Wednesday, January 20, 2010

A parenting milestone I could do without



Nit comb + sensitive heads = more tears and weeping then is really necessary or reasonable.

Sigh.

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Apple, meet the tree you fell from

Sometime in the last month, Devil has undergone some kind of sea change. Even her teacher noticed - she commented after the first day of the new term "What happened to her? She's so grown up!" Umm, yes, yes she is. We're not sure exactly when or why, but it's an exciting new stage, and we're having lots of fun.

Despite the fact that she bears an almost uncanny and eerie resemblance to her father (in both the physical and personality-type ways), I am glad to report that some of my genes seem to be getting expressed as well.

Exhibit A:



Exhibit B:


Exhibit C:


I'm not sure if I've ever admitted to her that I used to walk home from school every day reading as I went. If I did, she certainly heard me (that one time only, mind you) and remembered it. If I haven't told her about this, I can only point to genetics for this one. Finally!

Thursday, January 7, 2010

London Christmas Magic, the Delayed Wrap Up

So here's the thing about having a house full of people for the holidays. It makes blogging much less of an issue. With that excuse out on the table, here's a few photos to round off the last week and a half or so.

We had a "traditional" English Christmas dinner, complete with sausages wrapped in bacon and mince pies (sadly unphotographed). There was turkey,



Stuffing,



Cranberry sauce and roasted potatoes and broccoli and brussel sprouts (for Nana).





There was a mofo big bottle of wine, courtesy of my siblings-in-law.




No, a really big bottle of wine (large red wine glass for scale).




It was the largest bottle of wine I've ever seen (note the use of milliliters, not liters. Because 3000 seemed better then 3?).



The next day, there was playing with new toys.


Scooty the scooter


Brand new (perfect) tea set from charity shop


Over the next week there was hiking in the mud on Leith Hill,


10 seconds later there was much crying and wailing as Devil took a step and left her wellie behind in the mud. I may or may not have peed myself a little bit with the laughing. Which didn't help calm the situation of course.


Have walking stick, will travel.


As well as much coming and going of visitors (at this stage mostly going). The last couple left yesterday morning from our house at 11:30 for their 4:00 pm flight. They left extra early because we got a big snow yesterday, and there was some concern about being able to get to the airport.

They needn't have worried. Their flight was delayed five and a half hours. I'm hoping duty free is still standing!


Yesterday's snow has revealed something that Londoners do not do particularly well:




Plow. Our road, while not a major thoroughfare, is relatively well used. It didn't get plowed or sanded (gritted as they like to say here) until this afternoon. This morning it was a sheet of thick glare ice. Yes, people were out driving. We saw lots of slow skids, one SUV with rugs under the rear tires (to no avail) and a lot of traffic. Thankfully no collisions of any kind, but it made me supremely glad to Edit HTMLnot have to drive to school or work.

But I won't talk about the trains. Not yet at least...

Happy New Year to you all!