'Two Monkeys' - Kate when she was 4 1/2 months old...with her 'twin'
(and there's G/S/N on the side!)
20 October 2005
Monkeys
I'm so excited - we are going to Monkeyworld this weekend. We've always driven past it on the way to my mother-in-law's house in Dorchester, and I've always wanted to go. This is one of the benefits of having a small child....you get to go to all the child-friendly places that you want to, without feeling uncool. I can't wait til Kate's tall enough to be able to go on the roller coasters with me. I'm sure she'll love them, and it will be a long time coming for me....I luuuurve roller coasters and similar rides, but it never seems like the best time to go to an amusement park - always something 'better' to do.
'Two Monkeys' - Kate when she was 4 1/2 months old...with her 'twin'
(and there's G/S/N on the side!)
'Two Monkeys' - Kate when she was 4 1/2 months old...with her 'twin'
(and there's G/S/N on the side!)
18 October 2005
Do the Hokey Pokey
Yesterday was a milestone for young Kate. She used the potty for the first time! And since it was also the first time she has actually sat on the potty without her nappy on, I was doubly proud!
What instigated it all was that in the morning when we were preparing breakfast, Kate suddenly looked at me in horror, grabbed her crotch and started going,"oooh! ooo!" and doing a little dance ("The Wee Dance"). By the time I had whisked her upstairs to the potty (bought in preparation for just this kind of occasion) she had already gone in her nappy. But - all signs were pointing to her being ready to start Potty Training; every time she had to go (either 1 or 2), she would say "uh oh".
So G/S/N decided to see what would happen if she sat Kate on the potty. After much cheering and encouragement, Kate managed to trickle out her first Potty Wee! And G/S/N did the Potty Dance (I imagine it is much like a rain dance; I will make sure to get a demonstration before the weekend so I can perform said same Potty Dance (for consistency's sake, of course, nothing to do with learning a new dance!)).
What instigated it all was that in the morning when we were preparing breakfast, Kate suddenly looked at me in horror, grabbed her crotch and started going,"oooh! ooo!" and doing a little dance ("The Wee Dance"). By the time I had whisked her upstairs to the potty (bought in preparation for just this kind of occasion) she had already gone in her nappy. But - all signs were pointing to her being ready to start Potty Training; every time she had to go (either 1 or 2), she would say "uh oh".
So G/S/N decided to see what would happen if she sat Kate on the potty. After much cheering and encouragement, Kate managed to trickle out her first Potty Wee! And G/S/N did the Potty Dance (I imagine it is much like a rain dance; I will make sure to get a demonstration before the weekend so I can perform said same Potty Dance (for consistency's sake, of course, nothing to do with learning a new dance!)).
12 October 2005
Frustration. And some cute photos.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about a few things that were annoying me here. Well here is an update:
1. Boiler - FINALLY got the British Gas guy over to see it last week and he fixed it. Lovely. No more banging at 1am.
2. British Gas helpline - hate it. They set up a time for the guy to come and then he didn't come. When I called them to find out why, they said they had no record of my call. After I told them that, actually, I had a record since my phone line at work is recorded, they arranged for someone to come the following day, within a two-hour window (amazing, since they always say they only have 5-hour windows).
3. Our mortgage provider - we STILL haven't seen the mortgage offer. F me.
4. Our council - we had been buying weekly visitor parking passes to tide us over until we could get Goddess/Saviour/Nanny on the electoral roll, but when we went to get more this past weekend they told us that we had "used up our annual allotment" of weekly passes. But we were free to buy unlimited daily passes. Ah, the logic that is a civic agency.
Other than that there is the flat purchase which I wrote about a month ago. Which is kind of related to the mortgage offer. But the turn of events is even worse than anticipated. It is now four months since the offer was made. In the last two weeks we have (finally) received a load of stuff from the vendor's solicitor - due to the fact that we threatened to pull out of the purchase. Well. In the pack of information was a wad of correspondence between the vendor and the management company (since it is leasehold there is a management company who (yes) manages the day-to-day running of the common areas of the building and all the financials) - apparently the 'slight' insurance dispute that the estate agent mentioned to me in passing when we made the offer has more to it than meets the eye. Apparently the vendor has been disputing all the fees for almost a year. Apparently the fees have more than doubled in the past two years since the freehold was sold and a new management company was appointed (remind me to elucidate on freehold vs. leasehold at some point; I'm not going to do that now because it's too boring for words). And this dispute has not been resolved.
Last Friday we threatened to pull out (again - we are losing credibility here) if the dispute is not satisfactorily resolved. Miraculously the estate agent called on Monday morning and said the dispute was now resolved and we were all ready to go. We said, great, let us look at the latest correspondence and we'll get a move on.
Yesterday we received a copy of the letter the vendor's solicitor sent to ours. It was pathetic - a two-sentence paragraph stating that they were writing to confirm the insurance fees allocated to the vendor had been agreed with the management company and that the vendor was hopeful it would amount to half of what had previously been charged. No mention of the other fees. But the kicker was the 'hopeful' comment. I can just see it now - we complete the purchase and then we're the 'hopeful' ones. Yeah, I'm 'hopeful' I'll win the lottery, but it ain't happening! What a bunch of wankers.
So needless to say, I wrote a very polite letter to the estate agent today saying that 'hopeful' ain't gonna cut it and we're withdrawing our offer. Back to the drawing board.
I feel for my brother-in-law...while he and Kate are building a wonderful relationship, he is almost 30 years old and sharing a room should be a thing of the past. Hopefully we can sort out the new place (well we wouldn't have pulled out without a backup!) soon and get him into his own room where he can hang posters of Pam Anderson or Jordan if he so chooses.
On the Kate side, here are a couple of cheesy photos (and a couple of cute ones!) of her. She really hams it up for the camera now. What's bizarre is that we were looking in the Argos catalogue yesterday and when she saw pictures of cameras she started grinning her grin-mace at it.
'Grin-mace 1'
'Grin-mace 2'
Daddy lovin' Kate
I couldn't resist including this one.
Guess what everyone's getting for Christmas this year? Reminds me a bit of this: http://www.turtlekiss.com/ but I don't think we can make as much money out of it.
1. Boiler - FINALLY got the British Gas guy over to see it last week and he fixed it. Lovely. No more banging at 1am.
2. British Gas helpline - hate it. They set up a time for the guy to come and then he didn't come. When I called them to find out why, they said they had no record of my call. After I told them that, actually, I had a record since my phone line at work is recorded, they arranged for someone to come the following day, within a two-hour window (amazing, since they always say they only have 5-hour windows).
3. Our mortgage provider - we STILL haven't seen the mortgage offer. F me.
4. Our council - we had been buying weekly visitor parking passes to tide us over until we could get Goddess/Saviour/Nanny on the electoral roll, but when we went to get more this past weekend they told us that we had "used up our annual allotment" of weekly passes. But we were free to buy unlimited daily passes. Ah, the logic that is a civic agency.
Other than that there is the flat purchase which I wrote about a month ago. Which is kind of related to the mortgage offer. But the turn of events is even worse than anticipated. It is now four months since the offer was made. In the last two weeks we have (finally) received a load of stuff from the vendor's solicitor - due to the fact that we threatened to pull out of the purchase. Well. In the pack of information was a wad of correspondence between the vendor and the management company (since it is leasehold there is a management company who (yes) manages the day-to-day running of the common areas of the building and all the financials) - apparently the 'slight' insurance dispute that the estate agent mentioned to me in passing when we made the offer has more to it than meets the eye. Apparently the vendor has been disputing all the fees for almost a year. Apparently the fees have more than doubled in the past two years since the freehold was sold and a new management company was appointed (remind me to elucidate on freehold vs. leasehold at some point; I'm not going to do that now because it's too boring for words). And this dispute has not been resolved.
Last Friday we threatened to pull out (again - we are losing credibility here) if the dispute is not satisfactorily resolved. Miraculously the estate agent called on Monday morning and said the dispute was now resolved and we were all ready to go. We said, great, let us look at the latest correspondence and we'll get a move on.
Yesterday we received a copy of the letter the vendor's solicitor sent to ours. It was pathetic - a two-sentence paragraph stating that they were writing to confirm the insurance fees allocated to the vendor had been agreed with the management company and that the vendor was hopeful it would amount to half of what had previously been charged. No mention of the other fees. But the kicker was the 'hopeful' comment. I can just see it now - we complete the purchase and then we're the 'hopeful' ones. Yeah, I'm 'hopeful' I'll win the lottery, but it ain't happening! What a bunch of wankers.
So needless to say, I wrote a very polite letter to the estate agent today saying that 'hopeful' ain't gonna cut it and we're withdrawing our offer. Back to the drawing board.
I feel for my brother-in-law...while he and Kate are building a wonderful relationship, he is almost 30 years old and sharing a room should be a thing of the past. Hopefully we can sort out the new place (well we wouldn't have pulled out without a backup!) soon and get him into his own room where he can hang posters of Pam Anderson or Jordan if he so chooses.
On the Kate side, here are a couple of cheesy photos (and a couple of cute ones!) of her. She really hams it up for the camera now. What's bizarre is that we were looking in the Argos catalogue yesterday and when she saw pictures of cameras she started grinning her grin-mace at it.
'Grin-mace 1'
'Grin-mace 2'
Daddy lovin' Kate
I couldn't resist including this one.
Guess what everyone's getting for Christmas this year? Reminds me a bit of this: http://www.turtlekiss.com/ but I don't think we can make as much money out of it.
04 October 2005
What a Hypocrite
After all that talk about washable nappies, we (G/S/N and myself - although James is happy because he would prefer to just throw the whole poo away anyway) decided to go ahead and switch Kate over to disposable nappies. I feel so guilty because we have really kept to the washable nappy thing for the past year and a half. The only time we used disposables is when we travelled for long periods without access to a washing machine and tumble dryer. But in the interest of making sure my daughter can move as freely as possible (not to mention the fact that her poos of late have been HORRENDOUS) I have given in to modernisation. I suppose I should just be proud that we kept up the washables for so long.
Plus, she was really walking like a chimpanzee (as could be proved on the zoo trip).
The only negative (other than the extreme pangs of guilt I feel when chucking a nappy away) is that since she is so slim, her little trousers keep falling down. The washable nappies were so bulky they were what was keeping her trousers on!
Plus, she was really walking like a chimpanzee (as could be proved on the zoo trip).
The only negative (other than the extreme pangs of guilt I feel when chucking a nappy away) is that since she is so slim, her little trousers keep falling down. The washable nappies were so bulky they were what was keeping her trousers on!
03 October 2005
Who's Zoo-ming Who(m)?
We went to the London Zoo yesterday. We meant to go to the one in Colchester on Saturday but we got sidetracked...Jame's friend Sam owns a pub near Colchester so we thought we'd stop by for lunch first and then go to the zoo, but once we got there we ended up staying until 4:30, at which point it was time to turn around and make the 1 1/2-hour drive home. Oh well, we can see the Colchester Zoo some other time; it was good to see Sam again, and we hadn't seen him since his wedding in the summer of '04.
So -
We went to the London Zoo yesterday. We didn't go until the afternoon (lazy Sunday morning, tired child before lunch who had to nap out-of-schedule, late lunch, blah blah blah...) but that wasn't a bad thing since Kate is only 19 months old and a few hours is a lot for her. So we made sure to concentrate on those things we know she likes (fish, monkeys, lions, pigs/boars, penguins - hmmmm, Nemo, Kate, Kate's stuffed lion, Peppahttp://www.peppapig.com/, Pinguhttp://www.pingu.net/us/intro.html....)
I had been wondering how Kate would take to the 'real' versions of her favourite animals....and she took to them like a fish to water (heh). So did I. I had forgotten how fun the zoo is.
And then this morning I received some belated pictures from my friend. The story behind these pictures is that we were visiting the Greenwich Observatory with our friends who were visiting us in June, and these Japanese tourists spotted Kate and went crazy. They kept saying,"Ahhh, kaoii!" ("ahhh, so cute!") and wanted to take pictures of her. We let them take a couple, and then later we ran into them again and they asked us all to pose with them.
Note the 'cage'.....
So -
We went to the London Zoo yesterday. We didn't go until the afternoon (lazy Sunday morning, tired child before lunch who had to nap out-of-schedule, late lunch, blah blah blah...) but that wasn't a bad thing since Kate is only 19 months old and a few hours is a lot for her. So we made sure to concentrate on those things we know she likes (fish, monkeys, lions, pigs/boars, penguins - hmmmm, Nemo, Kate, Kate's stuffed lion, Peppahttp://www.peppapig.com/, Pinguhttp://www.pingu.net/us/intro.html....)
I had been wondering how Kate would take to the 'real' versions of her favourite animals....and she took to them like a fish to water (heh). So did I. I had forgotten how fun the zoo is.
Kate with Daddy at the zoo
Kate with Mummy at the zoo
(one of few existing photos with Mummy)
Kate after she did a stinky in the car on the way home from the zoo (I had to put this one in)
And then this morning I received some belated pictures from my friend. The story behind these pictures is that we were visiting the Greenwich Observatory with our friends who were visiting us in June, and these Japanese tourists spotted Kate and went crazy. They kept saying,"Ahhh, kaoii!" ("ahhh, so cute!") and wanted to take pictures of her. We let them take a couple, and then later we ran into them again and they asked us all to pose with them.
Note the 'cage'.....
Don't feed the animals!
...and our Group Picture
(and no, James doesn't have a pink handbag - that's Kate's change bag)
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