Monthly Archives: April 2002

Jaunty mood this morning. Checked my email when I got up & my brothers sent me some photos of his wedding in Antigua – look lovely & very sweet.
Eve has certainly discovered a little control over bladder & bowels. She gave numerous demonstrations after her bath yesterday – squeezing out a little wee & rushing to the loo to empty it; back & forth again & again with a tiny bit of wee. There was even a tiny bit of pooh at one point (such must have been the intensity of her endeavor). She was gleeful, but it all ended in tears as she had to get ready for bed & she also managed to spill a load of water onto the floor as she took it on her self to rinse out the potty at one point. Ah well, we should have been watching out for that accident.
Jack did something interesting this morning. As Louise was going to get her shower, he called to her. Loiuse went to see him & she asked him if he wanted to go downstairs, as I was there changing Jude’s nappy. He actually declined & said he would go back to sleep – & did, in fact, go back to sleep! Louise surmises that it was because she didn’t hassle him & say he was up too early – reverse psychology.

When I sit down to write I usually start off with the 1st thing in my head. This morning – as it’s there & nagging, I have a stiff back. Or is it neck? But it’s the right shoulder blade that hurts. Petty, self-interested & personal, but there you go – indicative of this whole shebang.
Jack had some Edam cheese on Sunday & announced to Louise that he really liked it. He also said that although he really likes it he’d rather it wasn’t used in his lunchtime sandwiches (he takes a packed lunch as Louise, & thus he, is vegetarian). It seems even at this age he is prone to peer pressure. Not wanting to have something anomalous for others to note in his lunch. Perhaps one day he will have the confidence to revel in ‘difference’.
Louise was a bit laid up yesterday & I was more in charge of keeping things ticking over. Jack probably spent too much time on the Internet playing games (hell, I probably spend too much time on the internet). We played a couple of games on the Lego site including the new ‘Junkbot’ game. I had to turn that one off to get him to admit it might be bedtime. Eve was in a funny mood. She is usually quite good at playing on her own, but is getting more attention seeking at the moment. We worry that it’s because when Louise’s mum comes all she can do is ‘molly coddle’ her. All attention is focused Eve’s way. She does not get the opportunity to play on her own – she does not get the opportunity to get a nap sometimes either, as if she does drift off she’s been known to be woken up if she just stirs as an excuse for being woken…

Train home

Anyway anyway – she now wants attention; too much attention sometimes & she was forever round my feet. That was the impression, but probably a little exaggerated. She was also antagonising Jack – trying to get him to respond to slaps & so on. Oh, she would not do well if it wasn’t for the fact that Jack is actually patient with her & knows I really disapprove of him doing anything ‘mean’ – even if she is being annoying; “If she’s doing that please tell me Jack”.
I’m an hour late traveling home today. One of those calls at ‘just to the hour’, which lasted an hour. Problem remains unsolved as well – but the guy has steps to take to get on with which might remedy the situation.
I called Louise to report this as I’m not able to pick up Jack (looking at the time – now – as I type this… a bit difficult from a speeding train some distance away). She says that Eve has been getting to know the potty today – which is a 1st – being keen to use it. We wondered when that might start to happen.
Back at the weekend. On Saturday we went to a housewarming party for someone who Louise knows through playgroup. They’ve moved into a very nice terrace that overlooks the town. Nice location (views from the attic room are lovely) & nice sized house (tall ceilings & spacious rooms). It’s sort of a long-term ambition to move to another house on that terrace… but that’s probably a good while hence. Anyway – apart from coveting it was a lovely social day. I thought that getting there in the afternoon might mean that we would be setting off home to have tea & get the kids to bed, but realised that was probably not the plan when I looked at my watch & it was already 6:30! The kids were enjoying themselves playing with their kids toys & roaming about & so on. We were in fact the last to leave in the end – quite late – with a sleeping Jude & Eve. Jack, of course was still wide-eyed, if not fully awake. I think he has my capacity to keep going in the face of sensibility. He recovers better the next day than I do from lack of sleep though. I turn into a gibbering wreck without the requisite, he seems to get along fine – although having said that toward the end of the day he was getting more emotional in is responses. That might last a couple of days if we cannot convince him into a normal sleep pattern.

I dithered about for an age in B&Q yesterday considering paint colour.
I eventually settled on woodwork colour, but dithered too much on the wall colour & got the one that we thought we might originally. It doesn’t really go with the woodwork colour though, but no matter – it can be used for the back room downstairs, as it needs doing this year as well. We have decided on a wall colour now – so I can go get that next week or something. Jack was very keen to start painting as soon as he saw me lugging it home. I was vague on the subject, but I did do a bit of painting last night – just to make a start & to see what it came out like. Nice.
Feel like I’m actually making progress now. The damp from February’s rain is still there. Looking at it very very closely yesterday it seems it could well be actually starting to dry out. Not a lot – but it seems to be… This is slower than it used to dry – whether this be because of the sealing in they have done has caught whatever was actually letting in water, or whether this is due to the volume of water that needs to dry out – I dunno.

Jude still has a cold. He was having problems breathing & feeding in the night because of his blocked nose. He was managing though – & he wasn’t getting distressed or upset. He has a health visitor coming to see him today. I imagine he’ll be weighed & all that. He certainly seems a growing lad. His eyes do not seem to be remaining blue. They have light brown round the iris at the moment. Still no clear idea what his hair color might be. It is growing (aside from the little bald patch as the back that babies get from lying down all the time & moving their head about a lot) but it’s still just a mousy brown. There are hints of lighter colour & red when through light… but nothing dominant. He’s murmuring & gurgling quite a bit nowadays – lovely sounds for parents. He loves watching his brother & sister. Louise was outside with him yesterday & he was happily watching his siblings & the world in general, when Louise had to pop inside for something (tissue for Eve’s nose?). He was crying as soon as she went into the house, but stopped again as soon as he was outside again.
On the whole I think the kids are feeling better. Last night Eve slept through the night in her own bed & Jack managed the same the night before.

Jude is not so well at the moment. He has a bit of a cough & is having to deal with a blocked nose & all that. He’s coping quite well really… He’s not especially happy, but he complains little. He’s not throwing up or anything more than usual. Speaking of which – Eve did yesterday evening. She tripped up over her ball, & the boy who passed it to her & probably caused it, “Didn’t say sorry”. She fell over again coming up the street home, so whether it was that fall of before (it’s difficult to say – not seeing the initial, but the latter being a nasty fall) but she managed to bump her head quite badly. The reason she was sick was because she was so upset. Poor lamb.
Jack started nagging me about the garden before I even got him home from school yesterday. I would say that he likes gardening. For want of anything else to do, & to quiet his pleadings, we ‘dead headed’ the daffodils – which are getting quite past their best by now. I suspect that it was enough to satiate him as I ended up finishing it off. He’d disappeared for a while, but now I realise he must have been taking in Louise a flower that Eve had plucked as her contribution to the activity. Hey – they’re puling flowers – I’ll pull …this!… one. “Eeya-ar daddy!”. Mauve primula by the kitchen sink in a little jar.
Plans that Louise & I do the attic went awry. Louise went to bed & I did a little bit of filling between the wall & skirting where I noted a gap the other day. I then proceeded to scan an old comic as I found the ‘printing’ proofs on Sunday when we were tidying & sorting – 1st stage to putting those on my web space as well.
Still not made my definitive decision on what colour paint to but – but I will buy some on the way home tonight.

Jack had been nagging me for a couple of days to mow the lawn, so I finally got off my arse yesterday & did. Well… Jack did… I felt a bit like the gardeners assistant. Whenever tried to do something like use the mower or rake up some grass I would have one of them complaining at me & wanting to do it themselves. We used a hover mower that has a ‘safe blade’ (a nylon thread rather that a blade) & it has made me realise that this is all I can have. Anything else would be too dangerous. I did draw the line at either of them using the edge trimmers – which are somewhere between a pair of secateurs & scissors. Lawn tidy now anyway & it kept them busy & me occupied.
Louise & I had a good talk about the attic again the other day. Louise is concerned at the lack of progress again, but Jack was fighting the inevitability of sleep last week, so half an hour seemed to be a little pointless. Louise has now said that she will join in & we will both try to spend half an hour in the evenings, so in theory that puts in, at least an hour in the evenings between us, which seems more worthwhile. We’ve done some all important tidying & sorting up there – so we have a couple more ‘charity’ bags that we need to donate to the recycling thing in town. This is one of the points where we wish we had a car – to be able to take stuff to the dump or recycling in one big lot – rather than me lump it into town bit by bit. Also a major change of plan; Louise says that as there is possible staining on the plaster due to the leaks in the roof. These are taking an age to dry out due to the fact that the chimneys are so silicone sealed now that they stonework is no longer porous. Hey ho. So it’s paint the plaster now… & I have to think about colour again & what we should use etc. I scrap the present colour scheme & try to rethink, but I end up in confusion. We shall see… I’m going to by the paint tomorrow…
On the tech geek side… if I get time I’ll try to get my emate & mac communicating via ethernet. I have a working ethernet card off ebay now – cooo! Now then – how do I get it working?

Train home. The kids actually went off to sleep OK yesterday…well… ok perhaps that’s an exaggeration. Jack wanted to play downstairs with his Lego rather than consider coming upstairs to bed & screamed & shouted & accused me of trying to make him unhappy when I carried him up. I had made him cry & scream earlier in the evening as well. He wanted some crisps just before tea, & was refused. We endured a good ten minutes of howling & harrying on the subject. We did settle on the compromise of letting them (as Jack wants, Eve wants) have a bowl of rice crisp things in a bowl with tea.
Louise is still worried about Eve, so I think she is going to ask the health visitor’s advice, as she doesn’t feel confident with much else. Essentially Eve seems OK, she seems a little pale, & she does have a cough at the moment to compound things. She does not seem quite her usual self though. She is more often than not having a sleep through the day & seems listless. She does not sleep so well in general. It’s difficult to put your finger on precisely, but after being ill the other week, she seems to still be drained. The Health Visitor is due to see Jude, I think, but Louise is alerting her to the fact that she’d like to have a word about Eve.
Occurs to me I’m tired now… might sleep.

Jack was late off to sleep again last night. Hopefully he will sleep in a bit thins morning…
Perhaps “A Comet in Moominland” is just too stimulating for him… I dunno. He seems to be enjoying it as his bedtime read, as do I, but he got alarmed that Momintroll fell off a cliff pushing a boulder over with Snufkin. They were roped together though – so he didn’t fall, but I had to explain twice that the boulder was not going to fall on then as they had pushed it. Then he wanted to root down further into his bed, so I had to move Jude, who was sleeping on Jack’s bed after falling asleep with Louise (Louise subsequently having gone to do sandwiches for lunches & ironing & suchlike). Jude did not go into the cot without waking up, so Jack did not get more stories, but had to try to get off to sleep on his own while I went through the process of trying to calm Jude down & then put him back in his cot. Jude was not for being put down, & Jack had a struggle to get asleep. He did sleep eventually, but time probably drifted past 10:00 – which was even later than yesterday… Poor boy will be tired at school.
Oh, & I’m tired as well as it was past 11:00 again before I managed to get to bed, what with having a bath & all. At least Hattie is coming over to day to look t the shower & see what needs to be done.
Oh, talking of work to be done on the house. The roof. I’m not sure what it is, as Louise was discussing it& I only got the end of the conversation… & have not got round to getting it clear in my head what is going on. Anyway – they are coming back to put some ventilation on the roof. I’m not really sure what this entails. I think Louise says ventilating ridge tiles – which should be interesting as imagine that they will change the profile of the roof. May have completely the wrong end of the stick, though.

Groggy morning, but feeling more alive than usual in these circumstances. I was up late, so I’m tired. Triumph though ~ Nick’s mac plays ball again. It took a while of messing about with his old DVD drive plugged into the open computer, but we got there (phew). Nice to help someone.

Jack was not for settling down last night (which is why I was late to Nick’s, which is why I was late home & late into the bath & late into bed – aug!). Not really sure why – he was just a bit hyper. We’d had a pleasant evening out after tea kicking the ball about & it didn’t really seem like it was bedtime, but he was OK about it. It was after his bath that he seemed not to want to settle. At the moment Eve goes off to sleep in Jack’s bed & although she was very tired she was still just hovering around wakefulness, so I couldn’t move her. I lie next to the bed when reading & Eve manages to grab the spot by the edge of the bed next to me (as she is out of the bath before Jack gets in). Jack seemed to take offence at her being in this coveted position & she would not settle into a deeper sleep while there was the threat of him messing about. I got fed up & went to get the washing in at one stage, which was not really a good thing to do; as Louise pointed out, it didn’t really occur to Jack that I went out of the room because I was mad at him – it was just an excuse to follow me down the stairs… I told him to go up, but he took that as a challenge & a laff as well. Apparently he was sitting at the top of the stairs making noise & Louise said something in passing about the fact that he’ll have to go to sleep in our room if he cannot settle down in their bedroom – which immediately reduced him to a tearful wreck. I came back upstairs to find him very upset. It seems he wants to challenge & play up against the norm, but when faced with the actuality of a break in his usual routine, he cracks. It also seems that even if I am stern, I am not serious <sigh>.

Went to the park after picking up Jack from school yesterday. Lovely sunny afternoon that migrated into a lovely sunny evening (with a chilly breeze). We also took Jack’s scooter & Eve’s trike. Jack has become quite proficient with the scooter, so he’s allowed this sort of thing; fair zooms, he does. Eve enjoyed herself too. They both love playing in the park, but we had to go home eventually & have some tea.
This morning though, I am not refreshed. Up too late. Had to have a bath before bed (as I’ll be damned if I’m getting up earlier still to have one). The shower is broke at the moment. I suspect that there has been an underlying problem for a little while – it being hot – possibly not having the cold part of the ‘mixer’ um… mixing. Still Saturday morning the whole from fascia came off in my hand with a nasty exaggerated ‘click’, which means that something somewhere looks broke. It also refuses to turn on any more. Our plumber has been alerted, but we have yet to hear from her. I suspect a part may be needed, so it would be good if she could come ASAP to at least verify that. Problem is, we are very poor at chasing this sort of thing. We are not well organised & adept to problems probably all to well. Anyway – the other reason why I was late to bed was that I’ve been trying to help another neighbour called Nick. He’s a designer, & his G3 blue/white mac is giving the dreaded flashing mac face & ‘?’ folder when starting up. Outlooks Express crashed badly. Not just badly, but really badly. Eesh. His CD refuses to start up either… Could not solve yesterday, so hopefully today.

We worry about Eve. She does not seem well at the moment. She has a rash, she has a sore at the corner of her mouth, she is snuffly, she is delicate & she is crying at night. She does not want comforting either… but then she is different to Jack, in that if she feels offended she will not be comforted. Jack is happy for a cuddle anytime. Louise thinks she may take her to doctors today (assuming that she can get an appointment past the obfuscatious & demeaning receptionists, “Is it an emergency?” One would think if you said yes they would advise going to hospital Casualty Unit, as that is what they are for. “OK – we have a booking Thursday week” etc etc. <sigh>. I hope she gets on OK.
Got a good bit of sanding done in the attic yesterday. I’m getting to the point where I can start painting the skirting board… Once that is done we can think about a carpet & once we have that we can actually think about moving up there!! Of course there’s still the chimney. That has yet to be sorted out. We have not had rain for a good long while now, but unfortunately the walls that have got damp seem to be taking forever to dry out. March was quite dry, but it seems that the tide of dampness on the wall has hardly retreated. This cannot be good. Our neigbour Andy went onto the roof the other day & had a look at the chimney to see if he could see anything damp, or any indication where water may be getting in. He did find a bit of damp mortar, so I guess that it’s possible that is where water has got in, but could it also just be water trying to get out? Hmm – well that seems plausible… I worry that they have put silicone sealant on the stone & mortar, & if they have how will any water fixed in there dry out?
Nagging worries like this are not good. I can blank them out quite well, as I find it hard to see the point in worry, but it chips at Louise’s well being.