London Mums Blog

Forty winks?

It was always going to happen.

Boy #2 and I had a busy morning today; with Husband away it was all hands on deck from 6.45 am until dropping Boy #1 at school just gone 8 o'clock. Then Boy #2 and I did the weekly supermarket shop ('look at me', she purred, 'all organised with my list written the night before' - and which didn't contain around half a dozen essentials I realised were missing when I got home...), and arrived back around 9.15 before sorting out the laundry, the dishwasher, and general tidying up duties.

Before you get the wrong impression of how domesticated my children are, Boy #2 eschewed the last three activities, choosing instead to empty the contents of one of his toy boxes all over the floor of the sitting room. What the heck, it's one way to find the missing pieces of the Playmobil airplane...

Worms and open windows

Saw Eggie in his play about Worms today.  He was a 'narrator' and Dumpie and I were sat in the very front row proudly looking on.  (Well I say 'sat' but actually Dumpie chose to stand for most of the performance, leaning casually on my knee and noisily chomping various foodstuffs whilst turning around occasionally to loudly announce 'Me Like Dat' when a particular song or dance took his fancy.

That he was wasting a much-coveted front row seat didn't go unnoticed by surrounding parents - a situation made all the worse when he decided to use the seat to lay and display all his little treats...much like one might lay a picnic.  He had a peanut butter sandwich, some dried fruit, a juice drink, some wafers, and two 'be-bops' - one of which he noisily slurped throughout the performance and one which he tried valiantly to give to Eggie - despite it being mid-performance. 

Tumbling through life...

Melanie Trevelyn, a fellow mummy blogger, sent me her first novel a while back. I'm a bit of a snacker when it comes to reading -- I have about 10 at my bedside. I often read the first few chapters, put it down for a break and then pick it up again a few months later.

That's exactly what I did with Mel's Tumbling Through Life, the story of a single barrister, Caroline Lawson (great name, BTW) who represents celebrity clients in a larger chamber in London. She "tumbles" between relationships and in the end the nice guy wins. Love it.

Is breast really best?

We are having a couple of exhausting days. Lots of screaming – or should I say shouting? barking? – as soon as I try to put little L down for only a second. The only thing that seems to sooth her is my nipple in her mouth, her little body clutched closely to my chest. We went from feeding every three to four hours to nonstop feeding. And as quickly as my sleep deprivation increases, my sanity goes out of the window with every new feed. Only a few weeks into little L’s life and I already feel like a failure. Why can’t I give her what she needs?

London is calling

For as long as I can remember, I have always dreamed of living in a foreign city - foreign to me, and not necessarily of a different language. First I have dreamed of 'making it' in New York City, on the little island called Manhattan that never slept. Then it was the dream of living in Paris, eating macarons, drinking lattes, and writing by a little window whose view showed off the Eiffel Tower. After visiting Amsterdam I dreamed of living in a narrow little first-floor flat, minimal in design, with floor-to-ceiling windows that opened completely onto a canal, with little brick streets and a bicycle parked at my door.

Now it's London that's calling me.

Oh what heaven and joy

Oh what heaven and joy. Last Sunday morning my husband took the children to a party in Richmond Park for a few hours. Precious free time to have a long bath, write a blog post, make a fish pie and go to my club.  No not to dance in the dark recesses of a hip basement. This particular club is set in 27 acres in leafy, suburban Acton and is a twenty- minute walk from my house.  The Park Club has large outdoor and indoor swimming pools, acres of tennis and every class you could think of. 

During the credit crunch journalists have been urging people to give up expensive club memberships and go jogging, power walking and star jumping in the park, but this doesn’t work if you have children. You have to take them to the park and watch them jump, run, climb  etc. while you hang around on the side-lines feeling frankly bored.

You won't believe what happened to me today

You know me, I’m always at a loose end these days but I do manage to keep myself pretty busy. So today’s ‘job’ was to get back to basic communication and create a flyer and publicise my ‘Lost’ notice to my neighbours and use some good old fashioned door to door leafleting.

I found myself inhabiting a strange new junk mail world as I opened creaking gates and posted my flyer through the NO JUNK MAIL stickers on letterboxes. I met a nice VSO lady on the way round, she was doorstepping for volunteers, and a rather gorgeous delivery man who eyed my leaflet very sweetly (he obviously thought I was the neighbourhood kook, and I guess he’s right).