On Poultry, Politics, au Pairs and Picked Flowers

I'm rather glad it's Sunday as it's been a helluva week so far. Kempton's still in her first season which seems to have been going on forever, and despite multiple websites suggesting that there won't be much mess: there is.

We discovered that Gilby's illness was caused by Campylobacter; I'd never heard of it before, but we will be looking at the storage and preparation of raw poultry in our kitchen from now on. A call from the doctor was quite apologetic since they had fobbed us off twice before taking a sample from him.

Gertie got in to our second-choice school, which in 1066 And All That fashion may actually be a good thing. Daddy's spin is that it was his first choice anyway, so I don't think that we will be going through the appeal procedure. And we have just calculated that I will be on maternity leave just after she begins in September, which, though unplanned will mean that I won't miss out on those precious school gate moments.

Possibly most dramatic of all is that Brenda left us on Thursday after fifteen months. She was our au pair/nanny from Australia. We are trying to adjust. She is in Las Vegas, at a Celine Dion concert in Caesar's Palace as I write this!

And Gertie presented me with a broken Gerbera plant for Mothering Sunday. Orange is my favourite colour, and it was clever of Daddy because we had these flowers at our wedding. I'm quite impressed that he knew and remembered that. It could be a lucky fluke, but he is claiming prior planning. Anyway, there were three flowers on the plant, but Gertie appears to have 'picked' one for me already, so that leaves two and a broken stem. Gilby made me a card at nursery which he carefully destroyed in the car on the way home on Friday.

Happy Mother's Day!

The Leaning Tower of Gilby

Yesterday, Gertie learned how to write her name. Now, admittedly, I am probably the only person who is actually able to decipher the letters, given her unique style, but it was an exciting moment nevertheless.

This was overshadowed, however, by Gilby suffering his first nose-bleed. I say 'nose-bleed' as though that were the incident in itself, though it was in fact brought on by a tumble. Well, actually, he...er...toppled forwards out of the bath on account of his disproportionately large head making him top-heavy.

It happened whilst he was leaning out of the bath trying to reach a toy that he had dropped, and being wet with bath-water he was simply too slippery to catch.

So that was it. Blood everywhere. And not a pretty sight in the aftermath when the crusted dry blood around his nostrils was taken in to account alongside the refusing-to-be-treated impetigo and the just-appeared-oh-god-do-we-have-any-drops-left-from-last-time-conjunctivitus.

Poor Gilbert. Not looking at his most handsome. Lucky his sister's so clever.

Blood and Salad

Gertie has these strangely precise ideas about the way that life will work out and what will happen when she is a 'bit bigger'. For example, though she currently fears Kempton, our new golden retriever puppy, she thinks that she will not be frightened of her by the time she is four.

She's quite convinced that she will like salad when she is six, though she will not touch the stuff now.

Yesterday, I went to give blood and as I was collecting Gertie and her brother from nursery she asked me about the plasters on my finger and my arm, so I explained the process to her as carefully as I could. She was intrigued.

"I'll probably give blood when I'm a bit bigger, won't I Mummy?"
"Yes, you might do."
"Maybe when I'm ten?"
"Well you have to be a bit older than that. Perhaps when you're eighteen."
"Oh."

She thought for a minute.
"So they just put a tiny prick in your finger first?"
"Yes, a tiny little prick."
"And it didn't hurt at all? It must have hurt a tiny bit."
"Well maybe a tiny bit, for only a second and then it is all better."
"Yes, but it did hurt a tiny bit for a little while?"
"That's right."

She thought for another minute.
"I don't think I will give blood when I'm eighteen. In fact, no. I probably won't."

So, a practice clearly not in the same league as liking puppies and eating salad.