Sleepless Nights

Kate had the mother of all flus a couple of weeks ago. This meant her waking every half hour every night, asking for juice or just whinging and moaning. James and I took it in turns, which meant we each woke up every half hour, but only had to get out of bed every hour. I'm convinced this led to my own mother of all flus last week. Wow, I've never felt so bad (well, not in the last 10 years or so, anyway). Now I understand what all Kate's whinging and moaning was all about; I wanted to whinge and moan every half hour myself!

BUT - it has not stopped now that she is better. Why? Because just after the New Year we converted her cotbed to a BIG GIRL'S BED.

Which means that she is free to come and go as she pleases now. However, since she was under the weather she didn't notice this, or probably didn't even care given how she was feeling.

But now she has figured out that she can get out of bed. She can get out of bed and open her door and walk out. And climb the stairs.

Cheeky monkey. She has started coming up to our room in the middle of the night. Last night I heard her door open and close, and then this tiny little grunting as she worked her way up the stairs....carrying her sippy cup and her bunny (well a well-prepared girl wouldn't go anywhere without her necessary accessories!)....she did this about 8 times....each time, one of us would swoop her up and put her back in bed. The final time I had had it....I put her back in bed and said, "Stay in bed! Mummy and Daddy are sleeping! Stay there!" And she did. Hopefully this newfound freedom in the middle of the night will lose its fascination for her. At least until she's sixteen.

Sunday morning she went in the other direction. We heard her open her door and the tiny little grunting....but then no Kate appeared at our door. James got up to go investigate. She had gone down to the kitchen and opened the larder door and was trying to rip open the bag of Chocolate Buttons.

Me Me Mine Mine

Back in December I posted about Kate being all 'me, me, mine, mine' when her little nephew was staying with us.

After watching Finding Nemo again (and we've now seen it 500 times in the last week - Kate asks for it by opening and closing her mouth, making fish sounds and saying, "Fish! Fish" as opposed to "Shark! Shark!" for Fish Tale, which we've seen only about 300 times) I have come to the conclusion that Kate was a seagull in a previous incarnation.

The Holidays Are Over....But the January Sales Are Here!

Well I took down the Christmas tree yesterday. I'm always sad to see it go. But I've left up some fairy lights in the dining room and up the bannister. I'll see how long it takes James to notice (he hates fairy lights). Or to read this post.

I went to the King's Road on Saturday for a little shoppin' R&R. It was FANTASTIC. I haven't been shopping since July so I didn't feel too bad about spending half a day shopping. And the bargains were INCREDIBLE. I ended up buying seven items in just one (posh) shop. But they were all 70% off (one jumper was £15!). In the end, I only got to visit 5 stores (only three of which I actually spent money in) since I was so consumed by the one (posh) shop. Today at work I told everyone all about the wonderful bargains I found and encouraged them to support the economy by going to find their own bargains on the King's Road.

Be Careful How You Ask For Things

Here's a funny little photo story!

G/S/N brought back a couple of velour pyjamas from France for Kate. One of them makes her look like a pretty satsuma with embroidery, and the other makes her look like Piglet.

I thought they were so cute I wanted a Piglet picture of her.

I took the first picture, but she kept coming towards me...

So I said, "Back up! Back up!" And she turned around and stood very still for me.

I asked her to turn around and say, "Cheese", which she obligingly did.

I thought it was so cute I wanted another one. When I was trying to take the second [nice] picture, she kept coming at me again. Again I said, "Back up! Back up!" Again she turned around and stood still. Again I said, "Turn back round!" And she looked at me like, "Mama, what the h*ll do you want me to do?!?!"

And a Lovely Time Was Had By All...

What a Christmas!

I took Kate to James' company's children's Christmas party...she had such a good time and then completely zonked out in the car on the way home. There was a Jungle Book panto...I was a bit worried that she would either be scared or lose interest in something longer than 3 minutes, but she really got into it. There was a little boy sitting next to us that was about a year or so older than Kate, who got so scared of Balloo that he had to be taken out; but Kate was so enamoured with Balloo that every time he went off the stage she'd look at me and go, "Bear? Bear?" She also got into the bear dance, waving her arms all around, and the snake dance, hissing with all the rest of the kids. Later at the face painting station, I asked her what she wanted on her face. As I was getting the little picture thing to help her choose, she turned to the lady and said, "Pretty! Pretty!" So the lady drew little pretty flowers all over her face. How pleased was she. Every time we went by a mirror she had to admire herself...."Ooooohhh!"

We all packed up and went down to Dorset to James' aunt's house on Christmas Eve. Uncle Robbie was enlisted to load his car with all the gifts, as we had five people plus luggage in our family-mobile. [An aside - who ever thought I'd end up with a station wagon? But I have, and we love it! It's like driving around with a sofa in the back seat]

Kate immediately made a bee-line for the biggest box under the Christmas tree....grabbed it and shouted, "MINE!" It's a good thing it was hers!

And it's amazing how they remember the important things....like ripping open gifts....and not others....like people! The last time Kate ripped any gifts open was last February for her first birthday, but she remembered it all! The look of intense concentration as she opened her gifts was priceless.

The adults also had a lovely time over Christmas. We ate, drank and were merry all weekend. The Christmas dinner was the best ever (and poor Uncle Bob missed out on his midnight crackling spree because we all (well, primarily ME, but everyone else helped a LOT) grazed on the crackling after dinner (yes, after we had completely stuffed ourselves, we ate some MORE) and there wasn't much left after that. But boy, was it good!

Uncle Ray

Since both of the children are such good sleepers (and because all the excitement pooped them out so early!) we put them to bed at 7pm each night and had a grand old time eating, drinking and playing games. This year, Cranium was the hit (once we figured out the rules and substituted a regular die (and made up the rules to go with it) for the errant coloured die). On Christmas Eve James' and my team (Team 1!) won, and on Christmas Day Team 2 won. The Christmas day game was a little more competitive than the Christmas Eve one, for two reasons - we had figured out the rules by then, and both teams had something to prove! I'm not bitter about losing the second game though (contrary to my competitive nature!)....this keeps us rarin' to go for the next time - the TIE BREAKER!!

Kate really dug her gifts. I really really really tried to keep from giving her stereotypically 'girlie' things in the beginning, but she is a real girlie-girl (see, the whole thing about doing the opposite of what your mother tells you? It starts before you even develop reasoning - so I can confidently say it's innate).....she has been using her little kitchenette set (the biggest box under the christmas tree) almost non-stop since we set it up in the kitchen. In fact, I can pretty much lead her to the kitchen, she will self-start with the kitchenette play, and I can retire to the living room for a couple of hours with a good book and a glass of wine.

After a few days' respite it was New Year's Eve! And what a great one it was this year, too. G/S/N was in town and offered to baby-sit Kate [a sleep-over no less! so we could have a lie-in on New Year's Day!]. So I grabbed the brass ring and ripped it right off the merry-go-round! We had cocktails at ours, then made our way (walking: I highly recommend it, especially when you know you are going to be stumbling home at all hours, with a tube strike going on and incredible premiums on mini-cabs!) to our local Good Restaurant. The restaurant was having one of those package New Year's Eve things, with the all-inclusive meal, live band and dancing til the wee hours. We had a table for eight (with seven of us there, as Uncle Ray stayed home with a bug....very disappointed, since this was the first New Year's Eve that he has spent here where the plans didn't include me cooking a wintry, comfort-food dinner and packing everyone off to bed by 11pm) so the conversation never waned. The food was great, the band was incredibly awesome and my friend Mike (who told me he never dances) danced. Since I am not used to staying up later than 11pm, the big dinner and volumes of wine made me so drowsy that at one point I was falling asleep. My friend Mike, who moved here with his wife about 6 months ago, was so not impressed (and I think he was a little bit self-conscious that he was boring me since I was having a conversation with him at the time). Cue the after-dinner coffee! I think there was speed in that coffee. Mike told me that he could see the transformation as it happened: after two sips of coffee I visibly perked up, and after one whole cup I was like, "Let me at that dance floor!"

While I was perking up, James had been dancing with my mother.

As it neared midnight, I was getting concerned that they hadn't returned and that I wouldn't get my New Year's Kiss (missed the last couple of years since we were already asleep when it turned midnight!). I sauntered over to the dance floor to search for them and was rewarded by the sight of my mom dancing crazily with some woman, and James was....dancing with her friend! Apparently they had done the 'Divide and Conquer' move with James and my mother! So sly.

As the announcer was counting down to midnight I was getting a little antsy that James was not coming off the dance floor to find me and give me my New Year's Kiss, so I wandered onto the dance floor to get him. As I tapped him on the shoulder, Dancing Queen kept swinging him round away from me. Not to be deterred, I kept tapping his shoulder. Once she realised I was James' wife, she let go of him like he was a hot potato (I can be intimidating when I want to be!) and slunk away, Kissless. As if SHE was going to get a New Year's Kiss from him! I don't think so, sister. I think James was secretly pleased at the little scuffle - even though he's an old married man, he's still got it!

All's well that end's well. We had a lovely time on New Year's Eve, with family and friends. And of course I woke up at 7am on New Year's Day. Kate has me trained well.

Here's looking forward to a wonderful 2006!