A pox on our house

ThingOne has chicken pox, which mean our weekend plans are scuppered. These included a naming ceremony and a dress rehearsal for ThingOne's dance show next week.

How come this doesn't happen when our weekend plans comprise a trip to Sainsburys and that's all?

Coney Island Boo Boo

So I’m in Brooklyn with a friend, Tony, to attend another friend’s wedding. On Friday, the day before the wedding Tony and I took the subway down to Coney Island.

It was odd to be in New York and be at the beach. Even though I know NY is at the coast I never really associate it with the beach. As a beach resort Coney Island has seen better days. It was a bit like a run down British seaside town, but warmer and playing more on its history.

I’d not previously realised that Tony is a bit of a rollercoaster enthusiast. He was keen to go on The Cyclone, the old wooden rollercoaster there. I was less keen as it looked a bit rickety but macho pride ensured I joined him. We sat at the front and we were both surprised how intense it was. I’d thought that being from the early 20th century it might be fairly tame.

We went on a second time and sat right at the back. That was much much worse. We were both thrown around a lot and it wasn’t fun at all. I got winded and hurt my back early on. I was in real pain. After the ride and for the rest of the day my back really hurt. I was concerned I might have done some proper damage.

I soon also discovered that my mobile phone, which was in my pocket, had got broken as the screen had cracked as I was pushed against the safety bar.

My tip, only go on it once and sit at the front.

Photos from home

Anne tends to send me photos of my girls when I'm away. One of today's shows ThingOne enjoying a chocolate mousse as a reward for being brave at the allergy clinic.

I phoned home and spoke to Anne and then ThingOne. The NY traffic was too loud and I couldn't hear what she was saying. When Anne got back on the phone she told me ThingOne had said "Daddy I really like it when you read me stories"

I'm glad I couldn't hear her as I'd probably have wanted to take the next plane home.

Brooklyn adventure

I'm in Brooklyn to attend a friend's wedding. Anne and the girls aren't here as we didn't fancy facing jetlagged kids. This means I'm getting a holiday and Anne's not. I'll be having to make that up to her later.

I'm blogging from my iPod Touch so posts are likely to be brief.

What's up, Tiger ThingOne?

Today was Father's Day, and I was woken by ThingOne in an "I Love Daddy" t shirt. ThingTwo had one too. Anne said they cost a pound each in M&S.

ThingOne and I went on the bike down to Parker's Piece in Cambridge this morning to see The Cambridge Town and Country Show, meeting up with another dad and his son, Jake. ThingOne enjoyed it, and we went on a small steam engine and had a picnic. I spent a grand total of £1.80 on a white tiger mask for ThingOne.

Tip for the day:
Here's something they never tell you in the parenting books. If you tie a balloon to your wrist to stop it floating away and you're wearing a backpack, you're going to have trouble getting the backpack off. If you finally manage (by removing the balloon, and then tying it to your wrist again) you're going to have trouble putting the backpack back on.

Tie the balloon to the backpack instead.

We're going to need a new wall

I got home tonight to a slightly guilty looking ThingOne. She told me she'd pulled her "ABC poster" off her bedroom wall (a poster showing each letter of the alphabet with a suitable picture next to each). "The wall broken", she told me.

Sure enough, I could see that some paint had come off with the blue tack. She was being very sweet about it. Slightly guilty, but also very matter of fact. I was trying to stifle a laugh, but in an effort to pretend to fake a modicum of discipline said, "Well ThingOne, what are we going to do about this? How can we fix it?"

"I think we need a new wall", she decided. Then, "Maybe I have a new poster too. One with lots of dolphins and lots of lions on."

What makes me a poor parent is that I immediately want to get her whatever she asks for.

Feed me!

The feeds for this site have changed with its move to Blogger's servers:

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Choo choo blogging

I'm publishing this from a train. How cool is that. Welcome to 2005!

I'm away from home with work for three nights in Edinburgh from today (Monday). ThingOne (very much a daddy's girl) won't like this. I've put her to bed all but (I think) one night since ThingTwo was born, and one night last week I only just made it in time and came home to a very sad little girl (and stressed wife).

I tried to prepare ThingOne over the weekend by showing her pictures of Scotland and telling her about it, and then telling her I'll be going there with work on Monday. Last night ThingOne got a bit upset about this, but was able to be distracted. Around 8.30pm last night ThingOne had her first bad dream, and woke up sweaty and shaking. I don't know if it was connected to getting upset by me going away or just a coincidence, but it made me feel worse about going away.

This morning I had to leave early to get a train into work (as I was going to leave for Edinburgh straight from work in the afternoon). As I was about to leave the house, Anne noticed a rash on both of ThingOne's temples. She pressed a glass on it and it didn't go away. Meningitis scare - off to A&E. We knew the risk was low, but advice is to go to A&E for that sort of thing and we felt sick to our stomachs at the thought of it. To avoid unnecessary suspense in this posting, she was given the all clear. They didn't know what the rash was, but were satisfied it wasn't "the big M" (doctor's words). It may just have been ThingOne's attempt to keep me there for longer (it worked).

ThingOne was a bit dazed to be in hospital, but was a little star there. She put up with the nurse and doctor prodding her chest, arms and various orifices and lay down when asked (after first jumping into Anne's arms saying she didn't want to lie down). I had to get a urine sample from her, and that was interesting, as she was a little suspicious of the pot in the potty. She then wanted to try on the toilet instead and I had to hold her on there while trying to manoeuvre the sample tub down the loo underneath her. The things parents have to do.

Anne just told me (via IM - on a train!!) that ThingOne had chocolate mousse for pudding tonight for being so brave. Too right. She deserved that and a whole lot more.

Shriek and spell

This morning, I heard a shout from ThingOne upstairs. She was clearly not happy about something. Anne went upstairs to see what was wrong, and ThingOne got even sadder when she saw her. She didn't want her mum. She wanted her dad. We try not to pander to this sort of thing, so rather than call me up, Anne tried to find out what was wrong with ThingOne.

Through her sobs, Anne heard the words "strawberry", "start" and "s" (as in the letter s). Anne worked out that what ThingOne wanted was to ask me if the word strawberry starts with an S.

"Why don't you ask him over the baby monitor ThingOne?"

So, over the baby monitor we had a walkie-talkie conversation:
"Daddy, strawberry start with an s or not?".
"Yes ThingOne it does start with an s. Well done."

ThingOne was then happy.

She's doing a lot of this at the moment. She's really trying to figure out what letters words start with, and clearly as soon as she does she has to find out if she's right. This morning she wanted to check with me and I wasn't there at the time and she got frustrated.

She's fascinated by letters. She likes to spell ThingOne. A few months ago people were impressed when she saw "ThingOne" written down and would say "L-I-L-Y - ThingOne!" If she stopped there she was fine, but she gave the game away if she attempted it with another word:
"D-A-D-D-Y - ThingOne!"

Now she's progressed a bit. She now thinks Daddy is spelt D-I-D-Y. i.e. ThingOne with the Ls replaced with Ds. You can see the connections being made in her brain.

Oddly, she thinks tummy is spelt Didl. She keeps pointing at her tummy and shouting "D-I-D-L - Tummy!" No idea where that one came from, but in our house the word tummy has now been replaced with didl. e.g. my didl is full, or I have didl ache. Let's hope we don't turn her into Nell.

Strange, funny little girl.

Travelling in webspace

I've moved the blog to Blogger's web space, after some downtime and a few hassles with the free webspace I was using. (Web address is still the same.) When I first set up this blog on non-Blogger webspace it was the best option as it meant I could do more, but now I have little time to do anything flash with the site (create new pages etc) so having Google supply the space is the best bet, plus you get some easy ways to adjust the layout. A few years ago editing the raw HTML and learning some bits of CSS seemed cool to me, now it's cool that I don't have to bother. I'll tweak the layout as I go along (or maybe not). It's looking a bit thin at present. I've just chosen one of the standard layouts for the mo, like a complete n00b.

I've also chosen a new name which I'll try out for a while to see if it fits. With two girls life is likely to be very pink for a few years whether we like it or not.

I think I may have lost all the comments by moving over. I can probably get them back, but it might take some time.

Video thrilled the baby girl's pa

A couple of vids today, and not just because the title of the post alone makes it worth doing (though that is the case). I've just got round to transferring some video, having finally got the Firewire cable I needed to connect my DV cam to the laptop, so that's another reason.

First, my guess is this will be used as evidence in the future when ThingTwo tries to prove she's been short changed by being born second. We have much less footage of ThingTwo than we did of ThingOne as a baby, and what little we have is generally overrun by ThingOne. In this clip, eldest excels herself at sidelining her sister. (I'm not convinced by Blogger's video facility. It seems to need to you start the video, pause it, and then wait an age for it to buffer.)

I left Anne's last comment in on purpose, natch.

And here's biggest with a spontaneous burst of the theme tune to one of her favourite TV shows. Missing out a bit in the middle.