If there were three things my mother would shake her head sadly over and tell complete strangers she is disappointed about in me they are as follows:
1. My weight
2. My laziness around the home – despite it not actually being true my parents still have me painted as a 15 year old teenager who slobs around the house all day. Quite how they think our house isn’t knee deep in crap with starving children and general day to day running of a home ground to a halt when they both consider ‘Nicola does NOTHING’ is beyond me (well actually it isn’t, they think Ady does it all!) but I do have to concede that my house does fall fair short of their standards of a place for everything and everything in it’s place showhome standards. Truth be told I would rather sit on my (fat) arse and read books all day while eating bon-bons and ordering internet shopping but actually I seem to be pretty worn out by the end of every day which suggests to me that I am not being nearly as lazy as I would like to be.
3. My crapness with money. Well I guess even I can’t deny or defend that one, but having lived very successfully within a very limited budget for 18 months now maybe we could let that one slide?
So if ever there wasn’t a good day to arrive (late!) to Davies’ swimming lessons, rushing him to the poolside to watch his lesson before stripping off into a frankly ancient and unflattering (we got up very late this morning and it was the first one to hand, really it was lucky I remembered to bring towels and children and a swimsuit!) swimsuit, stretched elastic in all the stress points of my most overweightiness (I’m pretty sure I wore it whilst pregnant too so it’s really quite misshapen) having left the kitchen strewn with all of last nights curry remains, it was today. I looked up from taking Davies to the pool to see my Mum, sitting immaculately turned out in her Casual Sunday wear (honestly, the woman is like bloody Barbie with entire outfits on coathangers in her wardrobe with matching shoes, handbags and jewelry for every occasion, she’d have plucked out ‘Sunday morning watching grandson’s swimming lessons’ this morning with jeans, T shirt, matching cardigan and pink trainers and a cute little rucksack style bag) in the spectator area. She did manage to refrain from waving and calling to Davies and distracting him from his lesson, which as there was only him and the triplets there today was quite a good one for him.
Ady and Scarlett got straight into the water and were having a great time bobbing and splashing about while Mum and I watched the lesson. Then I went and got changed and we all had a swim. We were probably in there about an hour, Ady and Davies went down the big slide a couple of times, I remembered why I’d stopped wearing the old swimsuit and bought a newer one last year – the top completely flops down when I try and do anything remotely active in it – great for easy access breastfeeding, crap for swimming in a public pool and totally unsuitable for going down a slide with a child on my lap with an audience at the bottom! ๐ I did four lengths of the pool – which is lame I know but wore me out! I did some swimming about with Scarlett on my back, plenty of stuff with Davies trying to reinforce what he’s been learning and then the lesson after Davies’ ended so the little pool was opened and we spent ages in there playing with floats and the mini slide which Scarlett particularly adored. And all the while with my Mum watching wearing her special ‘blimey she’s five times the size of me’ look :roll:.
We finally came out when we all looked like prunes – the others had all been in for half an hour longer than me and met Mum upstairs at the entrance. She bought the kids sweets each from the vending machines and then they begged her to come back to our house to see the chicks, which she did, raising a slighy eyebrow at the washing up strewn kitchen before we tidied it up. Ah well, it was very nice of her to come and watch Davies and nice to see her generally, even if it did give her fodder for that sad head shaking for weeks to come. ๐
Ady got a roast dinner on and we braved the continuous rain (it’s not stopped all day) to go out to a local animal food and supplies centre to get some stuff for the chicks. They were about to run out of food and I’d read in several places that you should start introducing a bit of grit to their chick crumb diet and we needed a proper feeder and waterer as none of our home made efforts have worked, neither had the canary waterer I’d got from the pet shop yesterday. We also got some coloured bands for their legs so we can finally know which chick is which. No idea which of the yellow ones was which initially although one is about a day ahead of the others in feather growth so we’ve kept that one as Freddie which was the first to be born, clearly the black two didn’t need them but we thought they’d feel left out if they weren’t colour coded ;). There was a tent show on the green over the weekend which was looking very damp and quiet but we stopped and had a quick look round there. Being in a tent while slightly cold and wet with the wind flapping and the rain pouring took me right back to Newgale and The Great Flood but still hasn’t ruined my anticipation of camping this summer :).
Home for a lovely roast dinner, some hama beading which the kids asked to do but got bored and wandered off leaving me to finish – I made an elephant for Davies to look like Elmer and Scarlett’s name – both of which were ironed and stuck to their doors while they had a bath. They have a collection of shells from the beach in the bathroom which often get put into the bath when they play various games and a razor shell had broken and cut Scarlett’s knee quite nasily, which brought about an abrupt end to the bath while she was given first aid. She was very blase about it though, claiming it was nothing compared to the time she had stitches ๐ Clearly she was right to be calm about it as ten minutes later she was dancing round the room to Mika with Davies trying to make up a dance routine for Kessingland cabaret. Very much in the style of that dance to Natalie Imbruglia’s Torn that’s done the rounds on youtube with very literal moves for every line, but very cute to watch. I’d have videoed it but they were still naked from the bath so it wouldn’t have been something I’d have put out for public viewing anyway ๐
I’m watching Lost and struggling with the rollercoaster of ‘they’re dead! They’re not dead! Someone else is dead! No they’re still alive too! This time they really are dead! Or are they?’ type stuff that’s going on with it. Oh and googling for waterproofs for D&S having realised how crappy it is to have wet clothes whilst camping :).
You’re not going to just make them wear wetsuits the whole time? Much easier ๐
Bleurgh to your mother. We should take your parents and C’s dad and Sue away on holiday and see who has the most changes of outfits for each occasion – I’m sure we could entertain ourselves very well thinking up ever more bizarre situations just to see what combination of clothes they’d deem appropriate for them ๐
Lost was crazy, wasn’t it? Good finale ๐
Comment by Alison — 27 May 2007 @ 10:45 pm
I knew you’d understand about the outfits ๐
Dunno what I was thinking worrying about clothing, of course they can wear their wetsuits all week, I was only telling Lucy last week about the whole day I spent prancing around in mine at Newgale :lol:.
Lost was very good, I’ve just been reading that they’ve announced the show will end in 2010 but nothing new til next year, which is almost a relief – I can invest my energy into PB now ๐
Comment by Nic — 27 May 2007 @ 10:50 pm
#4 Her over-use of the word adored.
Comment by Chris — 28 May 2007 @ 8:07 am
Nah, that wouldn’t bother them, my honesty would come much higher up their list ๐
Comment by Nic — 28 May 2007 @ 9:27 am
We were sat in a restaurant on Friday when A suggested we do a runner. I suggested that if we did you would be very proud of us.
Comment by Chris — 28 May 2007 @ 10:17 am
I’d have been horrified, I admire your ethics and high moral standing! My parents OTOH would finally feel I was mixing with the sort of friends they always wanted for me ๐
Comment by Nic — 28 May 2007 @ 10:30 am
We’ve walked out of restaurants when the food and service have been terrible. Obviously pre children as getting 5 people out quickly and quietly is not easy ๐
Comment by Roslyn — 28 May 2007 @ 3:02 pm
Gawd! That outfit thing is v scary. I used to have a colleague who once complained to me that she’d been wearing the same coat for three months (owing to inclement weather) and I told her I’d had my coat for 12 years. ‘Twas only then that I realised you could really tell!
Comment by Allie — 28 May 2007 @ 4:48 pm
Allie, C’s stepmum puts on an apron to make drinks. We have been on holiday with them, and they’ve worn one outfit for breakfast, and then put on another by the time we went out mid-morning.
Comment by Alison — 28 May 2007 @ 5:23 pm
Just spent the afternoon at my parents – my Mum was wearing her ‘slobbing around the house on a bank holiday lounge wear’ outift. We walked up the road to the pet shop and she had to go and get changed! ๐
Comment by Nic — 28 May 2007 @ 5:41 pm
Your Mum always did remind me a bit of Barbie, I just never liked to mention it.
The swimming sounds fun though. You’re ever so brave going down that big slide.
Comment by Lucy — 28 May 2007 @ 5:49 pm
An apron to make drinks?? D and I only own one apron between us, which we wear when holding the guinea pig, so we don’t get pee on our clothes.
Comment by Allie — 28 May 2007 @ 6:17 pm
Hey Nic I’m getting v. drunk (always feel need to share that with you) .. how are you ๐
Comment by layla — 28 May 2007 @ 6:37 pm
My mum wears an apron in her caravan! She has three aprons on her list of camp site essentials. I was going out for a meal with a friend a couple of Saturdays ago. I *had* planned on wearing what I had on in the afternoon when we went shopping – which I have to say I thought I looked hot in. Till she asked me when I was getting changed.
Comment by Joyce — 28 May 2007 @ 6:45 pm
Oh, and what is that thing with GP wee? It never occured to me they would pee ever time I picked them up – dogs never do that! And the size of their bladders must be bloody enormous!
Comment by Joyce — 28 May 2007 @ 6:47 pm
ROFL Joyce! did no one tell you about the GP wee thing then? They just don’t stop!
Comment by t-bird — 28 May 2007 @ 7:04 pm
I tend to change my outfit only when I wee on it.
Comment by Chris — 28 May 2007 @ 7:04 pm
Layla – still on first glass, but aiming to catch you up now I have a challenge ๐
Allie and Joyce, you need pet chicks instead – they crap on you but they don’t urinate ๐
Comment by Nic — 28 May 2007 @ 8:10 pm
just sent him out for bottle numbrt 2 wil trgret it tomorrow ๐
Comment by layla — 28 May 2007 @ 8:47 pm
we coulf haber msn drinking games ๐
Comment by layla — 28 May 2007 @ 8:48 pm
hmm. on the weight thing, as someone fairly weighty! in the end i told my mother i would never visit again if she made me feel at all miserable about the weight.
i would love to be slim, i am crap at dieting and worse at excercise. i wish i had the body of elle mcpherson, or even a size 16. but…
it worked actually. i get no raised eyes, no comments, and total normalcy rather than skirting an issue as well. row worth having.
Comment by HelenHaricot — 29 May 2007 @ 12:01 am