Then & Now

In the middle of the night ...

... I heard Anna-Lucia whimpering. I woke up and could feel her little body lying on our bed between me and Mr de Elba, down near our legs and partly lying across mine.

Poor little lamb. A few times recently, she has half-woken up, wandered around a little disoriented and fallen asleep on her bedroom floor. I'd need to take her back to her warm bed and snuggle her down.

In the darkness, I wrapped my arms around her little tummy. I tried to lift her, but she wasn't easily moved. A sleeping child is quite difficult to carry sometimes.

I tried again, putting more effort into lifting her. But still she didn't move. I heaved one more time - no luck.

It was about then that I realised my arms were not wrapped around Anna-Lucia.

They were wrapped around my husband's thigh.

However I didn't realise this BEFORE I patted around northwards of her "torso" to see if I could find her head ...

Pat, pat, pat.

Oh. Sorry.

I love my children

But frankly,

I'm getting a little sick of this rot:

Dogs get put down for less

Hi! I'm Joseph. Check this out:

This here - get a closer look:

We all know what makes that sort of mark. That's a bite.

The way I see it, the reason why I have such a bad bite on me at this age is simply that I have a bigger brother and a bigger sister.

So at 6:00am SHE's in my cot with me and we're chilling out together quite happily, then HE gets in the cot too and starts picking me up because he can't leave well enough alone, and SHE gets all screamy because we were having a good time and then SHE gets so mad at HIM that SHE bites ME. Because that makes sense to her.

And then she's all "I'm sowwy Doe-feff" but I'm still not so sure.

Man.

Breakfast

This is gonna be a funny post. I'm guessing you'll all think I'm crazy because I am doing a step-by-step coooking post on how to prepare our favourite breakfast - porridge (oatmeal). Everyone knows how to cook this and the inclusions are pretty basic, so who really needs a step-by-step post showing how to do it?

Nobody.

So why do it at all? To test out my new camera of course. To see if I can take pictures of food that don't make you want to 'pass', and head down the local fish&chip shop instead.

Not that you'd have fish & chips for breakfast.

But I digress.

I also want to show you how we like our porridge, because a lot of people don't like porridge. Swift Jim, for example. He says it's just gruel to him. And I have to admit, a steamy pot of this is not all that appetising:

But think of all those unsweetened complex carbs - too good to waste surely? We go through a lot of oats at our place, and this is what we do with them.

You'll need:

Step 1 is pretty important. If you stuff this up, you'll only be correcting it later on. It makes perfect sense to do this right the first time.

You have to spoon some porridge into the bowls so it can cool down while you do the next steps. But it is quite important that you spoon it into the RIGHT bowls, and have the RIGHT spoons waiting. In this example, we have the Bunny-Rabbit bowl and the Bunny-Rabbit Spoon, and behind them we have the Stripey bowl with the normal dessert spoon. Very important.

Next you need to mash up a ripe banana. We go through a lot of bananas at our place. See how yummy? See how yellow? It is my belief that the more you mash a banana, the sweeter it gets. I think this is most probably incorrect and stupid. But I still like to think it.

The children are used to waiting the extra 5 minutes for their breakfast, but they still get a bit bored, sitting at the table while I mash banana.

Add the mashed banana to the porridge with some sultanas ('raisins' in the US). We go through a lot of sultanas at our place.

Mix it up well, and add a sprinkle of cinnamon on the top. Smile at young children's pronunciation of cinnamon. We go through a lot of cinnamon at our place.

And now for the Grace.

"Thankyou for the world so briiight...
Thankyou for the stars at niiight...

Thankyou God for ...

Please bless the food,
Thankyou for the food...

And now for this bit:

Ah yes. Very good Mum.
And I of course am irrationally proud of myself for getting those complex carbs into them, using only fruit sugar to sweeten it. Yummo.

Friday Fill-Ins on Saturday

Alison does these cool Friday Fill-Ins. I thought I'd have a go (irrespective of the fact that it's currently 5pm Saturday.)


1. Plans and schedules give me something the "hang my hat on" - I need them so I have somewhere from which to be flexible.

2. I'm happy when Things are asleep.

3. The last thing I drank was a hot chocolate.

4. One of the most valuable things in my life is the love of my children. They are always there for me.

5. I like roast pumpkin on my pizza.

6. Dear November, please please please don't be as frightening and lonely as you were last year. My heart just can't take much more.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to using my reading time to go out and buy a last-minute gift for a 5 year old's birthday party, tomorrow my plans include flying solo with three small children at the same birthday party and Sunday, I want to be cherished, thanked and honoured in some small way!

Heh. We'll see.

Jaz. Snap.

I was taking pictures of Jaz in the late afternoon yesterday. She gave me a few lovely smiles,


then just as I was snapping her, she snapped at a fly. At first I thought it ruined the photo. Then I realised it made it so much better.


Low light = slower shutter speed, therefore her teeth blurred a little as she snapped, making them look longer. Sadly though, it means we can't see the fly.

The Latest of Nat's Dreams Involving My Death

Nat's been dreaming about me dying in odd circumstances. I'm not sure what this means.

"Mum. In my dream last night, you blasted poo, and then your pants fell down, and then you died."

All ROFL.

Tom Jones on my mind

All day today, and for no particular reason, Tom Jones has been in my head singing, "Sexbomb, sexbomb, you're my sexbomb..."

And that is all, for they are the only words I know.

It is ridiculous, because today I look anything BUT.

Can't figure her out

It is the best of times, it is the worst of times. But sometimes, it errs on the side of the worst of times.

Still, it's better than a poke in the eye with uncooked spaghetti. (I am speaking from experience.)

Take a few nights ago for example. Anna-Lucia was getting ready to have a bath. I was busy undressing Joseph and she was trying to get her shoes off. She started screaming and whinging.

Me: What's the matter Anna?
Anna: I can't get my woe-kwoe (velcro) off! Grr!
Me: Do you need any help?
Anna: NO! I will do it! Grrr! Get my woe-kwoe off Mummy!

I ignored the lack of manners and went to help. I saw that she actually had got the velcro off, but that she hadn't got her shoe off. I took it off for her.

Anna: NO! Don't take it off! I need to take it off! Grr!

She then struggled to get it back on, in order to take it off herself. And of course she couldn't do it.

Me: Can I put it back on for you?
Anna: Yes! Grrr!
Me: Well I'm not going to.

For by then I was in the mood to taunt her. Is that so bad?