Thank you for all the comments congratulating me on getting the Deputy Coach job. It’s going really well, and with Xmas coming up I’m able to do more hours and overtime. I’m on the early shift now until Xmas and it’s great. I wish it was permanent It’s taken me a while to get used to going to bed so early. I find it really hard to sleep if I know I’ve got to be up at a certain time, and keep waking up to check the time. After doing that for most of the night, when I see that it’s 3.30am I just give up on sleeping and roll down the stairs. Ah well, at least it gives me the chance to catch up on my favourite shows on Hulu (especially Heroes Season 3. Hahaha, that show is totally nuts now. I can’t stop watching).

Lydia’s doing really well. She’s been ill with a stomach bug over the last couple of days, but she’s a lot better now. She’s been in such a lovely mood recently too. We sometimes have to remind her to use her manners with us (she’s great with other people though), but she’s been absolutely perfect and is really helpful too. When I was carrying a load of washing upstairs, she opened the door for me, switched the stairs light on and told me to be careful! How cute is that? She loves washing dishes and dusting….I’m just going to enjoy it while it lasts!

She acts like a parent herself sometimes, especially with other children at the park. One little boy was throwing a tantrum because he didn’t want to leave, so his Mum started to slowly walk off without him. Lydia was in total shock at this and ran after his Mum shouting “What are you doing?! Where are you going?!”. She then pointed at the boy, ran up to him and started pulling him screaming “Come on! Your Mum’s going away! Come onnnnnn!”. Oh god, it was hilarious!

So what’s the latest gossip from the internet? I definitely need to do some catching up on various sites. Can anyone recommend some linkage for me, please? My bookmarks folder is a little bare

She was absolutely hideous yesterday just because she wanted a bag of crisps. I don’t know if she’s picking up things from the other children at Nursery, but she’s been getting so rude and arrogant. We have to keep reminding her to use her manners which we don’t usually have to do, sometimes with her flat-out refusing to say “please” or “thank you”. In which case, I just put back whatever it is that she wanted until she’s polite about it.

Anyway, yesterday she wanted a bag of crisps on the way home from Nursery, but when she couldn’t get them straight away she threw a huge tantrum in the shop. Dave said that she was screaming at the top of her lungs and kept running away. He just wanted to get her home, so he put her on his shoulders and walked home. She screamed, kicked and scratched at him all the way home. By the time they get home, she’d got herself into such a state that she was hiccupping, but still screaming. I find out what’s wrong and she thinks that she can get me to give her crisps instead of Dave. I tell her no as well and she went absolutely nuts!

We put her upstairs in her bedroom until she calms down. For about 15 minutes all we can hear is screaming and things being thrown around the room. When the noise stops, I go in the room to her and the whole floor is literally covered in her toys and books. There is absolutely nothing left on tables or shelves. So I sit down on her bed, ask her if she’s finished now and she nods at me. She then has the cheek to say that she wants to go downstairs to play and grabs a random handful of toys. I say “No. We’re going downstairs so you can say sorry to your Dad, then you’re helping me tidy up this mess”. She refuses so I tell her that she can stay up in her room a little longer then, which she starts whinging at. I repeat what I said to her and after the third time (and last time, I tell her), she calms down and agrees.

As soon as she gets downstairs though, she goes nuts again and demands crisps Back up the stairs we go! I sit on her bed again and ignore her until she calms down the say that she can help me to tidy up. She’s reluctant at first, but she gets into it after a while because I make it into a ‘teamwork’ type thing. I’m still doing most of the work, but as long as she’s trying, I’m happy. I had to ask Dave to take over after a while as I had to get ready for work, but it was good to get her calmed down before I had to go. Apparently she was all lovey-dovey while I was at work, telling Dave she loved him, saying “No shouting now. No more shouting is there?” and saying sorry.

Hopefully we won’t have to go through all this again today! :damnyou:

She loved Nursery though. Absolutely adored it. One of the parents had to go with them for their first ‘day’ (it’s only an hour and a half a day for 2 weeks) and Dave said that didn’t want to leave! It’ll be good to see how quickly she adapts to more structured play. She’s used to just going off and doing what she wants, but now obviously, she has to stand in line for stuff and only do things that she’s been told to do. She wasn’t too impressed with that this morning! Here’s a picture of her looking all grown up *sob*

In other news, I should finally be able to hear properly again soon! After waiting since April to be referred to a Specialist, I’ve seen the Doctor and I’m having an operation to have gromits put in my ears. It’s booked for the 28th which is next Friday! It should be just a day thing but they’ve told me to pack an overnight bag just in case (knowing my luck…). My sister, Laura, has even booked the day off work so that she can drive me up there {{ickle blister}}

Now, totally irrelevant to what I’ve been waffling about….hnnnng, I want an iPod Touch! I’ve never really been tempted by iPods before, but it’s so beautiful! If it allowed you to to edit the calendar on-the-fly I would pimp Dave out to buy it

Lydia will be starting Nursery in a couple of weeks. I honestly have no idea where all that time has gone. She’ll be going to Playgroup next week just to ease her back into the swing of things, but it’ll be at least a week of 2hr days at Nursery to get all the children used to being in a different place too. Hopefully, once she starts Nursery properly, she’ll get used to the fact that if she refuses to go to sleep at night or keeps waking up at 1am every night because she wants to go play downstairs, that if she’s tired during the day….well that’s her problem.

In other stuff, I’ve applied for a new position at work. I’ve given in my CV for a Deputy Coach vacancy (if any Coaches are off, I cover for them), so now we play the waiting game. I’m dreading the interview (if I get that far!). I stutter and trip up over my words and oh god help me

Once everything has settled down I’m planning on making some more pixelly stuff for people to snag. I’ve got a few ideas, but I don’t like starting stuff like that unless I know I’m going to have a few hours free, which is usually very late at night. I’ve been much too sleepy though.

Time to get ready for work!

She’s just got to get used to going on toilets other than ours. She’ll use the potty at Playgroup, but she’s not happy about using the toilet. She’s got a miniature, pink toilet seat which we take everywhere with us, but she won’t go on any other toilet outside the house. We went for a meal last weekend for my Uncles birthday and she wanted to go to the bathroom. We took her but she refused to do anything, but continued whinging because she was obviously uncomfortable. Dave had to take her home in the end, and she waited all that time to go. At least we know she can hold it if she wants to

I managed to get a cool video of her being tickled by Dave and I’ve uploaded it for your viewing pleasure. I must have watched it over a hundred times, especially after Lydia worked out how to press play on the camera. She’d run into the kitchen with the video constantly playing. We would be watching something on the TV with the constant sound of Lydia laughing as the soundtrack I still laugh every time I hear it. There’s also the added bonus of seeing Dave’s legs! He’s mine, ladies

We went to a friends wedding anniversary party at the weekend and it was great. Lydia didn’t sit down for the whole time we were there! She was on the dancefloor for hours having a boogy and dragging everyone up with her. They even had a bubble machine by the stage, which Lydia went nuts over

Here are some pics of Lydia!

This one was taken today. Dave found this inflatable, remote-controlled robot that was half price in the shops. How could he resist?! Lydia absolutely loves it, but it’s almost as big as she is!

I ordered some stuff from Amazon and Lydia /had/ to have the envelope. To put on her head. See the look on her face? That’s victory.

This next picture was taken at the party. She’s dancing with my ickle blister, Laura, or Aunty Lala, as Lydia calls her

This is another picture of Laura. One of my favourites Alone on the dancefloor with glowing eyes and a child running screaming from her. Roffle.

Ahahaha, I love those pics!

In ‘Roffle’ news, Dave was watching some anime called ‘Gunsmith Cats’ and I happened to catch a minute of it. I could hardly breathe as I was laughing so much. It just seemed like an ordinary thing at first, but then this black male character appeared. I had to take a photo of it as it was so completely ridiculous. BEHOLD!

I mean really. How outrageously racist is that?! LOOK AT THOSE LIPS! Of course, the ‘token black guy’ gets blown up two minutes afterwards It was so preposterous and out there that I was aching all over from how much I was laughing!

Lydia was funny today. She’s been doing really well with her potty training so far, even getting up off the settee on her own to go to the potty. We always reward her with a sweet and cheer her when she brings the potty to us. Well, today she sat in the recliner and I had my back to her, picking up her pens off the floor when I hear her cheering herself. I turn around and she’s standing up grinning at me, little fists in the air, shouting ‘YES!’. Then I notice a huge wet stain all over the seat :hmm: She wasn’t at all happy about the fact that she wouldn’t be getting any chocolate for weeing all over the chair, bless her squidgy cheeks. Hopefully it was just a minor blip as she’s been doing so well, but her little face when she thought she’d done something grown-up was gorgeous

Hnnngh, it’s almost 3.00am now and I’m absolutely shattered. I think I sucked all the air out of the room with the yawn I just did. Unfortunately I’ve got a cold with a really bad cough and can hardly sleep a wink. This is my current plan of action for optimum sleepy-action:

• Put the TV on to a childrens channel for cartoony background goodness
• Make a heeeeooooooge mug of Horlicks
• Stock up on Strepsils
• Get my MP3 player and listen to the Adam & Joe and Ricky Gervais podcasts
• Hopefully stop coughing and fall asleep in my chair
• Dave will sense that I am asleep and will carry me upstairs and tuck me into bed

Somehow I think I’ll only get up to the podcasts part of my list and no further. I can’t fall asleep in chairs and Dave isn’t telepathic, the swine. I’d love it if you could tell me your favourite podcasts as I can always do with more listening material! For now I’m going to download some more Adam & Joe stuff and Penn Jillette.

Wheeeeeeee!

Holy crap, she’s done it again! She’s used the potty! This is so exciting! (I can’t believe what I’m saying ).

I got:

• Pink, fluffy gorilla novelty slippers (to go with my pink, fluffy gorilla novelty legs)
• 3 Meredith Gentry books by Laurell K Hamilton
• Voucher for 2 visits to my favourite beauty salon
• The Mighty Boosh series 1 & 2 box set (already had them, but wheee, box set!)
• “Autobiography of a One Year Old” book by Rohan Candappa
• Boots gift card
• £50 clothes gift card
• Gorgeous bag with spider/spiderweb pattern
• Poppycock cashew popcorn
• Bottle of Baileys
• Long, dark green skirt
• Cat bag with matching purse
• Pewter cat bookmark
• Bottle of Chardonnay and box of Bendicks chocolates from my Boss
• Moneyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

Lydia did the best out of all of us though. In fact, she couldn’t open all her presents on Xmas Day and had to finish them off on Boxing Day! So spoiled! She really got into the spirit of things this year, which was brilliant. Some of you may remember that last year we had to rip a bit of paper from her present to start her off, but rather than continuing the ripping herself, she would delicately lift the flap of paper up and try to pull the present out. Roffle. Now she’s a crazy ripping maniac just like her Mum! However, she now assumes that every single present is hers and will attack anything covered in wrapping paper

She’s been so bratty for the last week or so, though. Hooray for 2yr old rages. She /hates/ being told no for anything, and will scream and mope for ages. She’s got a thing for throwing things around too. If she has something of mine and I ask for it, if she’s in one of her moods she’ll stare at me, hold out her hand and drop whatever it was on the floor. It’s the staring that annoys me the most. It’s like she’s saying “yeah? What are you going to do about it?”. She’s just so defiant. I just hope she keeps that assertiveness if any bullies try it on with her when she starts school

I shall leave you with a link to my photo gallery. I’ll add more photos when I can be arsed to scan them.

During one of the Women’s Groups, everyone was talking about their low self-esteem and stuff, and joking about how we hate these women who still look gorgeous despite having babies, no time to themselves, etc. Well, when the Therapist asked me how I was going to try to relax and cheer myself up, I said that I was going to have a big pampering session and watch some American Cheerleaders getting killed (like watching a couple of slasher movies). Everyone laughed and I thought everything was fine.

The following Monday I went to the craft class and made a t-shirt for Lydia which said <baby /> and underneath that, “My Mum’s a geek”. That’s not offensive or anything, right? Well, the woman in charge of the craft class thought that <baby /> was a website address. When she got home, she typed it into the address bar, and it apparently went to a baby death site! :shock: Not only did she think that I was advertising that sick shit on my baby’s t-shirt, she thought that it was MY site! What the /fuck/??? The Therapist from the Women’s Group took me aside and told me all this, and she also asked if I was feeling angry. She’d remembered what I’d said about “watching some American Cheerleaders getting killed” and thought that I was advocating violence towards women!

I mean, ffs, what kind of psycho do they think I am?! Do they really think that I would even /look/ at a site like that and do they honestly believe that I’m going to go on a murderous rampage against women who are prettier than me? No woman would be left alive! I was so upset and offended when she told me all that. It was also really difficult to explain that isn’t even a web address. I mean, how do you explain to someone who doesn’t even have a net connection about XHTML code? I think I managed to explain though. I even typed it in when I got home and there wasn’t one single dodgy site. It was all stuff like babycenter.com. So I have no idea what sick shit the woman in charge of the crafts class was browsing to get to that site, but it certainly wasn’t because of the t-shirt that I made for Lydia

They’re all acting like nothing’s happened now, so I don’t know what to do. It’s taken me so long to be able to open up and relax around them, and as soon as I make one joke, they throw it in my face. I really like all the women that go there though, so I’m still going to go to the Women’s Group, but I’ll probably quit the crafts class as soon as I’ve finished the wine glass that I’m decorating. I want at least one good thing from that shithole.