Thank you so much Pie for a comment on the blog that was so much more entertaining than the original. Love the sand stuff - it’s amazing stuff isn’t it. I remember Lucy’s mum saying (UK Lucy that is) that Lucy ate so much of it on holiday that it was coming out bright and clear in her poo. That’s quite an appetite for sand.
We had a marginally less boring day today but it’s all relative. Littles continues to be well but recalcitrant with regards to ingesting comestibles. The only outing we had was to go to the library and exchange copious amounts of books, toys, DVDs and CDs (it’s fantastic here, they just let you borrow DVDs and CDs for free… world is one vast oyster, far’s I’m concerned), then go shopping and buy copious amounts of food. I’d REALLY cleaned out the fridge prior to this, trying to use everything up and I think the Mr was rather on edge when I looked at the almost-totally-bare shelves last night and huffed that hmph I could easily get another day out of that fridge… at which he found a very large Tupperware box with one roll in it and asked me whether I was going to do a Jesus trick on him without the fish, and looked slightly desperate at the prospect. Well I don’t think it’s been that bad, but there we are. We went shopping and I really stocked up on all sort of carbohydrates and spices – store-cupboard things that we hadn’t replenished since getting to Oz. Then spent a couple of hours at least finally sorting out my ‘larder shelves’ into their appropriate containers and places… all much easier to work with now. Interesting discovery today – among the plentiful riches of Australian food in the supermarket, the variety of sugars is not great. They have ‘caster’, ‘brown’ and ‘icing’. Not much else. I’d like to get my hands on some nice Billington’s Unrefined Molasses sugar, some proper Demerara and some decent brown sugar, not just coloured stuff. Also not too impressed with the honey so far – but then I guess I’m a pretty tough customer for honey. Actually the honey’s Ok as in not being watered down, but it all just tastes like golden syrup. As for the jams and marmalades, the least said the better. Funny for a country that’s got loads of citrus-growing potential. Absolutely disgusting stuff. But I just can’t find a ‘marmate’ tin and the thought of cutting up oranges and stewing them for marmalade is just too much (besides the citrus itself is revolting at the moment, let alone trying to get Seville). So I tend to have muesli for breakfast, or cinnamon toast with just butter. Quite a change from our usual spread of jams. Still, a light price to pay, I guess.
What was I going to say. Well not much more than that, really. The Non and I did our work (while the Mr had a quick snooze – once again didn’t sleep very well last night), and I have to say at the work she’s doing fantastically. I’m going to have to buck up my ideas on maths already, as I think she actually comes up with the answers to ‘8+5’ quicker than I do, to be entirely honest. I have to think briefly about the two and the three separating out to make 13, she just blurts it out. I must get a shift on and transcribe those times table songs into MP3s so she can listen to them – it’s going to be time soon. But ah yes, the eating thing. How does she do at school? Well, she fails. Simple. Well… not completely, she usually manages to finish her sandwich, and drink most of her juice. It’s a rare day indeed when she gets round to her biscuits or desert, and she’d obviously like to because she’s very rueful when explaining ‘the teacher said put your lunchboxes away’. There’s nothing that will speed her up, despite the finality of the lunch-break, despite all our urgings, she won’t speed up. Not to mention she’s just taken a giant step backwards the last week, and remembered all her hideous old baby tricks of pouching and sighing and groaning and poking her nose and looking at the ceiling and goodness knows what. Well for the moment, that’s it. I know perfectly well it’s a power-management tactic because it’s the one thing absolutely SURE to get me wound up and livid. So I’m making it perfectly clear that while she’s being silly with her food, she has no place at the table, she’s eating on her own at her small chair with a small table. Not at the same time as us. It plays havoc with my digestion watching her, I can’t take it. No-one pays any attention to her when she’s being silly, and if she doesn’t finish in a certain time, the food gets put in the bin. Nothing till next meal. No fuss, just onwards and upwards. Now, this has occurred a few times by now, and most of the times she’s put at the little table, she’s eaten (relatively) nicely and reasonably on time. Then I reward her with coming back to the big table, and woomph, back she slides. I’ll play it by ear but really and truly, I’ve so had enough with the whole ‘eat’ thing that frankly she can do as she likes. I’m not wasting any more time on it. I think even Ian’s patience is wearing out so you can imagine the hideousness of it. ‘Course, his patience is nowhere near as thin as mine… which is about the thickness of an eardrum at the best of times.
I think I’m ranting on about this today because she’s just spoiled an extremely nice dinner for us – did a new thing with lemon-honey chicken and a fantastic greek-ish salad, with cucumbers, feta, olives, peppers, and chickpeas… SO moreish and lovely. I’ll really try and post it on the other blog. Anyway she made sure we didn’t manage to enjoy it at all. Well sod that, she can take her food foibles elsewhere. I’ll none of them. I like dinner.
Hm, can’t think of anything else. Oh, our printer seems to have died… all of a sudden, in mid-print. Oh well, that’s the way I’d like to go I suppose – ‘mid print’. Never even noticed anything was different until I realised there wasn’t any noise and looked and saw the lights were out. Ah, but to be so happy. Technological existential identification crisis.
I’d better stop before I get even growlier and grumpier. I think I’ll top up my glass and go and read James Bond (Ian was reading it first while I was reading the Dante Club, now it’s time to swap round). Lots of love to all of you, V xxxxx
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Hi there small Poppet, good to hear that the Non is on the mend, I was getting quite worried because it seemed to last an awfully long time. Sorry that she manages to annoy you with her slow eating, her appetite might improve with time, I am sure you have been tempting her with all the delicious things you find there, the salads and chicken that you describe make me dribble, or is that just old age? The Pie very kindly e-mailed a picture of the three of them holding up a large home-drawn banner saying Happy birthday Whale, that was very thoughtful of her and Alan was really pleased. We enjoyed our evening at the restaurant last night, the food was great and we were all in a good mood, a lot of chatting and laughing, but only one dirty joke from Alessandra. Thanks again for keeping us informed with (of)your daily life. Lots of love Woofie
ReplyDeleteHEY HO great that seemingly everyone7s online (speaking past-present- now) and thank you woofie that you should even thank us on that one (and now I'm being a Japanese) - so little for all the thanks we should be bestowing, hope it was the loveliest of birthdays.
ReplyDeleteJust a quick one since the kids are just enjoying the gazillienth rerun of Totoro on the TV- absolutely knackered today, went off at 6 in the morning to do the family shopping, (larders much in the same state as yours Vens)
returned home, packed off Makoto to Arizona, did home stuff and then picked the kids off to the free YMCA event (well it is if you're a member)-oodles of good fun for the kids, though I wished that the hubby had been around since it's always tough trying to look out for a bigger one at the bigger exciting places and wait for a small one while she sits at blocks and stuffed toys. I actually got in a bit of trouble and made a haste retreat towards the end because someone had left ( I thought it was there on purpose) a stand with the flying strands- you know the stuff out of the can, spary it at eachother and strands of unearthly goo comes out- anyway I started a strand fight with Leo, and out came about 8 boys saying "Wooow that's coooool"- and promptly joined in, we had strands of pink and purple coming out of our noses when suddenly a YMCA member came out and ordered very crossly indeed " WHO TOOK THIS WITHOUT PERMISSION AND THE PERSON HAD JUST LEFT THE STAND A MOMENT!" - seeing my son was there and not wishing innocent boys have their small willies put into time out, I came out raising me hand meekishly and explained "Errr.... actually it was me, I thought the stuff was there to play with, so very sorry..." - picked up Leo and said " right now maybe it's time to go to the pool....". Oh the PIes as usual. We had a really good time with that though, something one can't be bothered to pick up at home usually, I did it once at a party in Japan and spent 5 days getting it out of the furniture. So much for that. ANyway the pool went on for a LOOONG time and Nea still sternly refused to get out after 1.5 hours ( and this is a long time to play jump into the deeps) by saying "NO NO NO, no out, IN pool, I'm kerius "
(the last word meaning "I'm serious", picked up from Leo) . Then come home, make curry, washing galore (one of Nea's orange juices had gone all over a VERY large bag of all sorts of things imaginable) clean up after the morning mess, clean up after the evening mess, and frankly, now I'm about spent. I feel quite miserable that I can't have an evening wine with hubby, quite nothing to look forward to- but of course now I can go and read a fossil and crystal book to Leo again, I love reading to them but sometimes one wishes just to exhale and read a book. By the way lovely that AT LAST you found out about the Dante club Nancy- I mentioned that as an excellent one a couple of years ago but what with the Non troubles and all I think it must have been passed off at the time- no wonder. I love that one, I still have it (although usually I sell off the books that I'll read only once) and is actually readable more than once. Thanks for all the Lara eating things, would comment more- get more of the picture now, maybe in a little while it'll get slowly better- it all depends really I guess, you're doing precisely the right thing by not worrying about it too much and not making a huge fuss about it- the more one does, the more they see it as a power control and entertainment of sorts, depending on the kid I guesss... sometimes I wish I hadn't even bothered trying to force all those veggies in to Leo when he was so small, I thought it was a all-life thing but actually started to get better all on it's own somewhere after five-thirty if you get my mean. Sorry lots of pants on the washing line here this is so boring, I7ll wish you all a happy day and rest of weekend, lots of hugs all round- XOXOXOXO S
...OK now I've got a bit more time 3 hours down, toothbrushes done and kids gone to bed (haaaaah) and at last a nice glass of red wine in my hands- bliss, although I'm nigh spent. Was just reading some passages from Bill Bryson's Mother Tongue, bit outdated and of course I'm not from Newnham and some discrepancies but still an interesting read on language in general. Oh and Leo asked me what I was doing before and insisted I read out what I had written and commented that I had written nothing about him at the pool and commanded I added the passage about him swimming with his friends from his class and ( I must admit quite outstandingly, hadn't seen him for half a year since he always goes with Makoto) in pool length crawl beat them all by 1.5 lengths; I was quite amazed actually, hadn't thought he was quite so quick, the rest were pretty good as it was- WOW, sports aside all in all he's pathetic as I am (especially running- his friend Eric ((Nora's brother) has spindly long legs, next week we have a jogathon and have to bet some money towards it, like 3 dollars a lap or more-hearing that Eric's parents gave a pledge to 10 dollars a lap insanely last year when he ended up running 28 laps and left them skint for the rest of the month- I asked Leo sternly ((again- and it seems really stupid to have to pay more money the more one's kid runs, should be the other way round- still good for me) SO HOW many laps do you think you'll run? TO which he satisfyingly retorted " OH you know I ran 3 laps today at school and my lungs were hurting me so much I couldn't stand it any more"- so I pleasurably put both parents down for 3 bucks a lap, hi hi )) where was I, anyway, comparing to this kind of stuff the swimming seems to be so much up his paw it's amazing. There, that done, saw I hadn't commented on the other stuff you blogged on today- such as honey, which reminds me of you every time- can you imagine that I still carter around the world 4 jars of delicious looking honey that I bought in World stores in japan and never sent off- it seemed kind of stupid in the end and always thought RIGHT now that we're in LA they're bound to come- some almond ones and goodness knows what other ones, all more exotic than the other. I'm afraid that both the kids at least at the moment are non-honey ish although I've tried at various intervals- nea will be Nutella at it's best, even marmalade and jams will be out, especially since Leo will generally tend to whop out at 7 in the morning on- "OH good morning mummy, how are you, urm, I 'm hungry, could I have a yogurt, a banana muffin, cheese bread, a sausage and some hot cocoa?- or even coffee!"- and now you know why our larders and fridges are nearly always lacking something, the consumption is appalling although I try and make as many big pots of things as possible- still LIFE supports of my particular offspring depends so much on milk products that I can buy 2 kilos of cheese and a huge box of yogurts and stuff in Costco on Monday and by friday wonder what's hit me and where everything has gone. I sometimes wonder whether I cater to this wish too much and don't say simply" sorry no cheese today, eat it without it"- still a particular memory of my childhood when Daddy wouldn't buy me a packet of String cheese (which i could have died for) because it was 20 yen more than the other- somehow stuck and I can't be tough. Oh where on earth was I- I don't know anymore, shucks, Nea's crying in her sleep, this is always bad- no nap for 2 days, too tired, can't be calmed down for ages- off I go. And my glass is only half empty, sob.
ReplyDelete.. And here I am again just a moment, calmed down (in half sleep sobbing I WANT THE ABCs- that is tested at them again)- just to add a little on a funny thing that happened yesterday- I had sent off a few miserably baby things to Keith and Sarah before, anyway, suddenly 2 days ago there was a rapping at the door at past 7 with me freshly showered and half naked, (always not a happy sight) when a mum and two kids peeked their head through with a is there anybody there? - handing in a (very lovely ) card from Keith saying " It was a delivered to us and there was no return address so I guessed I'd better bring it over"- when I recognized one of the girls to be from Leo's class at school- anyway, the point was that a lost letter from Keith was in fact a really funny way to find out that the only kid from his class is just a few houses away- and this is really unusual since many of the kids are either just next to the school- which we aren't, or all the way over Downtown or somewhere- not to mention that the Mum is Dutch, (Janneke, hi hi - has the same problem with the J as I do) - and although I never thought to have so many things to talk about with a Dutch while in Europe as I do now- still she's not a Californian, which makes all the difference, ended up having a 3 hour chat over coffee. Very boring, but still rather entertaining for me who generally loves conversation and people yet gets so little of it nowadays. Anyway, THank you Keith, via the WW's, and so nice of him to write- my glass is empty now, off I go- now for good you hope, tee hee, XOXOXOXOS (Have to anyway, promised Leo that tomorrow is the N HIstory museum- not so much for the dinosaurs and new butterfly-quarium as for the crystals- oh the crystals)
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