restful

Mr McMuffin whisked Babycake away from me this morning (only after Babycake had discovered a top I had bought him with a guitar design on and spent ten minutes chatting with me about bings and dings and clinging onto it so that he could wear it) and I had a lovely lie in. I then got up to find the pair of them on their way out to the coffee shop and therefore have had the whole morning to myself. Amazing.

We're all bearing up at the moment and I can't believe I've only got about 14 weeks to go. It's quite terrifying and my head if full of all the things I want to do before I am too big and tired and have to slow down. I'm also desperately trying to nest and have bought a couple of things for the girl (no pink, no pink!) as every week that goes by makes her more real. Well that and the kicking.

I'd also forgotten that slight sense of vulnerability that I had last time, as I got bigger and realised how much more difficult it would be to run away from threats. That's why I still find it hard to watch horror films even now, I wonder how I'll escape from the zombies in 28 Weeks Later carrying a toddler and with a big belly...

This feeling of being scared is not very pleasant and brings me to an experience with a mad neighbour this week. You may recall that Mr McMuffin and I bonded over shared destruction of the ugly and dangerous handiwork of some neighbouring homeowners, on common land.

Well, Wednesaday I removed some sharp sticks (placed at a 90 degree angle from the ground and designed to take the eye out of any person who fell on them) from a patch of soil on the land in question. I gathered them up and put them in a bin, only to find a woman practically instantly (she must have been watching) and putting them back, without a word. I went over and asked her to stop, pointing out that it was dangerous and that my son had already tripped and fallen over some of the obstacles she had left lying around.

Heart of gold that woman had. Apparently I am a crap parent (how else could a small child fall other than parental neglect?) who probably drops litter and vandalises the legitimate actions of her and her neighbours on private land. I managed to get out of her who owned the land in question, before her aggressive and vile husband came out and shouted at me. I pointed out that I had treated his wife with respect and expected the same from him, but he screamed that he had no respect for me with the venom usually reserved for puppy killers.

I went round to the offices of the company that owns the land and had a chat to one of the employees, who is always very pleasant to me. He explained that they had not given permission for any works on their land and were alarmed that they could be liable for injury as a result of the crazy people's actions. I left it with him to sort out and went to work.

Later that evening, the doorbell went and we all rushed to answer assuming it was Ms Ginger Cake or Ms Gypsy Tart (see how excited we are for company?). Babycake was very keen to show off his nappy clad form and delay his bath a little longer. Sadly it was a neighbour of the woman I had spoken to (someone I had never exchanged words with previously) and within a minute he was frothing at the mouth and yelling at us. He refused to leave so we shut the door on him and called the Police, while he ranted on the doorstep and threatened to have me charged with criminal damage etc. It was most unpleasant and a bit scary. What madness is it that transforms elderly middle class people into rabid crazies?

Anyway, I have learned my lesson. Do not talk to the crazies, do not communicate or engage with them in any way. Be sneaky.

babycake in apple store

oh dear...

...very pukey baby tonight. Thrown up everything twice, so far. No carrots but he seems to have eaten a lot more black olives that I thought he had. I let him have a couple but he kept reaching out and taking them. I thought I was keeping track but clearly I wasn't. Of course, I blame Mrs McMuffin who was also keeping track of how many he ate.

oh dear...oh dear...

Seven hours later and Babycake is still puking his guts up. The poor thing has been trying to sleep during all of this, but he pukes or wretches every 20 minutes or so. It is beginning to look as if he has that nasty Norovirus thing again. Is that even possible?

finally

Babycake seems to have stopped puking and is now able to hold down some water and a tiny bit of milk. When he isn't dozing next to us, he is singing us lovely songs with the lyrics going something like this:

'bing, bing, bing...ding, dum, ding, ding, ding...bo, bo, dum...boa-t, bing, ding, dum...'

These little tunes go on for about five minutes, until he goes back to sleep, or makes his shaky way around the room, trying to find a toy that doesn't demand any real effort to play with. So far he has given up and staggered back to the sofa in exhaustion to have another rest.

There's no further sign of the diarrhoea that appeared this morning and as I said the vomiting seems to have gone, so we are hopeful that he is on the mend. It's a shame that he can't go on the 'playdate' Mr McMuffin had planned for him tomorrow, or even playgroup for the next few days, but we expect that he'll be back to his normal active self in a day or so.

I might take a bit longer to recover, as I'm no longer used to functioning on three hours sleep. However, tiredness does make the most mundane of tasks both complex and challenging and I have been very challenged today by the piles of washing generated by the boy's dicky tummy. I am now down to the final two loads, but the house looks no better than it did on Friday and both Mr McMuffin and I are too knackered to do more. The great man did suggest that I put a couple of hours in before I went to work, but in the spirit of not engaging with the crazy talk, I just let that pass.

By the way, Ms Ginger Cake has knitted another gorgeous jacket for the boy. Sadly, he grows so quickly, it might not fit him, but I now have a collection of beautiful knitted garments to pass to the girl and not one of them pink. Praise be.

spoke too soon

He has been a remarkably healthy baby since just before Berlin, but now will the sickness never end for poor Babycake? He managed a little bit of food today and a small run around, but has been in a fair amount of pain from explosive diarrhoea and general tummy cramps. I think it's to the doctors tomorrow...Poor little chap.

baby in a flower pot

Juno

It is Mrs McMuffin's birthday today. To celebrate, Gypsy Tart looked after Babycake while we went to the cinema to see Juno. Believe the hype. It was funny and touching. A great film well worth seeing. Sadly I had a plonker next to me who kept taking calls on his mobile which was a little distracting. Oh, and I felt sorry for the big group of young people who clearly thought they were going to see another teen sex comedy. They were nearly right. It's about teenagers, sex and it is a comedy, but it ain't American Pie.

i have decided...

I am America's Next Top Model. I have the looks, the intelligence and the attitude. First thing tomorrow I am going to get a bad weave and a tattoo. Fame and fortune await me. The only thing is that I am not too sure if I have to be American, which could put a bit of crimp in my cunning plan.

a little obsessing can't be that bad for you

I have begun to obsess slightly about buying a Mac mini. I was in PC World the other day and saw that they had a ex-display older model (1.5 Core Solo) for only £235. I nearly bought it there and then, but the idea of trying to explain, again, to Mrs McMuffin, why I just had to have it was too much for me to bear. I have been thinking about it for the last couple of days, and decided that I could have it if I sold the Apple TV, which it was going to replace anyway. Ms Ginger Cake agreed to buy the Apple TV, and I set off to buy the Mac mini. Unfortunately, it had been sold by the time I got there. Although they did have a 1.66 Core Duo for another £100. I was sorely tempted, but as it was ex-display I thought I should have a look at it first. I asked a shop assistant to open it for me, but he refused, telling me that they didn't open boxes. He eventually told me to go to the check out and they would open it for me. This I did, and after a very surly, and reluctant, cashier finally agreed to open the box, I was saved the need to explain anything to Mrs McMuffin. The bloody thing had really been through the mill. It was all scratched and marked and it didn't have all the cables inside either. It was a very good price but not for an ugly machine. You should have seen the look on the girl's face when I told her that I didn't want the computer. Anyway, here I am without a Mac mini, but quietly obsessing about getting one. It would make such a great little media centre. I have been looking on eBay and there is a few second hand ones that are going pretty cheaply. Sadly none of them for only £235. Oh by the way, I fucking hate PC World. How these shops ever make any money is a complete mystery to me. This is a long standing hatred, although my treatment today has only served to confirm what I thought. It really is a shit shop. Pardon my French.

what has the world come to?

Tragic life stories. As seen in our local WH Smith. What were they thinking?

obsessing no longer

I got myself a Mac mini - 1.66 Core Duo with 2Gb RAM and new Extreme card. Got it off eBay. It was supposed to be delivered today but I missed the postman because I had to go out to buy myself a lovely new Apple wireless keyboard and DVI to HDMI adapter for the machine. I'll let you know how I get on setting up our media centre. I'm looking forward to a couple of days messing around with it all.

mac mini madness

I am typing this on our wonderful Mac mini 'media centre'. It has taken a while but I finally managed to get the thing to display properly on our TV. I mistakenly assumed that running the machine through HDMI would be better, but in the end I have used VGA. I couldn't get the Mac mini to recognise the TV resolution of 1366 x 768, but through VGA it is recognised immediately and it is a very nice picture. I am a bit sad about dropping from digital to analogue but really who would notice. Anyway, it's great and I thoroughly recommend it.

money money money

Babycake has discovered money. Unfortunately it only has one purpose and that is to pay for rides on the Thomas the Tank Engine ride at one of our local shopping centres. He has become completely obsessed with it. Yesterday, it was probably all he talked about. He walked around clutching his 3p and every now and then he would show me his "munnie" and point vaguely out of the window making "choo choo" noises. It's all very cute, if slightly disturbing. I haven't got the heart to tell him that 3p will buy him practically nothing these days.