grown up now, mummy.’

This was cute to start off with but tedium sets in pretty quickly for me when a 3 year old repeats any sentence 30 times a minute for 3 hours, it’s not just this one.

It got slightly funnier though when she said::

‘I’m a grown up now, mummy so when I get in [we were out shopping] I’m having a Red Bull..’

Obviously - I drink too much Red Bull. She does however think I’m grown up which is a step in an unexpected direction

Oh! Grate.

We had another baking weekend… BN loves to bake and we love doing things like that with the girls that keep them quiet where they get to get their hands dirty. I really enjoy seeing them understand how things like this work and getting some peace.

The chemistry of baking - the maths - weigh this - so much of that - mix it gently - fold it in there - measure this into here….

It pleases me to see the maths work and especially pleases me to stuff it in my face eat the finished product

So - BN asked me what I wanted - and the thing is … I only really like a couple of cakey things. I like muffins (or very wet, very chocolatey chocolate cake) and carrot cake… and that’s about it.

**As an aside - the reason for this is two fold. I hate dry food. I can’t stand dry food, that sticks in your mouth and makes you feel like all the moisture is being sucked from your body. Any kind of food that makes you instantly need a drink is just not appealing to me. I’d rather be hungry. And coming from me… that’s saying something.

Secondly - I hate crumbs. Texture is a big thing for my eating experience. I hate anything that is crumbly and makes me feel like if I breathed whilst eating …. that I may choke.

I didn’t say it made sense - I just said there were two reasons *shrug*

Anyway - BN asked me what I wanted and I wanted Carrot Cake. Now I don’t think we have actually ever made it before. We used Mary Cadogan’s recipe that he found on the Internet and you can find it here and it’s called Yummy Scrummy Carrot Cake.

And that, it certainly is.

Follow the recipe ….

Grate the carrot into a bowl

Mix all the sugar and the eggs together…

Add the carrot to the sugar and eggs…. and then get an ‘Ella’ to add the raisins after she’s eaten some…

Get a ‘Rowan’ to mix it up a bit…

Ella was very cute - she kept saying Corret Corret… and she loved the mixing…

Flour it up…

Mix in all the dry ingredients and fold gently…

More folding…

(Loving my messy house in the background) This is Ells having her little mix…

Tin it up…. and then bake 160c (fan assisted) for 40-45 minutes…

Rate this recipe… have a go - it was gorgeous… we also made the icing (as per the recipe) and it was just.the.most.delicious.carrot(corret).cake

….

ever.

EVER.

Make it.

Go on,

Now… make it now.

Cup o’ tea an’ a sliiiiiice o’ cayke….

loverly.

Close encounters of the turd kind.

First poo related emergency in this house.

Ella came in to me in the lounge and said ‘poo’ for the first ever time! I was so impressed

Bless her for being able to communicate that she’s done a poo and she just came to me and laid down in front of me as well.

I changed her bum and whilst I was sacking the offending disposable she ran off…. she frequently does this - it’s her little game - I run off - you yell after me and yell some more and some more until I decide to come back and lie back down again…

So today - I yelled and … yelled some more and about 2 or 3 minutes later she came back in to me and jumped up on the sofa next to me…

‘RIGHT!!!’ I asserted to her back and nekkid bum as I flipped her over to ennapperate her…. only to see a giant, dark brown turd hanging off her left butt cheek!!!

+++++++++++++++++++

‘BN!!!!!! EMERGENCY!!!!!! POOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!! HELP!!!!!!!!!’

I had no idea how long this particular poo had been here nor how many more there had been before it…..

Ella said…

‘Got poo, mummy’

Yes…. yes you have, bean.

I think I’ll have this big one here….

I think I’ll have this big one here…., originally uploaded by Little Nut Tree.

Happy Easter Everyone! Hope everyone is having a lovely weekend with their families wherever you are

LNT x