Who's a pretty boy then?

Tomorrow is Tabby’s first day at school. A 14-year-sentence with no chance of reprieve and in which you get extra time for good behaviour. To make up for this crual and unusual punishment, I let her experience her last taste of freedom at the zoo. Felt a bit sorry for the flamingos, but generally the animals seemedvery well cared for. Especially the owls. Only 5000 breeding pairs of barn owls left in the UK apparently. Took lots of photos, as usual only had chance to process a few and get them on Flickr so far…

Tiny, I tell ya

Look ma, no hands

Finally getting round to processing some photo sets and putting them onto Flickr. Starting with this trip to the circus a few weeks ago. Tabby loved it.

<<Hola>>

I’m not very good at this internet thing. It’s supposed to be instantaneous but I’ve only just got round to posting these shots from May 1st. It’s Brighton’s Children’s Parade, which opened the festival. Tabby was a cactus. Obviously.

Out, damned spot!

Tabby has become a medical mystery. There’s an outbreak of chicken pox at her nursery, and she’s covered in spots. The thing is, she’s had chicken pox twice already – a mild outbreak as a baby, and then a proper dose less than a year ago with all the flu and the scratching.

For the last three days half a dozen or so chicken pox-like spots have flared up on her face, but none have erupted in poxy blisters, like what the chicken pox do. And there’s only a few of them.

The question is, is this chicken pox? The doctor looked and said they’re definitely not bites (the cat was in a cattery a week ago while we were on holiday), but at the same time they don’t seem to be virulent enough to be chicken pox… Still, my inclination is that if it looks like pox and there’s pox around, then it’s probably pox. Even if some people argue that that’s medically impossible.

Whatever it is, it’s probably innocuous. The problem being that if it’s chicken pox she can’t go to nursery and has to stay home, in which case I can’t carry on cutting my way through the backlog of work from the holiday.

At least I haven’t succumbed to thoughts of “well, if it’s not chicken pox, maybe it’s… something… worse…” Yet.

Mother’s Day. I have lots of pics from Italy, CeBIT and Brighton to go up when I get a chance too.

Boomerang in Melksham. One of the few things I'll miss.

A giant indoor soft play centre. Four stories of foam filled fun.

...or why there are two mince pies in the hearth

This was Tabby’s first ‘proper’ Christmas. For the last two she was a bit too young to really understand what goes on, but with 12 months of well-remembered birthday parties under her belt she had a good idea that something was coming. Someone at nursery must have prepped her well too – she knew plenty of Christmas songs before I got round to trying to teach her any.

There were some things she wasn’t sure of, though. For the week leading up to Christmas, the putting to bed ritual including clear instructions that Santa was allowed to come down the chimney at Christmas, but he musn’t come into her room. She still wasn’t completely sure what this was all going to be about, and she has a very well developed sense of caution before embarking on any new experiences.

As is her wont before any big event, on Christmas Eve she terrified us by developing a temperature of 40 degrees. So any excitement there was got tempered by illness and a quick run to the doctors surgery before it closed for some antibiotics. We put mice pies and carrots out for Santa and Rudolph before she went to bed, but I’m not sure she was particularly bothered about the whole thing by the time she went to sleep.

Tamsin and I ate the mince pie, broke the carrot to make it look chewed and drank the scotch and settled down to watch District 9. It was about an hour later that Tabby woke up, and too hot to sleep again, came downstairs to join us.

Just as I was putting her back to bed, she noticed the mince pie. The excuse? ‘Santa came down the chimney, but he had to hide again because you woke up. He’ll come back later, when you’re asleep to leave the presents.’

You could almost see the light of realisation go on in her eyes. I’ve never seen her more keen to go to bed, never been more impressed with her quick thinking – we must phone Santa on his mobile and tell him to come back. After putting out another mince pie, of course.

Suddenly, for Tabby, Christmas was really happening. Sickness was forgotten (fortunately it turned out to be a 24 hour thing anyway) and presents  Which is why he got two mince pies at our house this year.

The really good news was that because she was so late to bed the second time, we actually got a lie in on Christmas Day. Bet that won’t happen for another decade or so.

And the rocking horse was a hit too. Bigger than I was expecting though.

And no instructions.

See the joy?

It was fun while it lasted.

She’s also going through a ‘want to be with Mummy phase’. On the one hand, it means I’ve had a few lie ins lately, which were nice. On the other it means I’m being rejected by a two and a half year old, and since we’re back into the alternating routine of morning shifts, the daily routine begins for me at 5.30 with a screaming temper tantrum. Her, not me, I hasten to add.

That meant that for a couple of nights we thought she was faking it with the scarys, and trying to get Mummy back into the room. Oops. Bad parents.