What's a 'convenient?'

Saw this on a (sadly closed) shop in Long Eaton the other day. Has given me the chance to finally use the cable which downloads photos from my phone to my computer (and hence apologies for the poor quality of the piccie!), and to reflect on these modern times in which it appears than noone is is need of a 'convenient' any longer....

Confession

I have a confession to make. I have done something which is wrong and dirty and my entire being resisted it. But I was weak and gave into peer pressure. I have bought a pair of Itsarap trousers from the Ideal World shopping channel. I am shamed.

Let me explain. I am finding that my pregnancy bump is coming along a lot quicker second time around and the maternity clothes have now made an appearance. However last time I was pregnant, I didn't really start getting a bump until October and then gave birth in March. It's June and I need bigger waisted trousers, but apart from one pair of combats, my trouser wear is jeans. (I do have two pairs of sweat pants, but they are for inside days only!).

The weather is too hot for jeans. Especially if you are doing a lot of walking around pushing a buggy. Sweaty gusset is all I'm saying. So I have been on the lookout for some maternity shorts. These do not appear to exist. I have been to Asda and Tesco, neither of which stock any maternity clothes, New Look, Dorothy Perkins and Next, none of which seem to have any shorts. Apparently pregnant women wish to wear denim mini skirts and black leggings with lovely gold zips in the summer, but not shorts.

So I've tried the internet, and my usual shopping places have also been disappointing. I'm looking for light material (ie NOT denim) in a crop trouser sort of length, but am finding very few pairs of these - everything is above the knee (my knees are not pleasant) or made of denim. Bah.

That's the background. Yesterday I found myself strangely drawn to the Itsarap trousers on Ideal World which we saw a bit of at tea time. They looked loose, flowing, easy to manage and apparently fit every size from 6/8 right up to the 20's. The thing which got me though was that they showed a clip of a pregnant woman wearing them proclaiming how light, and comfy and cool they are.

I resisted, I really did. The idea of buying from a shopping channel just seemed wrong somehow - I didn't want to just become one of their statistics! They're called Itsarap. The demonstrators were nearly all middle-aged women. Most of the patterns were hideous. But L persuaded away and I finally cracked today and bought a pair online. I will post a photo.

Forgive me.

This week

Has been generally good but with little pockets of nightmare thrown in to keep us on our toes! Monday saw Zachary refusing to go in the trolley seat at Asda...cue lots of crying and starting to scream. Nearly gave up and went home, but it was the main weekly shop so we had a drink in the cafe and when he had calmed down, tried again and thankfully managed to get round without further incident. Sadly this day also saw another failure of my pledge to not be a mum who opens food she's buying before reaching the checkout in order to give it to her child. Yes...well...that kind of thinking's all very well until you have a screaming toddler in the trolley and are starting to get stares from other shoppers. You will do anything to keep them quiet!!!

Had a weird swimming session again on Tuesday - up till the last couple of weeks, Z has been fine at swimming, no fussing, no crying (not much effort on the kicking either!!!) and generally very happy. Last week he cried through the first half and this week he refused to do anything involving being on his back. I think part of the problem was him spotting the toys as soon as we got in (they usually only come out towards the end of the lesson) and throwing a mard because I wouldn't let him have any. Ho hum.

Wednesday saw 3 bouts of vomiting before 9am. Lovely start to the day. He seemed absolutely fine after that for the rest of the day - no temperature or anything so we reckon it must have been something he ingested rather than a virus. Once it cleared his system he was fine. Oh yes apart from the screaming tantrum just before dinner.

Thursday Z wouldn't eat dinner. But still slept through the night so perhaps he just wasn't hungry.

Today has been lovely (apart from the 5.30am wake-up call) and tomorrow we're off to East Anglia to see my family so am looking forward to that. Hopefully a new week will see us right!

Interesting week

Okay so this week I've had a day which started well and ended up poo, a good day, and a day which started poo and ended up good.

Tuesday started well - had a good morning in town with Zachary who finally seems to be on the mend after 2 weeks of tummy upset and cold. Put him to bed for a snooze but...and here I think I made my fatal mistake...had to wake him up before he was ready so that we could have lunch in time for swimming. Lunch time was a complete disaster - we tried Zachary on sandwiches which he totally rejected and started throwing them around. We thought we'd be strong and not resort to cereal or toast (our fall-backs during illness) so we went swimming with basically no lunch. He cried through the first half of the lesson, then managed to cheer up a bit towards the end. Dinnertime was also a nightmare and he went to bed bawling. Oh dear.

Wednesday was much better though - went into town and got another puncture in my buggy wheel. Leigh'd already tried to fix it twice but I think the inner tube had just given up. Fortunately a kind man at the cycle shop changed the tyre for me and I was ready to go again. Then went to drop off an old game at the charity shop and managed to pick up a copy of Cluedo Super Challenge for 2 quid. Can't go wrong! Rest of the day was great and we went to see the live War of the Worlds in Nottingham in the evening - fantastic! (although Richard Burton's head was slightly disturbing!)

This morning started crap - Zachary was up at 10 to 6 (which sadly seems to be getting a bit of a habit since his last bug), which wasn't too bad until I realised that I'd lost Leigh's wallet last night. I'd been given it in the car to deal with the car park ticket and then it must have dropped off my lap into the road when I got out of the car at home. It wasn't in the car or on the road. Big shit.

Fortunately and quite amazingly our opposite neighbour turned up at about half eight with the wallet! Bizarrely, he'd found it under a tree in his garden - we think a fox must have picked it up (hence the teeth marks) and dropped it on its travels. Thank goodness for honest Long Eatoners. A bottle of homemade elderflower cordial will be making its way over there tomorrow.

The rest of the day has been great too - met a new friend for lunch who also has a 15 month old son, is due to have her second baby on 13th November (I'm due on the 16th) and moved to Long Eaton 6 months ago too. It turns out she runs toddler music classes which is fab because I've been looking for some. Hooray for new friends!

Babylon

The hanging baskets are coming along a treat. They've gone from this







to this...







Hurrah!

The Caple Capsule

We had a gas fire in our middle room taken out a few months ago in preparation for a piano to sit against that wall eventually, which left us with a lovely hole into the chimney breast. Until last week this was covered by an old piano (which unfortunately has now been consigned to the realms of "too expensive to be fixed, and even if we did wouldn't hold its tuning because it's just too old") and until today was graced with some stuck on cardboard



to prevent a certain little adventurer trying to see what's in the wall.

(and if you think he wouldn't try, here he is in the new BBQ



and in the wardrobe at Center Parcs...


)

A friend of ours has kindly agreed to both brick up the hole and then plaster over the top of it, and suggested (I suspect in jest!) that we put a time capsule in the hole before it's sealed forever. We both took to this idea and put together a little box of goodies. I think we got slightly carried away imagining that the box will lay dormant for hundreds of years (L considered explaining that we're wearing hats in the photos because it was a hot day, not because there's been some kind of ecological breakdown and they're needed all the time...) although more likely is that someone will want to expand a road through the town in a few years' time and the house will come down then!

Anyway, in the spirit of a time capsule, here's a piccie of the stuff we put in it :



So, we have (in no particular order)

- photos of the clan Caple
- postcards of some Royal Mail special issue stamps - a Harry Potter one and a Bejing to London handover for the Olympics one
- a Marple DVD
- a palm cross
- some currency
- front pages of a national (The Times) and local (Nottingham something...!) paper
- first and second class used stamps
- some dice
- example of origami
- example of cross stitch (our respective hobbies)
- a Eurovision heart from our party a couple of weeks ago
- favourite recipes - Christmas cake and elderflower cordial
- a Coca Cola can
- one of my old passports
- a flyer for the next Nottingham Symphony Orchestra concert

I think that's everything! And here is the box safely esconced in the wall, which has now been bricked up. There's no turning back!!!!!

The most helpful baby in the world??

Zachary has developed somewhat of a penchant for putting things into other things...okay, not very descriptive I know! Generally he likes putting stuff into bins (my toiletries mainly), the toilet (his bedtime toy...new t-shirt...), the bath (toilet roll...baby wipes...clothes)...you get the idea.

Here's a few notable highlights from the last week or so...

We had some friends over for a BBQ last weekend in the glorious weather and had a bit of a sit down inside in the afternoon as it was so hot. Zachary was pottering in the kitchen when it all went quiet. Upon further investigation I discovered he had been helpfully putting things into the kitchen bin for me - 1 pair of guest's shoes, L's crocs, my crocs, Z's own shoes, the dustpan and brush and in a fit of optimism, the large kitchen broom. I haven't laughed so hard for a long time!

On a similar vein I was washing up the other night, Z happily playing in the kitchen drawers when I suddenly spotted him dumping every coaster we own into the bin! He could get them in faster than I could get them out. Needless to say, the bin has now been turned to the wall, to hopefully prevent similar events in the future.

Finally, we spent a night at my sister's this weekend before going on for a few days at Center Parcs. Z usually has a good time exploring in new places. I spent most of the time at Center Parcs convinced I had put 2 packets of Kettle Chips into the packing, but only being able to find 1. I finally thought I'd just imagined the whole thing, when I received the following text from my sister on her arrival home after the break

"Just found a bag of Kettle Chips in the washing machine!"