For Elizabeth

Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner,
That I love London so.
Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner
That I think of her wherever I go.
I get a funny feeling inside of me
Just walking up and down.
Maybe it's because I'm a Londoner
That I love London Town.

Now all we need are some West Ham tops, mugs of tea and some jellied eels and Bob's your uncle.

Livin' in Da Hood II

Rosie and I were walking to her music class this morning. We turned the corner and saw about two dozen police officers and half a dozen police vehicles surrounding two men, one of whom was doubled over in obvious pain. The other one was leaning against a fence with his head hanging down and breathing hard. I heard a police officer say to someone in the police van 'We had to beat the crap out of them.'

I slowed down and an officer came over to us and explained that he would escort us through the area. Of course, being a concerned parent and a police officer's daughter I asked what had happened and was told that the men had tried to hold up the travel agent (travel agent?). I asked if they had been armed and was told that they had knives. 10.30 on a Monday morning and knife-weilding burglars are holding up a travel agent about 500m from our flat. Welcome to London.

After music class the road was still closed so Rosie and I walked into the village. I stopped to talk to the officer at the end of the road, always good to get a second report and see if they match up. They differed only in that the second officer said that the burglars were carrying tasers rather than knives. I guess if I had to choose I would rather be stung than stabbed so this was some comfort. I also learned that it was an organised gang that travelled around and not a local group and no one, aside from the burglars, was hurt. The police must have been following them because there were so many officers out, both in uniform and plainclothes. This was comforting to know too.

The whole village was buzzing with the news. There was crime scene tape all around the travel agent's shop and everyone was trying to guess what happened. I ended up telling the newspaper salesman and the barista at our coffee shop what had really happened. When they asked how I knew I told them that I had stopped and spoken to a couple of police officers. I guess it's unusual to speak to the police in this situation because whenever I said that I had spoken to an officer people looked at me like I was crazy. I seem to get that look a lot.

Still recovering

Got back three days ago but we're still getting back to normal. I feel like I'm drowning in domesticity right now. Between the children, the housework and trying to get some odd jobs done before Nikki gets here I'm not sure if I'm coming or going. That's why this is going to be so short.

I've tried to send the link for the Disney pics out to everyone but I've forgotten the password and had to send it again. Hope it's made it to you eventually. My head is well and truly spinning.

We're home

Had a wonderful time at Disneyland. We spent three days in the park, one day hanging out at the hotel and Village and one day taking care of Tobes when he became ill. Luckily, he didn't get sick until our last night but it was bad enough that we called the hotel doctor. I was half expecting the doc to turn up dressed as Goofy with a giant stethoscope but he was actually a rather dashing Frenchman. Unfortunately, he didn't speak a jot of English so I had to speak French. I love speaking French and I've been told that I have a very good accent. The problem is that because of the decent accent people assume that I can speak French quite fluently. Not true. I'm sure that at one point I told the doctor that though I didn't have a thermometer I knew that Toby had a very high 'February'. Well, 'fevrier' and 'fievre' are quite close.

Now I'm trying to unpack and catch up with the news from Grandma's funeral. I tried to ring a few times from France but could never get through. The pic is from my sister's blog. It's Granma and Grandpa. I can't imagine when it was taken but don't they look happy. I like to think that's how they are now - together, happy and so in love.

Some happy photos on a sad day

I thought I would post some of the photos from our weekend. On Sunday we went up to Cambridge to see Jenny, Kieran, Jack and Kate. We met up at The Orchard, just about my most favourite place on the planet. It's a tea garden in Grantchester and you eat under the trees. It's surrounded by pastures and after eating it's always nice to walk across the fields to the river. Lazing under the trees, eating scones with jam and clotted cream, strawberries and cream, chatting with friends while the children run and play... what could be better.

After The Orchard we went back to Jenny and Kieran's house and had lunch in their garden. The children played in the sprinkler and the paddling pool and I think everyone ended up a bit wet by the end of the day. Tobes had a bath with Jack and Kate before we headed back to London, all of us happy and exhausted.

At 7.30 tomorrow morning the taxi comes to take us to Waterloo where we catch the Eurostar to Disneyland. I'm so glad we have something happy to look forward to right now.

Grandma's funeral is today. She'll be buried wearing a pink shroud, in a pink coffin with a pink satin lining, surrounded by pink flowers. I'm glad she's going out in style. So very sad not to be there though.

Grandma died last night. The funeral is on Wednesday at 2.00. We leave for Disneyland on Thursday morning at 9.00. After some soul searching and talking to Mom we've decided that we'll have to miss the funeral. Mom said that Grandma knew how I felt about her and that I couldn't break Toby's heart by cancelling Disney. I think she's right.

So on Wednesday at 2.00pm (8.00pm GMT) if you could spare a thought for my Grandma, Versie McClendon, I would be most grateful.

A Fair Warning

I've been thinking about Nikki coming over and what it's going to like having another person in the flat. This afternoon J was trying to iron a shirt in the kitchen while I was organising Toby and Rosie's dinners. It was a mix between ballet, slapstick and a contortionist act as we weaved and leaned around each other, talked over each other and made sure that no one was burned by the iron or scalded with hot water.

I feel that there are a few things that I should warn Nikki about before she arrives. I hope it doesn't scare her off.

1. We wake up early. Sometimes very early. I'm talking 4.30am on occasion. And there's no slowly waking up and gently starting the day. Tobes usually tries to flip out of bed a la Sportacus and Rosie likes to start the day by eating within minutes of waking. She resorts to shouting and banging on the table if my speed at preparing her bottle does not meet approval. Our neighbors just love us.

2. We have a three year old boy in the house so you may from time to time, or possibly every day or even numerous times a day, find wee on the toilet seat. Or on the floor. Or maybe even on the magazine that you've left in the bathroom. Tobes does the best he can (foreskins are a nightmare) and apparently urine is a sterile body fluid so just wipe it off and try not to gross out too much.

3. Sometimes Tobes prefers to use his plastic potty rather than the toilet so you might just find a little potty somewhere in the flat containing wee or perhaps something a bit more hearty. Don't be shocked. Better in the potty than in his pants. Just let me know and I'll deal with it.

4. 4.00pm until the children's bedtime around 6.30pm is what I call Hell Time. It's that time of day when the children are getting tired but there are still things to do like eat dinner, take a bath and get ready for bed. This is the time of day when I'm at my most harried and the children are at their most demanding. Holding an intelligent conversation with me at this time of day is a real challenge. Once the children are in bed and I've dried off from their bath, cleaned the food out of my hair and sat down with a drink I'm back to normal. Most nights anyway.

I know there are at least a dozen other things I should warn Nikki about but it's almost midnight here and there's always a chance I could be getting up in four hours. Will have to think about it and write another day.

Babies who lunch

Here's Rosie in Greenwich Park today picnicing with her friends Thomas and Elizabeth. Toby and his friend Ben (Thomas' big brother) were off running around and chasing squirrels. Summer has finally arrived and it was a beautiful day.

All Good Things

Grandma is doing much better. Last time I spoke to Mom she was out of the hospital, had started eating and was keeping her food down. Hopefully she's out of the woods now.

Rosie has two pearly little teeth poking through her lower gums. She's also started making consonant sounds so we get a lot of 'bababba', 'gagagaga', mamammama'.

Toby gets more precocious by the day. The other morning I was trying to get us out of the house but Tobes didn't want to go out. I said, "Tobes, come on. Mama needs coffee and fresh air." Toby looked at me and said "Then open a window and make some in the kitchen."

We're off to Disney in a week! Today we bought bathing suits, sun cream, aloe vera and a first aid kit. I'll probably start packing this weekend. You can never be too organised.

Nikki arrives on 1 July for two whole months! So excited. We're still trying to get the spare room painted and cleared out for her. It's going to be so great to have her around for the summer. I've been organising my little heinie off looking into activities in London this summer. Can't wait!

AND, I was buying a metal scraper at B&Q today for some DIY work in the flat. There are strict laws about selling anything that could be used as a weapon to anyone underage. As I was packing the bags the cashier turned, looked at me and said 'Are you over 21?" I could have kissed her.

I'm a bad, bad Mommy

Very demanding hospital appointment with Rosie this morning. Much more than I expected. She was finally seeing the allergy clinic at King's College Hospital and they told me the appointment would take about an hour. It took over three. I'm still processing all the information but basically Rosie has eosinophilic colitis. There's more info on this site www.apfed.org. I thought she just had a milk and soya sensitivity but it sounds more complicated. It has something to do with an overproduction of a certain kind of white blood cell. My head is still spinning with all the info right now.

They did loads of tests today. Little pricks on her leg to test for various allergies, took a surprising amount of blood and weighed and measured her (still just the same as Tobes - 98th percentile for length and around 50th for weight). I had to give the whole medical history twice then they asked me what foods she has eaten, what she can tolerate, what food she's reacted to. Very demanding and, of course, Tobes was bored out of his mind and getting more and more out of control.

The upshot is that they've put Rosie on Neocate (the one that costs 150 pounds a tin which lasts 3-4 days) and a no-milk, no-egg, no-soya diet. They said that we need to increase her protein intake to two servings a day and that we should introduce fish. They also said it would be best if I made fresh organic purees for her because so many babyfood manufacturers use soya as a filler or have additives that could irritate her stomach. After she's on two servings of protein we need to get her milk down to 20oz a day. She's on 28oz now.

I left feeling awful. Aside from the usual stress and crap that these things seem to involve (They would only take cash or cheque for parking but the cash machine was broken. They agreed to invoice me when I started crying.) I left feeling like a terrible mother. Though I always have the best intentions about making my own purees, it has never happened. Tobes was weaned solely on jars and Rosie has been the same. I always buy the good quality organic baby food and this time around I've even found fresh frozen organic purees for Rosie, but I've never made them myself and I feel incredibly guilty about it long before a doctor starts lecturing me on the subject. Plus I haven't given Rosie any fish yet. I felt so incredibly judged over the fish thing! Silly, but I can't help it.

To top it all, they put a band-aid on Rosie's arm where they took the blood and when we got home Rosie took it off when I wasn't looking, put it in her mouth and started choking on it. Very, very bad mothering day.