Limerick of the day

In the essence of "Limerick of a Lifetime" on Swearing Mothers blog a few weeks ago, I have a little ditty from today:

It started with stress in the bedroom*
and continued with Jack being anci**
At work Craig was tested***
But my weight was bested****
So now I'm sat drinking Chianti!


*See yesterdays post
**I'm ironing my pants, he's pouring dogfood into the cat litter
***Want to rant, can't (Grrrr)
****33 pounds today!


I think 4 footnotes might be a record.

Get a Grip Woman!

I am stressed at the moment. It's a word I actually don't like but hear it every day, not just from my mouth but from friends and colleagues and my husband.

It's a word I'd never use when talking to my mum, or anyone else from her generation actually. It would be a bit like telling someone who'd climbed Everest that you had trouble getting your ass up a step-ladder.


At the moment the most stressful place is at home, which is ridiculous because it's my favourite place to be. I know it's at home because I took this scientific test.


Why am I stressed at home? Here's a moment that escalated into me wanting to get on a boat to China today:

About 2am this morning Jack cried out just once, but I woke up as usual because the second his mouth opens my eyelids fly open like a ninja. He went immediately back to sleep but I couldn't, so I trotted off to the loo, so then Cody comes clip-clopping through the house. His nails making huge noise on the wood floors that threaten to re-awaken Jack. Then he stands outside Jack's door and has a good shake, I mean really gets a good rattle going with his collar jingling and tinkling for good measure. At this point I'm lying in bed thinking "I'm going to build a dog house in the garden and relegate that flea-bitten hound to outdoor living". Then, as usual, and for a reason only known to this cat, Frank starts his night howling. Every single night, since Jack was born, he howls near Jack's bedroom door. The howl is a low, scary, loud howl and there's no reason for it, other than to make me feel murderous. By now I am muttering profanitities and calling the cat names that would make a sailor blush. In summary, Cody's now asleep on my legs, Craig's snoring, Jack's murmuring (will he wake up?), Frank's howling and I've got pains in my chest with stress. Fat chance of sleeping.

I know this is ridiculous and I need to get a grip as there's a lot more going on in the world than noisy animals. It's probably because I've got so much other stuff going on, or maybe my age, or maybe I'm just not adept at dealing with multi-tasking like I used to be? "Multi-tasking" - there's another new, silly word that my mum would have a better description for. She'd probably call it "life".

It was a Grand Weekend

As we say in Lancashire, it was a "grand weekend". Today the weather was picture perfect - blue skies and around 65-70 degrees. We had a mish-mash weekend of boxing (De La Hoya won), great telly (The Tudors, which I just got in to and I love. I thought Henry VIII was a big fat pig? Not in this mini series!), gardening, grilling (Yea, Craig fixed the old grill), football - Everton lost (bummer) Man U won (woo hoo), and fun times with Jack as always.

We have entered into a new era with Jack - the NO SHOPPING era. No longer does he sit contentedly in the shopping cart, saying "Hi" to everyone. Now he screams bloody murder and wants to walk, grab stuff and scream until we leave the shop. He's a nightmare, but then who can blame him? I wouldn't want to sit in a wirey metal seat for an hour either. Yesterday in Target he was howling and a young couple (about 23) came around the corner and she looked at me in disgust, as if to say "take that obnoxious child out of this shop you terrible mother!" It really bothered me and I spent a good chunk of the afternoon coming up with biting and feverishly funny put-downs I wish I'd said.
The conclusion is that we'll probably take it in turns now running out to get stuff, as it's far too stressful to take him along.

Jack's feet today. Covered in purple paint, glittery nailpolish and mud.

Our favourite tree, a Twisted Lavender - Cercis canadensis "Covey". Isn't it lovely.

Lastly, please picture this - yesterday I was in my kitchen with Jack, dancing and singing as loud as my lungs would let me to "Hey Louise" by Neil Diamond. Know why??? Because we're going to see him!!! Craig got us tickets and I'm excited as one can possibly be. Neil Diamond!

Two Great Songs to Sing with your Kids

News from old Blighty

I'm going through a homesick phase again - silly really, seeing that "home" is in Ohio. So anyway, I found a group of local Brits today that meet frequently in town. The next meeting is coming up in a couple of weeks - a picnic I believe. More on that after the picnic I guess.

Big shocker in English politics tonight - the Tories are winning! Even trusty London Labour Mayor Ken Livingstone got out-voted by Boris Johnson (below). A Tory Mayor in London! It must be really bad in England for people to vote for the Tories again folks.

Is Boris okay? My only thoughts of him are of anger after his dumb comments about Liverpool years ago. Seems like he says a lot of dumb stuff. Is he really dumb or just crafty? Mmmm, the verdict's still out for me.

Tomorrow marks the 1 year anniversary that Madeleine went missing. I think about her a lot and hope they find her. If I had 3 genie wishes, finding her would be one of them

5 Things about Ohio

Before we lived here we had no knowledge of Ohio. We'd vaguely heard of Cincinnati - maybe from songs? Anyway, we love Ohio very much and we're very proud to live here.

So I'm going to post about it, just now and again...

1. There's quite a big Amish population in the NE of the state. I'll never, ever get bored of seeing them.

2. Famous Ohioans include John Glenn, Neil Armstrong, the Wright Brothers, Annie Oakley, Steven Spielberg, and Doris Day!

3. Getting together with your friends and making the name OHIO is a must for any self-respecting native.

4. Ohio borders a state called "Michigan". Michigan has a large population of hermits - people who live in caves and grow their hair and fingernails really long.

5. The college marching band in Columbus is pretty good:

Birthmark Buddies

Jack and I have an usual secret bond. We both have tiny, strawberry birthmarks in exactly the same place. Not just close, but exactly. I'm not sure what this means really, other than the fact that right now we point at them and go "oooo" together.
I like that we have these matching marks. He does too at the moment but I'm sure he'll get more and more mortified as he gets older. Hopefully I won't try and get them out in public as a party trick at his wedding.

Wish I could, but I can't

Updates & Please Vote

Book Update:
I want a daughter. Not that I'm fickle in any way but I just read "Since I don't have you" by Louise Candlish and it's made me feel very broody for a little girl. I know that mother nature doesn't take orders and I'm not saying I wouldn't be 100% happy with another boy because I would. It's just a yearning I have right now & I'm sure it will all pass. Something else this book did for me is to make me cherish every single second I have with Jack.

My current read is "Catherine, called Birdy" - a very funny book by Karen Cushman. The heroine of the book is a 13 year old girl living in Medieval England and she's got a sharp wit. Very enjoyable indeed, but also very thin, so I will be book-less by weekend.


Jack Update:
He's doing okay but today all the symptoms showed themselves - sneezing, coughing runny nose, so I didn't take him to child care. He would probably have been fine but it's not fine to let him sneeze and cough over all the other kids. Anyway, he and I had a great day together. He's really fun to be around but now I'm exhausted. Even though he's ill he's full-on 120% from the second he wakes up till bedtime. Phewwwwwy.
I did learn two new things today about myself. If I was a stay-at-home mum I'd spend nap time grazing from the fridge and surfing EBay. Not good.









One last thing:
Emily's friend Jen is a finalist for her recycled bag design for Kroger's supermarket (see below). If she wins she gets a gift voucher and the honor of her design on the re-usable bags. Please vote for her!

Deja-vu: Croup

Jack has croup again.

Poor little mite is snoozing while I type this. I took him to the Docs this morning and he gave him anti-inflammatory medicine for his voice box, which will hopefully stop that horrendous barking cough. The nurse was like Wonder Woman - she took the syringe full of icky medicine and had it emptied down his neck in less than a second. I would have still been trying to pry his jaws open and squirting it all over the floor. It was so quick Jack was more surprised than upset and he looked at me as if to say "what on earth was that?"

He woke up every hour last night - barking and wheezing. It's always so much worse at night isn't it, laying in bed in the dark listening to your child struggle to breathe. I would go in and pick him up and rub his back until he sounded a bit better. Needless to say, Craig and I got no sleep at all.

Doc said the medicine would last 30 hours. If he's bad again tonight though I might try the steamy bathroom trick, or maybe the cold air seeing as it's going to get cold tonight. I hope he gets over it soon. I hate it when he's sick.

Holiday Fever

We're going on our holidays soon and I'm very excited. We've got a beachfront house in Plymouth, MA for a week. We had booked to fly with Skybus but they went bust so we are going to hire a minivan and set off on an adventure. There'll be seven of us - us 3, Craig's mum & dad, his nephew and his mate.

In my excitement I have made two specific holiday purchases - a humongous, loud and flowery beach bag and a new top size MEDIUM. I can get it on, just, but it doesn't leave much to the imagination. I love this top and I can't wait to wear it. Who'd have thought it - me buying medium? I feel somewhat of a fraudster.

I'd like to buy more for my holidays but it seems like all the tops I saw today were sleeveless or cap-sleeved. I'd love to wear t-shirts like that so now I have to work hard on my bingo wings. Anyone got any good tips?