The Toddler is trying to exterminate me, again.  I have never had a child to go such prolonged bouts of teething.  It feels like we've took one step forward and then three steps back with bedtime taking a small forever and multiple night wakings, feeding all night.  Exhausted would be an understatement.  If he really has his heart set on making me cry he really ought to just poke me in the eye and be done with it, much less time consuming.

The days and consequently weeks appear to be on fast forward,  I feel like time is mere sand slipping through my open fingers.  It seems like only yesterday when it was September and now half way through November that frightful panic is bubbling below the surface as I trip over thoughts of Christmas Shopping, again.  I had finally got some sort of an incomplete list of 'to-buy' for The Spawn ready only to find that typically two of the main gifts are inevitably out of stock, which is bloody awkward.  The Husband keeps bemoaning that he doesn't want any gifts (although he's not shy of posting links on my facebook of things he rather likes) I have ordered three things for him and bought another.  We had a somewhat disastrous trip to the dreaded Primark yesterday avec Le Petite Filous (No not a yogurt you weirdos, it means Little Rascal aka The Toddler)  Bare in mind that Primark is a mecca of misery at the best of times for anti-social people-loathing people such as myself and The Husband but needs must and all that jazz.  The Toddler has realised that if he declares he needs a wee, he get's an exit pass from the sling/buggy.  However, the cheeky little bugger then refused to have an actual wee and proceeded to quite literally run The Husband (to whome patience is not a virtue) ragged, uncharacteristically refusing to hold his hand and making a rather impressive bid for freedom.  Cue my browsing cut short (just when I was contemplating a Borat Mankini and fold away portable pint glass for The Husband, shame) as I joined the queue of doom to the cacophonous of The Toddler wailing his wee heart out, twang...snap...there goes some more of my heart strings.  Gulp.

So laden with the rather impractical paper bag of Primarni goodness whilst praying to the gods it doesn't rain and thus melt the bag, although it will probably rip long before then anyway, we made a short sharp exit.  I eventually calmed The Toddler down and back in the sling on my back he went.  To say nerves were frazzled would be somewhat of an understatement to say the least.  The Husband was most furious, his bad mood hovering above us like a little black raincloud because obviously it was all my fault  (sorry Husband, sorry god) as is everything (world poverty, nach.  Disease and famine? yup.  Death? sorry, that was me too) so homeward bound we went.  I was hoping to walk home just as we'd walked there (approximately 2.5 miles each way) yet with each furthering step my wibbly ankles protested more and more until I had to admit defeat and stop at the bus stop.  Typically the 'frequent' buses become infrequent the instant we decide to wait for one (I must have lied when I was seventeen. Or something)  Still at least catching the bus avoided passing the park again which we let the toddler run rampant round en route to town that morning.  I perched upon the edge of a seat next to an old woman to many coo's and ahh's at the angelic little dude on my back which only intensified when the little bugger fell asleep.

Finally home with a sleeping toddler who I had to resettle in bed (I rather needed my own nap to recover from the abysmal day) I have socks, I have layering tops, I even have a nifty drumstick flavoured chap stick (I kissed a girl and i liked it...) yet apart from a pair of Superman Socks for The Husband, my Christmas shopping list is still alarmingly long (and disastrously incomplete).  Bother.

We tend to get mere token gifts for The Adults in the family and concentrate on The Children.  Scratchcards have already been done so i'm torn between Monopoly money inside a card or perhaps the slightly quirkier idea of poker chips like these maybe? yet in typical MamaUndone fashion I go off on a tangent and get all dreadfully distracted upon seeing this, which I know Thing One would be positively mesmorised by.  See? It's impossible to do any kind of Christmas Shopping without finding yet another thing one of The Spawn would like.

I'm now going to whale about in the bath for a while, whaling being the important word here seeing as i've piled on even more weight and my jeans are now uncomfortably tight, so to commiserate the fact I of course have had to self medicate with chocolate for breakfast (again)  The Idea was to be a size smaller by Christmas, not a size bigger.  Arse.  Big arse even, literally.

I need to fortify myself for yet another attempt at Christmas Shopping next week.

...Whilst sulking because I really really really want to see the new Twilight film.  Shut up.  I know.

A Rookie error....

...never relax when your toddler is quiet.  It is never ever a good thing. Do not be fooled that they're just chilling, they won't be.

Adam Ant

Also known as The Adamant Toddler.

The Husband: 'Can you close the door please?'
The Toddler: 'Yeah'
The Husband: 'Can you close the door please?'
The Toddler: [Ignores him and watches TV]
The Husband: 'Please Can you close the door?'
The Toddler: [Ignores him and watches TV]
Me: 'You could always try asking the question to which you actually mean to ask as I'm quite sure he can close the door, yet I think you want to know if he will'
The Husband: [clearly humouring me thinking it will make no difference] 'please will you close the door?'
The Toddler: [closes the door]

Who knew a toddler could be so pedantic.

Adventures in hair dying

Having abandoned Operation Blonde and admitted total and utter defeat I embarked on back to red.  That feels much better now.  Granted The Husband jests that due to the neon nature of my hair colour and the paleness of my skin (The Cullens have nothing on me) I look like match, oh he's such a comedian. 

The eBay purchases have proved somewhat hit and miss, generally the misses being the boobs of doom rudely refusing to fit into things that my hips and waist would.  Then there was the rather darling little dress that fits fabulously yet utterly stank of body odour.  Delightful.

Despite being a dedicated babywearer after he turned 18 months we occasionally use the pram mainly if we have a lot of shopping, if Thing One or Thing Two want to push him, if I'm simply too knackered or in pain (mainly due to the somewhat awkward positions I end up in as a result of The Toddler feeding through the night like a newborn which absolutely jiggers my shoulder) and of course in the rare episodes of excessive temperature outside.  It's a misconception that babywearers only babywear, granted some may but buggies and slings aren't mutually exclusive and you can combine the two.  We have a Hauck Infinity which we bought for Thing Two (amongst other buggies) and it was lovely for The Toddler rearward facing, however, now he's 26 month he's decided he'd rather face forwards and is quite frankly sick of the site of us so to save him creaking his neck irrevocably we have turned him forward facing.  The pushchair is somewhat cumbersome though and I fancy something a little more sprightly for when I choose to have a buggy today so tomorrow we'll be having a Cosatto Yo! delivered. 

The Toddler is being a little sod and can open the gates so The Husband has come up with the rather unique idea of moving one of the sofa's to block the kitchen door, which we then have to move every single time we need to go into the kitchen.  It's ridiculously exasperating. 

He's also still teething which thus means he's still not letting me sleep for more then a few broken hours at a time.

Falling on my head like a memory

The rain has returned with a vengeance and the grey has consumed the light.  There's a wanton heaviness to the air, it's ripe and swollen as if something is coming, only I have no idea what.

The Husband did a rather classy overture of vomiting at the school this morning due to a sodding migraine.  Apparently Thing One was most concerned yet as usual Thing Two really couldn't have given a toss.  I'm a walking zombie as The Toddler is teething, yes again.  The night before last he woke twelve times, yes twelve.  For the first time in my nursing history (Thing Two was nursed until 33 months and The Toddler is 26 months and still feeding like a newborn) I appear to have a blocked duct or something.  Ouch.  Like I really needed that.

As I predicted The Toddler is vocally following in the footsteps of Thing One insofar as being virtually wordless until he turned two and ever since his birthday new words are occurring each and every day and he indeed never shuts up.  Thing Two is most disgruntled that he has still yet to even attempt her name yet he's started calling her friend by name.  Oops.  Bad brother.

The adventures of becoming blonde have been aborted.  After another frying episode with uber lightener and incessant usage of violet toner my hair is still the attractive colour of piss with orange bits.  I even made myself use a protein treatment of raw egg yolks which yes, was as disgusting as it sounds, especially as i had no gloves and thus had to apply it with my bare hands. So in typical MamaUndone fashion I've ordered bright red, again though I'm awfully disappointed that it still hasn't arrived despite me pouncing the postman this morning.

Despite The Toddler being out third, he has introduced us for the first time to the phenomenon that is The Terrible Two's.  Quite frankly he's a little bugger. He has mastered the opening of gates, climbs everywhere and on everything and launches himself  from heights, has epic sulks and dramatic tantrums, gives death ray looks that would make Damian himself wither.  He is adamant, independant, stubborn and possessive.  His favourate phrases as of late are 'I'm NOT' (complete with a stomping of the foot) and 'No.'  This Morning he opened the gate and let himself into the kitchen, turned the washing machine on with all the buttons selected and then turned the microwave on before turning his attention to the stereo.  He is obsessed with closing doors and loves to let the dog out then shout at him until the poor dog comes in.  He can unlock doors.  He is the most adorable pest I've ever met (& the greatest contraception) 

His latest favourite thing is to sneak his beaker into the lounge and fill a variety of pots and pans from his play kitchen and drink the water out of those, strange child.

Sun hating like a vampire.

Oh dear.  The sun is still here.  Why?

The Toddler has decreed that ice lollies are are yummy, note we hold them as he still has a penchant for throwing food.  Whilst giving him something the other day The Husband asked 'What do we say?' expecting a 'Ta' yet what did The Toddler actually say? 'mmm Nommy!' That's my boy.

Thing One and Thing Two are adoring this vile weather as it means they are able to play in the garden, not that there is much for them to actually play in there, it's all old toddler toys apart from the swings.

The Husband thinks he's a comedian.  He was supposed to go to a gig last night so Thing One and Thing Two spent the night at The Grandparents to a) make it easier for me and b) lower The Husbands teeny weeny guilt about not coming home.  However due to financial reasons he ended up staying at home with a small bottle of cheap vodka.  Having made us Calzones for lunch I lovingly made him a pizza too to satiate his night time munchies.  Then this morning I kept The Toddler upstairs for two hours after he woke up so The Husband could have a lie in (Thing One usually wakes him up disgustingly early) and what does he say when I come down?  He asks to go to bed for a lie down!?  What's even more hilarious is that he didn't actually think he was taking the piss.  needless to say I put him right and I went to bed instead (only to be woken by The Grandparents returning Thing One and Thing Two less then an hour later)

Thankfully The Grandparents had bought Thing One and Thing Two some clothes and sandals.  Thing Two's summer clothes from last year still fit however Thing Two's don't so the poor lad has no shorts nor t-shirts.  I'm not that mean, I have ordered some they're just not here yet.

Due to the excruciating heat, the blazing sun, the lack of shade and The Toddlers refusal to wear a hat he has been indoors mostly and when we ventured out we took the buggy as I didn't particularly want a sweaty back and a baby with sunstroke because of no hat.  We were out for less then an hour, he had the hood up with a small UV visor and home wards bound a parasol yet he refused to eat his tea and vomited up the 10% of it that he did eat.  Oh arse.  He's  fine in himself thankfully.

Whilst chatting to The Mother on the phone I turned to find The Toddler in the buff next to me except for his socks and Thing One's sun hat, he'd stripped all his kit off. Why are my children obsessed with being naked?  He's now making small dribbles on the carpet and scrubbing them up himself with kitchen roll.  Oddling.

I was showing Thing Two pictures from a holiday in Spain in 2008 she turns to me and says 'When are we going to pain again, I've got sandals!'  If only i was so simple my darling.

I suppose I really should tidy up and get the bath running  now the sun has finally buggered off.

Play & Dough.

So due to the despicable weather The Husband finally decided to tackle the jungle of a back garden with the lawnmower, our pensioner of a dog is now rather grateful that he can walk across the garden instead of having to leap and bound over the length of the grass.

Thing Two was absolutely ecstatic that she could go out in the garden again (it's either like a bog out there or a sun trap, neither ideal) and spent literally all her time after school bar coming in for tea out there playing and then we had tears and sulks at bath time because over three hours simply wasn't long enough to play outside and be satisfied.

Even The Dog was in a playful mindset and had a quick game of fetch and pull the rope.

The garden still isn't quite safe completely for The Toddler and due to the disgusting heat, far too hot for him so I got out the play dough I made the other week and he adored it.  Unfortunately he didn't quite agree with the concept of sharing and thus shrieked like a girl every time Thing Two tried to use any of the cookie cutter and the sight of him armed with my rolling pin was actually quite alarming, so we thought it best not to irk him too much, just in case he got violent.

However Thing Two did manage to stay in long enough to have a brief play with the play dough and surprised me by doing this for me.  She really is a little darling, sometimes.   The Toddler came up with some game that required his utmost concentration and kept him occupied for such a long time, he basically had me make small balls and splotches of play dough to which he gathered and planted on his large blob of play dough, The Husband took over when Thing Two bleated about needing me out with her to play football and the like in the garden.

Maybe i'm a masochist....

You'd think I'd have learnt from the last time I attempted to entertain two of The Party of Five, well, evidently not.

Despite him happily entertaining himself pottering around, scaring me shitless by walking on window sills (just for the record, they're not terribly high and  what you can't see is the large tubs he uses as steps and as with most things the more we try and stop him, the more he will rebel at least if we just watch carefully he's calm, undistracted and quite mindful of himself.  Hopefully he'll get bored soon) irregardless of how often I implored him not to I got the Mummy Guilts as I'd, as usual, spent a rather large portion of the day on line (damn this rain!) Thing One was at The Grandparents and The Husband was out and Thing Two was pleading to do something rather complicated and strange with glue.  Having reminded her that no, he would not be using glue in her bedroom under any circumstances but i would however allow it in the kitchen which is all very well until I opened the craft cupboard of doom, narrowly avoided a) breaking my foot and b) concussion when things inevitably leaped out at me when I opened the door only to find the single lonely glue stick had dried up and I then had to proceed to throttle the bottle of the gloopy glue every which way but loose tying to extract some, hell, any glue before Thing Two withered away from disappointment.

I unearthed The Toddlers much treasured rainbow rice being careful not to make the mistake this time of a) expecting him to share and b) letting him loose.  Crash.  That didn't sound good, that didn't sound good at all.  The little sod has thrown, yes thrown, the entire tin of rainbow rice to the floor.  Wanting to give him the benefit of the doubt I conceded that it was quite possible that it could have been an accident so I thoughtfully swept it all up, plastered a strained smile on my face and chirruped 'here you go darling' and stupidly gave it back to him.  In a devastating performance of sheer gittishness the toddlerous cretin did it again.  This time I wasn't quite so charitable in my response and swept it up with much grumbling and muttered profanities and put the lid firmly on it much to the protests of The Toddler aka screaming tantrums and that brain scraping fog horn sound he does that consists of 'Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine' .  Tough titty buster.

He extended his spaghetti arms in a not so covert operation to steal his sisters paper so I got him some of his own and some crayons as he smiled sweetly and commenced the creation process of a masterpiece.  I let out that breath that I hadn't realised I'd been holding.  See?  he's not broken after all he can be nondestructive.  i bit down gently on a benign smile enjoying the three seconds of him and his sister being happily engrossed in their art.  Then he bloody went and threw the crayons all over the floor laughing manically, thoroughly chuffed with himself.  I think you can safely say I was far less chuffed. 

It was at this point that The Toddler decided he was going to spend the remainder of the day communicating with me only by screams.  Trust me, brain piercings are awful.

I then had a light bulb moment and wondered if perhaps he was hungry, yes that must be it because surely my darling charming little chap couldn't possibly be this vile, right?

I offered blueberries he agreed only to scream at me once I got them out.  So I lovingly cut him up an apple, he screamed and lobbed the whole flipping lot across the kitchen.  Right.  Not hungry then.  Just naturally vile.

I was dancing that fine line between exploding like an illegal firework and curling up and wibbling whilst speaking incoherencies in tongues.  

So, into the lounge I plonked him whilst I attempted to clear up some of Hurricane Toddler so that The Toddler actually had some lounge in which to play.  I know we have carpet somewhere beneath the debris.  He is intent on emptying out every single draw of toys, every tub, every container.  So as fast as I'm wading through and scooping it all up he's following me and emptying them all out again although emptying is rather a tame description of what he was doing, think more along the lines of hurling stuff.  He finished by lobbing the television remote, at my thumb.  ouch.  The final straw was when I'd finally satisfied my obsession with finding all the the tea set pieces, neatly placed them in their case only for The Toddler to pick it up, fix his stare on me with a grin on his lips, opened the case and twirled sending pieces flying in all directions. That. Is. It.

I sunk into the sofa gibbering in my head, counting to ten and breathing deeply and within seconds he's on me with the nursing manners of a sociopath wolverine, grabbing, screeching, pulling ferociously then attempting to tune in radio Luxembourg with my other nipple.

I'm trying to think of green pastures and iccle fluffy bunny wabbits, failing that intravenous sedatives

He wanders off only to return with a piece of apple off the floor that I'd missed yet before I could wrestle the offending item away from him he'd thrown that too, across the room.  Usually The Toddler is a delightful little fellow which only serves to make it all the harder when occasionally he isn't.

As soon as The Husband returned I left the beastly little fellow with him and hid in the kitchen with Thing Two.   What do you do in times of nervous breakdown when you have no cigarettes, alcohol or Valium? Bake. Obviously.

Double chocolate cookies make everything better. Almost.

Danger Boy

Smell my feet Dad.

The Husband can be a clever and resourceful git sometimes.  In a moment of sheer genius he managed to wedge an inhaler spacer (don't worry it's a spare) behind the window handle thus meaning he is now unable, much to his protestations, to open the bedroom window.  It was one thing sitting on the window sill staring out the closed window at the world passing by but quite another when he does it with the window open and then insisted on pushing the boundaries of danger further still (and with it the brittle boundaries of my tolerance) by standing on the window sill with the window open and occasionally attempting to sit in the small gap of the open window.  Of course i tried to discuss this with the wee chap and relayed the dangers and exactly why I really didn't think it was a wise thing to be doing yet he simply insisted on doing it again and again and again.  Seeing as neither asking nor offering compromise worked I resorted to ceasing to ask and implore and commenced ordering him to stop which then progressed into me physically removing him to which he retaliated with a full force tantrum. Oh how my head hurts.


Not to be too foiled, he has accepted the opening of the window is now beyond his capabilities and has now settled on just climbing, standing and walking along window sills (did you hear that sound?  That is the sound of my nerves fraying) before quite literally launching himself off the bloody thing onto the bed.  Unfortunately there is no bed downstairs and this exhausting activity has made him a tad clumsy, I'm exhausted just watching him.  We've never had such a climber before.  He literally climbs anything and everything.

Is it bedtime yet? .... please?