Palaver.

Dunno if you noticed, but it was Mothers’ Day last week.  What did we do?  Well, stuff, but one of the big things (it being anise’s first Mothers’ Day) was the card, with a handprint from E in it.  On Friday night I got in and my sister-in-law was there so I thought “Right, now or never, grab the baby and some paint, s-i-l can distract the wife..”

 

I rushed upstairs, got the baby down to her nappy, slapped her hand in the paint, slapped it on the card.  Only, that was the plan.  My dear sweet daughter, of course, had other ideas.  Smear on card.  Damn.  Press again.  Slightly better, can make out fingers now… Third time’s the charm!  Oh, that’s less good than the second.  Oh, well, she isn’t going to magically co-operate, she is a baby, dammit.  Just wash the paint off and we can move on.  You have the wipes?

 

Wipes.  Ha!

 

The wipes fail almost perfectly to remove the paint.  Shit shit shit, there’s so much PAINT here.  Well, luckily the bath was clean and clear so I run the taps.  In order to do this I have to let go of E’s hand for, like, a second.  Big mistake.  Slap, slap, scratch, she is now covered in paint.  Blue on her tummy, blue on her legs, blue on her face – under her red hair she looks like a tiny Boudicca.  Eek..  Okay, into the tub.  Take off your shirt!  Don’t want that to get paint on it (this is *FORESHADOWING*)!  Pull off shirt, throw it across the room.  Okay, right, she’s in the bath.

 

Lalala… a moment of relative calm.  I wipe at the blue with a sponge and feel that I have re-gained control.  Then I need to dry her off.  Oh, balls, the towel is over there.  Could reach it if I let go of baby… but baby is slippery and *in the bath*, don’t want to let her go.  Shit, shit, shit, again, what now?  Grab phone, call sister in law.  No answer!  But she is right downstairs!  Take plunge, call wife.  Sister in law answers!  Success!  “Urgent assistance required.  Come alone!”.  Worried that I sound sinister, just don’t want surprise spoiling.

 

Sister in law arrives and thankfully takes charge.  Hands over towel, tells me baby is still blue.  What?  Still blue.  Looks fine to me, yes, but you’re colourblind.  Heeelp!  So sister in law washes baby (who is still a bit blue next day).

 

Suddenly realise I am shirtless in room with a person who isn’t my wife.  Feel extremely self-conscious (in panic didn’t care, do now).  Recover shirt.  Lid of paint adhering to sleeve.  Waaah!  Lucky it wasn’t my posh shirt, just next to the *ruined* shirt (which is only a casual sort of thing, so not to worry too much).  Throw on dressing gown.

 

Look calm and composed and take baby back downstairs.  “Nothing happened.  Nothing happened, there was no crisis and everything is fine.”  Wife not convinced.

 

Oh, well, she liked the card…

books, etc

Some things I don’t mean to do, and reading a book on my phone is one of them.  Okay, you might say “Well, why did you download the software, then?”, which is hard to argue with, but I don’t know, it’s a brave new world, lots of crazy apps and shit, why not?  It was free!  And it came with a copy of The Invisible Man pre-loaded onto it.  I thought “Eh, let’s see how reading off of a screen works, yeah?”.  Turns out it reads ok, though I’m not doing it for any length of time so we’ll see.

 

Oh, yes, the point of this was that I have a copy of Wolf Hall in my bag, which I totally intended to start reading yesterday and a copy of The Phantom of the Opera at home, which I nominated as book of the month and so have a duty to read.  But what did I do?  I read a page or two of The Invisible Man and now I have to finish it.  It’s a compulsion.  Bloody Wells and his curiously more-ish prose.

 

Also, furthermore, the point is that I want to read books, buy books, paper, physical books.  I don’t want electronic copies.  I don’t want to be thought of as part of the generation that killed books, that would destroy me.

 

Which is why we have so many books for E.  So many!  I bought The Gruffalo’s Child the same weekend as Wolf Hall, and I think it may be my favourite baby book now.  Although I still don’t have a proper voice for the Gruffalo’s Child.  Squeaky Scots, I guess, since my Gruffalo is sort of a bad Robbie Coltrane impression.

Hey, it's getting lighter.

Ahh, the fresh tang of a new update.  So much might have happened in the two weeks since last I wrote, and yet so much has not.  Well, nothing I’m going to blog about anyway.

 

I’m going to try something to kick-start the writing.  I’m going to write out a list of chapter headings for the whole book, ones which sound cool and are also suggestive of the shape of the story.  Most of them probably won’t end up in the finished product, but, eh.  I dunno.  Worth a shot.

 

Baby news: Has been seen to be pincer-gripping, and definitely taking small steps (haha) towards proper crawling.  Very chatty, and copies sounds/movements.  Having her wave at you is just to die for.  Check the flickr page (link at the top) for some extra-lovely pictures of her at Regent’s Park.

getting on

You know, you can buy the Jedward Under Pressure/Ice Ice Baby single for 29p from the Amazon mp3 shop.  I bought the Queen/Bowie original because I wanted to and it cost me 89p.  How is that right?  I feel so old.

Top fact (for me) - this year the second May bank holiday falls on my daughter’s first birthday.  Everyone celebrate Elladay by taking the day off!  Woo!

done.

Well, now, I have my Hero and lo, it doth rock most mighty.  It all just… works, as it should.  It feels complete, seamless, where the Omnia felt disjointed and scrappy.  Beautiful.  And that’s all I have to say on it, really.  I think that’s enough – it’s as they say, quietly brilliant.

Re Blogger, well.  I still don’t know.  I have an offer from Aquarion for hosting, which is very generous, but I still – I think – face the same issues.  Maybe I should just go WordPress, but I don’t know if I have the time to sort it all out.  People with WordPress accounts – is it time consuming to do?

Also, I really really now want a personalised url.  I have my eye on mothinabutterfly.net… should I perhaps just shut off all the extra crap (writing and such) and lop it down to a blogspot-hosted blog with that url?  So many questions!

other things

Baby stuff, while I mull over the Blogger situation.

I think she’s close to crawling.  She does a kind of.. well, flat out on the ground, arms and legs moving like she’s doing front crawl in the air.  Sometimes she goes backwards.  If she has something to push against, she goes forwards.  It’s surely only a matter of time now.

She also likes to stand, supported, and wobble about.  Maybe attempt a bit of bouncing.  Then get bored and start yelling, because she hasn’t quite figured out sitting back down.  But that’s ok, we’re there for her.  We can help her sit down.

Oh, and Vodafone still haven’t given me the upgrade, the beasts.

Moving on?

Shit. Blogger are discontinuing support for ftp. What to do? Migrate to - shudder - blogspot? Buy a new domain from Blogger and hope for the best? Or jump ship to Wordpress? I don't want to do any of these things! I have loyalty to Blogger, dammit I've been with them over 9 years now! Nine! That's an eternity in internet years! And I've been on wetflame for, what, 6 years? That's also plenty FAR time. I don't want to be on blogspot! But I don't know what their custom domain shit would do to mikebot's stuff. I had one instruction given to me when I joined the good ship wetflame - "don't touch my stuff". I don't want to let Blogger in to do just that...

Grump.

I don't know what to do.

Holding out for a Hero

Today I upgrade my phone.  I talk about this a lot, because I enjoy the process.  The research, endless agonising on gsm arena, working out which one is bestest, flicking between networks’ websites to compare deals, deciding, changing my mind, going back to the first decision… all of it.  So, yes, today I will walk into Carphone Warehouse and demand an HTC Hero.  It fills the gap between a phone and a netbook!  Oh, wait, no, that’s the iPad’s job, apparently.  Good luck with that, Apple, you big mentals.  Still, if you’re a massive giant of a person, the iPad might yet work for you as a regular iPod Touch.  Provided you don’t mind only being able to run one application at a time (SURELY THIS IS NOT TRUE?).

I intended to go to bed at a reasonable hour last night, but then I realised I had to transfer all the pictures of my daughter from my old phone to its memory card and to the computer, so they’re not lost when I reset it to trade it in.  Had a weird moment last night – not the first – when Ella woke up crying and all she really wanted wasn’t food but for someone (it happened to be me) to hold her and reassure her.  It may well be the best part of the job, that, the moments when you realise that your responsibility to your child isn’t just material, isn’t just about keeping her safe and fed and clothed, there’s an emotional need that she has which can be filled *only* by her parents.  Or, to be fair to adoptive parents and whatnot, by their parental figures.

And that, so far, is my favourite part of parenthood.

Almost didn't post

Don’t have anything to say.  Short sentences only.  Punchy.  Been reading “The Road”.

It’s payday – got paid.  Went out for lunch.  Restaurant hadn’t taken our booking.  No table big enough for all of us.  Walked back to work in rain, ate M&S sandwiches.  Got wet feet.  Walking around in my socks.

Baby keeps waking in the night.  Crying.  Waking just before the alarm, losing the end of sleep.  Teething.  Has top incisor.  Will get the other soon.  Took her to John Lewis this week.  On the tube.  She seemed happy with that.

It's the only way to be sure.

Maybe my phone had a virus.  Maybe it was all the chewing on it my daughter does.  Maybe it just got fed up with me telling it it was on borrowed time and how I’m going to upgrade *SOON*, damn its buttons.  Whatever, I was faced with a non-functioning mobile phone and a big button marked “Hard reset”.  What choice did I have?  I dusted off and nuked the site from orbit.

It worked!  Ok, so a lot of my settings have been lost, and some of my programs no longer work properly but I can make calls and look at the internet so everything’s just fine for me.  And I’m upgrading it *soon*, anyway.  HTC Hero, in case you’re interested.  Fuck you, apple.

New game – Bayonetta.  Sleazy, violent, addictive fun.

Obligatory baby bit:

New teeth, apparently.  Arrived today.  Not seen them yet.  Scared for my fingers.  Already live in terror of existing teeth.

Brrrrr!

Bit cold, innit?       

Hello, again.  Happy new year, indeed happy new decade!  And don’t give me that crap about how it’s not a new decade, there’s a 1 where there was a 0, you can’t tell me that’s not a different decade.

So, what did you get for Christmas?  Peace, goodwill?  An X Box?  I’ve had Christmas and a birthday since my last post, you know, that makes me a whopping thirty three.  Still early thirties, but not comfortably.

Things my baby can do:

Rub noses

Chuckle

Have a conversation consisting of “a-tah” at different intonations

“A-tah?”

“A-tah!”

“A-tah.”

Roll over onto her back

Roll over onto her front

Eat teeny tiny burgers

Drink water from a sippy cup.

Amongst other things.  Maybe more.  Maybe some of that list is just wishful boasting.  But by gosh, she does seem to be coming on fast.  Within the next couple of weeks I expect her to be able to pick up small objects between finger and thumb.

A-tah.