Jealous

Baby nephew was given a Cozy Coupe for Christmas.

I'm green with envy.

I spent so much of my childhood begging for one of these cars.

I would drag my Mum to the Early Learning Centre so I could play on theirs. 

I didn't attempt to get in this one and have a play - some dreams you just need to let go of.

Baby nephew LOVES the car.

Rollercoaster

Stop the ride I want to get off

Since Thursday I feel like I’ve been on a rollercoaster, the days have been filled with highs and lows.

Highs:

Lots of time with my new nephew getting milky cuddles and smiles, helping with bath time and avoiding dirty nappies.

Spending time with my soon to be sister-in-law and her husband (my nephews mum and dad.)

Seeing my friend and her 6 month old boy who is racing around the floor in his walker and beginning to feed himself or redecorating their kitchen around his high chair - depending on how you look at it.

Sitting in the sunshine people watching.

Getting to see O’s brother and his girlfriend because they all came to my work so we could have lunch together.

Lows:

Broken bathroom light

Blocked toilet

Computer virus (which meant I couldn’t get online and de-stress by reading your lovely blogs and leave comments)

Wishing I had the time to visit my friend and her son more often because I can’t believe that he is practically crawling and has a TOOTH! Where have the last 6 months gone?

A house full of people who aren’t my family. My family are stressful too but at least I can tell them to naff off. Just as a side note I love O’s family they are fun, kind, wonderful people and I’m incredibly lucky that we get on so well but my flat is very small and I like my own space. This was the only weekend they could visit.

O was away for the weekend meaning I have had to cope with all of this on my own. We had a big fight via text because he couldn’t unblock the toilet from 300 miles away (huh?). He didn’t appreciate how stressful it was having so many extra people and stuff in the house, and getting woken up several times in the night by a crying baby – I’m not sleeping very well at the moment. Plus I went massively out of my way to do a huge favour for him, instead of leaving him stranded over an hour from home late on a Sunday night after public transport had stopped, and he wasn’t suitably grateful (for some reason I can’t seem to write any of that without making myself sound like a spoilt cow but I was so angry at the time).

Hearing about the shopping trip my Mum and sisters went on for her “mother of the bride” outfit and feeling quite homesick (they were in London so I can’t really be homesick more familysick which isn’t a word) and jealous that I wasn’t able to go along. Even though I’d purposefully asked my best women to handle this task for me (my Mum is a nightmare at shopping).



Will hopefully be back later when my visitors have left, my computer is fixed and my spoilt cow-ness has been beaten into submission.

Girls vs. Boys

When O and I were down south looking after my niece and nephew we played a girls vs. boys game. In teams you are asked to name 10 stereotypical things about the other sex while an egg timer runs. For example, name 10 things that a woman might carry in her hand-bag. Name 10 male film villains. Name 10 household chores. Name 10 things men do at the weekend.

The boys picked a card so my niece and I needed to answer: Name 10 jobs for men. I start rattling through all the careers I can think of:

Doctor; Accountant; Builder; paramedic etc. etc.

Then coincidentally the boys had to answer basically the same question: Name 10 jobs for women. So O basically repeats the list I have rattled off. He got to Doctor when my 11 year old niece pipes up with, don’t be silly girls can’t be doctors they’re nurses, doctor is a boys job. O and I looked at each other in horror (we were already not impressed with the game). We declared the game over and had a sit down with my wonderful niece informing her that girls can do anything they put their mind to; they can be doctors or astronauts etc. And vice versa boys can be nurses or stay at home parents etc.

This incident and other posts that have been flying around recently about the concept of wife (here, here) have got me thinking about the idea of female vs. male roles. Or in other words how spoilt I am. O works fewer hours per week than I do and as a result he is in the house more than me and so ends up doing more housework. He refuses to clean the bathroom but apart from that I’m spoilt rotten. He is also a much better cook than me and so does all the cooking. Which is why he continued to make the food while I took photos of potatoes. I do the admin for the house; I phone plumbers, get insurance quotes and make sure the bills are paid on time and I clean the bathroom.

(we've pretty much reversed the stereotypical gender roles)

When does his family become my family?

….and vice versa….

On Saturday night O’s sister and her husband had a baby boy.

So O is an Uncle for the first time.

O doesn’t regard himself as an Uncle to my niece and nephew – they were born a good while before O and I got together but hopefully over time he will get closer to them. They currently think he is great anyway because he is a big kid that they can't exhaust.

And I'm an Aunty again, feels strange for me, it being on the other side of the family. I don't distinguish between my own Aunts and Uncles, those who are blood related and those related through marriage. I guess it just takes a while to get used to.

Not only has the new arrival got me thinking about the familial boundaries merging but this coming weekend is going to be HUGE for us. Our parents are going to meet each other for the first time and I’m crapping my pants, much more than when I introduced O to my parents for the first time. I have no idea if they are going to get on and I keep dreaming up all the horrible ways it could go wrong. So come on bloggers tell me your experiences how was the big parental meet up for you? Tell me it is all going to be ok!

Last Week

So O and I spent last week in London at #1’s house looking after my niece (E) and nephew (B). We had a great time – I just hope the kids did too. What we got up to:


Chessington World of Adventures: This was O’s first visit to a theme-park and his first ever trip on a roller coaster (seriously). He loved it, although he was slightly bemused by the ratio of queuing for 40 mins to a ride that lasted for 30 seconds (hmm welcome to the joy of theme-parks). We were lucky that the weather was bright, clear and warm (having got used to Scotland’s autumn temperatures the warmth was quite a shock to the system). The warmth was especially appreciated after we got soaked on the water flume – had to be done though!


We went to the cinema, trying to please an 11 year old girl and a 12 year old boy turned out to be too much of a diplomatic struggle for me to deal with (I can negotiate a senior management meetings but these two are scary). So we saw two films practically back to back Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus and Up. Both films were really good although different to say the least. Spending the day in the dark eating sweets isn’t the best way to spend time with kids so we didn’t feel like very good baby sitters after this!


Science Museum: It was half term holidays for the schools so the place was packed out! O and I could have spent all day here wandering around the different exhibits, however the kids got bored after a few hours. It was interesting to see the differences in kids today and when we were young (how old does that make us sound). They were fascinated by all the interactive screens and things to play with whereas we found the interactive screens a bit dull and preferred to read the signs and actually look at the stuff in the glass boxes!


I tried on my first wedding dress!!! Argh, went with #1 and E to look in the department store bridal sections, we had assumed that department stores have bridal sections – turns out they don’t. We found a very busy packed shop in Kingston where we tried on three dresses, the first one was ok the other two were hideous on me. (Promise to post my thoughts on dresses later).