Lulu's Blog

Sod This Crawling Nonsense, I've Gone Straight For The Walking

2009-03-17T18:44:00.003Z

That's right everyone, as of this morning I am officially a walker and may even never turn out to be much of a crawler at all in the end. Yes, of course its step-step-lurch-stagger-fall headlong into Mummy's arms but it's undeniably walking, baby!

I went to Monkey Business at Tower Park with Mummy, Dan and Clo-Clo this morning and as it was nearly deserted we had the run of the place. And we did run too, Mummy helped me race after Clo-Clo and Ella, as well as fishing me out of the ball pit when the balls started to get a bit high around me. It's a deep ball pit.

But the great moment was when Dan was holding me and Mummy was calling to me from a few feet away. I wanted to have a cuddle so very very much as she is the cuddliest Mummy in the world, and so in the absence of succeeding with all that crawling malarkey there was just no alternative but to take a few stumbly steps.

The feeling as I finally tipped forward into her arms was wonderful. I did it, I really did it!

Next job, figuring out how to climb out of my cot so I can scream right in Daddy's ear at 3 am.

They're Ill, Dave. Everybody's Ill. Everybody's Ill, Dave.

2009-03-06T07:56:00.003Z

Well, Mummy's on holiday. Of course we're all ill. Daddy's been coughing and sneezing on the couch for four nights so he doesn't disturb me or Mummy, who are spending our nights cuddled up on the bed so I can be propped up and remain reasonably coughing-free. Didn't work all that well last night though, I was mostly up from 2 till 5 am. Coughing. A lot.

Being ill officially sucks.

The Big 100

2009-03-03T21:45:00.002Z

Daddy hadn't noticed until tonight, but as I snuggled into him in my nice cosy bedroom as he was getting me off to sleep I pointed out to him that the previous post to this was in fact number 100! Yes, the Lulu Blog, started off as a way of making Mummy smile and to help those long-distance peeps who live in Yorkshire keep up with my comings, goings and doings, has reached a full century.

So here's to my first 100 posts, from the huge to the tiny, the long to the short, the super-cute to the downright weird. Cheers!

Philosophical Conundrums

2009-03-01T14:31:00.002Z

I have been doing some deep musing lately when sat on Daddy's lap. He saw me staring off at nothing yesterday, idly chewing my finger, and wondered what on earth I could be thinking so heavily about. And I explained that it seems to me that I'm at an age where some conundrums of life, the universe and everything need answering.

So...

Why doesn't Mummy ever, ever finish her morning coffee? She takes it outside with her morning cigarette, and brings it back in again undrunk and leaves it nicely within reach so Daddy always has to throw it away before I can get my little hands on it. But why ritually make it every day if you aren't going to drink it?

Why do the silly 'Friends' in the show about the coffee house seem to do the same things over and over again? I've seen them do the same silly things about six times over now, and they never do anything new.

Why can I stand myself up so easily but the moment I let go I fall down?

Why does Daddy like pretending to be Scottish Dwarves so much?

Why doesn't the thing on Daddy's arm wipe clean when he has a shower? I pawed and rubbed at it (and even tried to bite it once) for ages the other day and couldn't make a dent.

How come when Mummy is so good at persuading customers at work to buy shiny new household appliances, Daddy is so good at saying 'No' to her when she tries to persuade him we need them all in our house?

Why does the washing go upstairs but the washing up stays downstairs?

Answers to these deep, soulsearching questions would be appreciated. Anybody?

Of Relatives And Restaurants

2009-02-28T08:37:00.003Z

I was pleased to receive a special Award from Mummy and Daddy last week. It was Best Behaved Baby Girl In A Restaurant Ever (Nine Months Category). I am teh Big Girl!

Yep, Grandad B and Granny She came down all the way from Yorkshire to see me, and finally persuaded Mummy and Daddy to abandon their 'no Lulu in restaurants because it isn't fair on the other customers' policy for teatime. So off we went for teatime at the Somerford, and were ushered to the far end of the restaurant to sit round a big round table for our dinner after a bit of a wait.

The highchair the nice lady bought for me was blue, and very open indeed. Not that I can't find ways to circumvent the straps on my own chair at home if I feel like it, but this one made it really easy! However I tipped my hand a bit too soon for my own good with an attempt at the floor, so Mummy tightened up the straps, really tight. I couldn't even get both my feet up on the food tray or anything.

As grownup food takes a while to cook and it was already my dinnertime, Mummy asked the lady to bring me some bread while we waited. So everyone else watched me eat, and looked all envious as I munched my way steadily through a couple of slices of bready goodness. In fact I've taken to plain bread so much now that I keep stealing Daddy's when he has broth for lunch...

Soon however my food arrived. I had a kiddywiddy portion of fish bites, chips and beans, and it was really yummy. Daddy says food always tastes better when someone else cooks it, Mummy says that's just because his cooking isn't very good...

Mummy had a nice healthy salad as she usually does, Amber and Grandad B had the giant Burger thingies, Granny She had a traditional haddock and chips, and Daddy had the Mixed Grill, a meal he describes as being able to make your arteries go "Kerchuuung" just by looking at it for too long. I didn't catch what all of its ingredients were, but there was definitely meat involved. Lots and lots of meat.

Thing was, I didn't go true to form. In fact Daddy wryly remarked that I ate much more neatly and tidily than I do when he feeds me at home. Everyone, the waitress and even the people at the next table (except for the teenage girl who kept worrying loudly about how she looked and if her hair was nice - she was really annoying) said how well I was behaving. And I was quiet too, no shrieking, no yelling or trying to wrench the tray free from the chair - which yes I have to admit is something I do quite often at home.

Unfortunately there was a very naughty boy a few tables down who was much bigger than I am who made far more noise. He was being really mean to his brother and his Mummy didnt seem to want to do much about it, and when she did tell him off he started fake coughing really, really loudly until she stopped. Daddy quietly made a very cutting remark about how well behaved I was by comparison, can't say I blame him really.

Try not to let the glare from my halo hurt your eyes there.

After you have your grownup meal at a restaurant, you can have your pudding as well. Daddy got some pie, Amber had some ice cream and Grandad B and Granny She shared a huge ice cream and even gave me some - my first ever taste of ice cream. It was so yummy I even forgot that I'm not supposed to let anyone who isn't Mummy, Daddy or Amber hold me for more than two minutes and let Granny She hold me the whole way through pudding time!

Once we were done we said goodnight to Grandad B and Granny She and Mummy drove us home, and then she went back to have more time with them. Poor Mummy does miss them very much, she is always upset when they have to leave again and wishes they could be with us for longer.

In the morning I was supposed to get an early breakfast so I could leave room for a brunch (which is like my Tenses used to be before Daddy started giving me my toast instead of a bottle first and then cut them out of our day, the meanie), but wouldn't you know it, I decided to lie in for ages and eat every last crumb of my toast as well, so when everyone else was sitting down salivating at the thought of a nice brunch I wasn't that hungry, so I settled for a slice of Daddy's bread and one of his Hash Browns.

Brunch was at a place called the Cliffhanger. It sits on top of the cliffs that Highcliffe (where Granny and Grandad Williams live) is named after. You can also see Naish, where the famous Conception takes place, from there as well, and even the bits where the cliffs on that side have all collapsed. If it happened this side as well Granny and Grandad would be living in Crumblecliffe or Fallencliffe instead.

Once upon a time Daddy used to walk the whole way from Highcliffe to Barton-on-Sea along the beach. Now you literally can't do that any more because the cliffs have collapsed and jutted so far out into the sea. It started happening during the winter Granny and Grandad moved down, which just happened to be the stormiest winter for decades - bad timing on their part there...

Naish is smaller now than it was back then. This is because it owns the land the collapsing cliffs are part of, and during the scary stormy winter some of its holiday apartments actually fell down the cliffs! I kid you not, there used to be thirty-foot pipe sections jutting out of the cliff wall a few years back, and to this day there is a roadway that used to lead to those apartments which just...ends. Yes, there is a sign and stuff but its still a bit scary, frankly!

Anyway, once again I was a little angel. I really have got this whole eating out business down to a fine art now, I rock at it! In fact I could put certain much bigger people than I to shame, Daddy says. Even when I had finished and should theoretically have been getting ready for my midday nap by getting all snippy, I was still a little angel as long as I was still getting Daddy snuggles. Besides they have a huge mirror behind the bar which kept me entertained for ages :)

However after brunch it was the sad time again (see above). Mummy was very upset about Granny She and Grandad B having to leave, so she went back to the house while Daddy and Amber walked me up to see Granny and Grandad Williams for a nice visit. After an hour or so Mummy came over there too and we had another first - I graciously let Granny and Grandad babysit me for a whole ten minutes while Mummy and Daddy went to look at carpets round the corner. Yes, Amber was there too and her and Granny were sat down on the rug with me and a whole box full of toys, and yes, I didn't realise that Mummy and Daddy had pulled a fast one and slipped out until they were actually backa agin, but that's not the point. It was technically genuine babysitting time, so there's another milestone crossed...

So that was my last week's midweek, you might say. Good food, great rellies and lots of polishing the old halo. It's not a bad old life really, when you think about it.

Daddy Ballet

2009-02-27T07:45:00.003Z

I've noticed that Daddy seems to have taken up dancing. And no, I don't mean the kind he does at gigs where him and Uncle Pete (especially Uncle Pete!) jump around beating the poop out of everyone else and being generally silly. I mean the proper, genteel kind of dancing, the sort with a bit of culture to it- the Daddy Ballet.

See, what happens is that Daddy has been making a real effort to schedule the washing up to take place between my afternoon kip and lunchtime so there isnt so much to do later on. Sometimes he gets Amber to do it or he does it and she wipes up, or he does it all himself. What this means however is that he is doing this with me in my Speedy 1000 Walker also in the kitchen so he can talk to me and I don't get bored, and so therefore as it's before teatime he is cooking when I'm in there.

That oven thingy looks mighty interesting to me. I don't know why I'm not allowed to investigate it further. Mummy says its a special one which should feel 'mostly' cold from the outside when it's on - Daddy says "Have you ever heard the phrase 'Famous Last Words'?". Don't quite know what he's getting at, but I do know that every time I get the urge to charge headlong into the thing to have a good examine of it, the eyes he says he has on the back of his head swivel round to fix me with their weird stare and his back foot comes out and plants itself squarely in the way of the walker. It's really annoying!

What follows when I get really determined is an oddly elegant little dance. I reverse, and wait for him to turn, then try and edge round again. He does a neat little pirouette and there's that damn foot again, blocking me off. So I grin all innocently, and pull back and pretend to go and investigate something else. Then when he is concentrating on the washing up I go for it again, but he doesn't even look at me before the foot comes out and somehow I'm stymied again. I just can't get where I want to go, all because of Daddy's newfound dancing skills.

Well OK, its not as if there aren't lots of other cool things to investigate in the kitchen, I'll grant you. Soon I will be able to actually lift the sawdust bale off the ground by the tiny little piece of the edge that I can grasp, and then I might get to find out if the sawdust really does taste like chicken. I'm also endlessly fascinated by the spinny qualities of the washing machine, and I'm sure I will get to ride in it one day just like Uncle Julian and Aunty Sue's cat Angel tried to do in their tumbledrier the other day.

But until then, I will have to make do with participating in the Daddy Ballet.

Apologies From Daddy

2009-02-27T07:33:00.002Z

Daddy has had a bit of a stressy couple of weeks and hasn't really been quite the ticket as regards updating my Blog. This will now change, and he will sort out a good few updates in the next couple of days whenever an opportunity presents itself, such as now over breakfast.

I've got lots to tell you all about, including restaurants, seafront cooing, bunny attacks, cool rellie visits and of course the new dance-form I've managed to inspire - the Daddy Ballet!

Tata for now.

Why Mummy Is My Valentine

2009-02-14T07:56:00.005Z

Mummy is my Valentine because she always keeps me so very well entertained first thing in the morning when Daddy is getting my toast ready, even though she is in the fuzzy, just-woken-up place.

Mummy is my Valentine because she has bought me more cuddly toys than you could shake a stick at, and has named them all after her old pets as well.

Mummy is my Valentine because back when I was just a thought in her head she persuaded Daddy to get our bunny rabbits for me to play with.

Mummy is my Valentine because she only played one game during the whole of Conception so Daddy could enjoy himself and I could have five days of total quality time with her.

Mummy is my Valentine because she always cooks me special, extra healthy food when she is home to make dinner, like juicy Broclee on green sticks. This does not make her an Evil Vegetable Witch, no matter what my sister says.

Mummy is my Valentine because she makes sure that she always takes me out at least once every day she is off work so we can have fresh air together, even if it’s in a snowstorm!

Mummy is my Valentine because she is so amazing at throwing the duck’s bread so perfectly that the seagulls fly in and hover just within arm’s reach, thus requiring some very quick reflexes from Daddy when I go for a quick grab.

Mummy is my Valentine because she will use any excuse to have Daddy bring me to work to see her. I know she doesn’t really forget her lunch, her badge, her wallet, her mobile, her painkillers, her other meds and even on one occasion technically her underwear as well because she is a ‘daft plonker’, no matter what Daddy says. I know it’s because she wants to have snuggles with me every single minute that she can.

Mummy is my Valentine because the first thing she wants to do when she comes in from work is give me a great big snuggle, unless of course she really really wants the toilet, which is fair enough really.

Mummy is my Valentine because she always tries to be quiet as a mouse when she comes to bed, even though Daddy says she sounds more like a herd of the animals that are afraid of mice.

Mummy is my Valentine because every time I stir in the night, her hand is always through the cot bars patting me off back to sleep before a nannysecond has passed. And who needs blood circulation anyway?

Mummy is my Valentine because she is always ready for a snuggle, even at 3am when the patting thing hasn’t worked.

Mummy is my Valentine because she will always look after me, so no matter what happens bad things never seem so bad when Mummy is around.

Mummy is my Valentine because she always, always makes it all better when I cry.

Mummy is my Valentine because I love her from the top of my hairy little head to the bottom of my ten tiny little baby toes.

Mummy is my Valentine because I miss her every minute she isn’t there. But it’s OK, because even when she’s not around she is still there inside my head and in every beat of my heart, just like a Valentine should be.

I love you, Mummy. Happy Valentine’s Day.

Love, Lulu

The Bestest Mummy In The Whole Wide World

More Grapes, Jeeves!

2009-02-08T09:47:00.001Z

You wouldn't think I'm actually strapped into this thing, would you? Hehehe...

Lulu's Conception Report, Part 2

2009-02-06T15:55:00.011Z

(Filed by our Gaming Correspondent, Daddy)

After the madness of the Thursday night DnD marathon, I was somewhat out of sorts, and not pleased that Daddy went off to actually play a game without us, again! So when we eventually came over to see Daddy where he was being a Goblin warchief in the Main Hall I was already giving it some in a big, big way. Daddy heard me coming (so did everyone else actually) and when he saw me all upset in the buggy and Mummy calmly drinking her coke and chatting to someone he got very annoyed with Mummy and took me out for a cuddle. Wasn't really Mummy's fault, I had only just started 'mimping for effect' as the military parlance has it after all. But he thought it had been going on for a while and could see I somewhat snotty and out of sorts and somewhat overreacted by leaving his game and taking me back to the Lodge, which was probably way too much.

Mummy explained calmly and patiently to Daddy (as you do for the hard of thinking) that she is perfectly capable of taking care of me, ill and mimpy or not, and that there was no need for him to overreact like that. Daddy, as Daddy does once the calm and patient explaining bit is over and done with, hung his head in shame and apologised to Mummy, but then said he thought maybe we should just all go home that night and cut our losses with him only coming back to do LARPs and the Treasure Hunt, and Mummy was sort of in agreement. Well, I wasn't having this - I was on holiday! So I let rip once again, but oddly this seemed to sway them towards going home rather than sticking around like I wanted to...

After lunch, Daddy want off to do the muster and to help the Bad Girlz run their sci-fi parody LARP, 'Firefly Battlestar Deep Space Babylon Seven Gate Wars In The 25th Century - The Next Generation'. He also got to play the scary Foregon Ambassador in a full alien suit, with helmet and everything, for about twenty minutes, and told everyone to kill the Wibbles, who were small furry aliens who were secretly taking people over, before it was too late...these LARP thingies get very complicated if you ask me. Still, he said most people had fun in their silly costumes, even if they did all end up as slaves of the First Wibble Empire in the end.

The Wibbles Triumphant

On Friday evening Mummy persuaded Daddy that we shouldn't go home after all, on the very sensible grounds that there wasn't really much more that could be done to make me feel better at home than at the camp. So he asked her if she was sure, then if she was really sure, then if she was really really sure. I think you can guess the rest. However once it was all over he went over to do evening muster and put up a signup sheet for another run of 'Goblins and Commanders' on Saturday morning, which got filled up double-quick time, including by one of the peeps who'd just played 'Midnight's Children' on Thursday. Double Daddyness, what a masochist!

When Daddy got back, Lippy and Aunty Lucy had come over with the Arkham Horror board game. Daddy was supposed to play it with them while Mummy chilled out, but somehow he ended up sorting out little old me pretty much all the way until bedtime...I feel a mwahahaaaaaaaaaa!!! is in order here, so.

Mwahahahahahaaaaaaaaa!!!

Anyway, Mummy got ready for bed right quick after I settled down, as my nasty snottiness meant it was only a matter of time before I'd be up and wanting snuggles, and Daddy played the game. Being 'Arkham Horror' it is of course based on the Cthulhu Mythos, which means Daddy loves it! He is a sucker for all that 'cosmic horror' malarkey, apparently...

Saturday morning dawned, freezy and cold. Daddy got me up for first bottle and we went to sleep in the sofa together again afterwards, then he got Mummy up to look after me while he went to call morning muster and run his Goblinz game and get my big sister settled into her first game, a Fairies game with a nice man from Portsmouth named Mick. What a lot of tattoos he has...

After stopping to see my sissy, we went over to see Daddy about 11 o'clock and one or two of the players seemed a bit perturbed when he suddenly had a baby to help him run the game. But I soon got them into line and helped them rescue themselves from disaster with some really neat moves before Mummy came back. Daddy's friend Pat was the only survivor in the end and only got away with it with a perfect swan dive into a moat about 200 metres below a window - it was a real beaut of a move, apparently.

After lunch it was the big one - Garry Grotter and the Society of the Sparrow, written by Mummy and Daddy. One or two people pulled out at the last minute, like Daddy's friend Kiera the Stunty - I don't know why he call her that, I've seen pics of her and she doesn't look that short. But there are always peeps to play LARPs, and Daddy ended up saying it was the best LARP he's ever run, and some of the players agreed as well!

There were people in school uniform aplenty - the Dweebley brothers were in ridiculously bright wigs, the Dutch contingent were out in force (whatever that means) and it even ended with a grand confrontation between Garry Grotter and Lord Fondlebot (played by Knobby the Goblin, resplendent in his twirly black cape) which Garry won in true LARPy fashion to defeat the bad guy and get everyone home safely to Bogbort's, where they wiped out Luciars Milfoy who had trapped them all on a nasty hellplane (even Fondlebot as he was attempting a doublecross) but unfortunately forgotten to run away afterward...

Like I said, these LARP thingies get a tad complicated sometimes.

Saturday evening Daddy had an unusual duty to perform at muster - he had been told about severe weather warnings for Sunday so he explained to everyone in his usual shouty voice that they might want to check weather reports for their route before setting off if they were going back on Sunday. And with crushing irony he then had to go and give the same warning again to the 'Mountain of the Dead' LARP - which is set on a Mountain and was played with all the characters in full winter clothing in the freezing cold Games Rooms. I really think some of them thought he was joking.

Daddy says he set a new record during 'Mountain of the Dead' - shortest guest appearance ever. He was supposed to be an Ithaqua cultist (yes, more of that Cthulhu Mythos stuff, it seems to be very popular with people at Conception) who didn't feel the cold, so he turned out in just a t-shirt on his top half and thought he'd get very cold as he pretended to be a lost Native American who had just stumbled accidentally through a magic portal and into the Russian camp. Only the lady playing the Russian Commander saw he was armed with a tidgy little knife and just walked up and shot him five times before anyone else could interact with him in the slightest. So he lay down playing dead for about two minutes then got up and got his jumper and jacket back on. Total time on his feet roleplaying about 30 seconds, definitely a new record.

After Mountain of the Dead finished Daddy went partying for an hour or so. This nice chappie called Steve always throws an ace party on the Saturday night and apparently this year was no exception.

Steve as the Vampire Prince Michael of Bournemouth, from an old Daddy LARP

However we shall draw a veil over what a certain Goblin (not Daddy) did after getting rather too drunk at said party...when I'm older I don't think I shall drink this alcyboos stuff. It doesn't seem to have a very good effect on you, in fact if what Daddy told Mummy the morning after is anything to go by I'd frankly rather eat one of my own poopy nappies and would probably still feel better afterwards than this person did.

And then Sunday dawned. The Last Day of Conception. By this point everyone is struggling (especially after the saturday night parties) to keep going, people's money is running out, the faces are looking more drawn and more haggard.

And this is the morning when Daddy runs the Kiddiez Treasure Hunt.

Daddy's first headache was that the heaters for the Games Room he had been faithfully promised would be in there from 8am sharp werent there when he arrived at 9.15. So he had to go and jump up and down at the main desk to get things moving so it was still a little chilly when the children arrived at 10.30.

Every year Duncan the Rusty One brings a huge bag of dressing up clothes for the children to dress up in, and other people donate bits and bobs as well such as masks and in one case a blond wig from the Garry Grotter LARP which one of the children wore all day long in the end, even through the closing ceremony! Before the Hunt starts all the children get dressed up in fantasy costumes with the help of my Daddy, my Mummy and their Mummies and Daddies and one or two other helpful people from the Bad Girlz. I even wore my Tigger suit just to get in on the act.

This year Amber (who is getting too big for all this now frankly) wore a cool cape and hood and had a homemade bow and everything! We had someone dressed as a monster called an Umber Hulk with big mandibles and stuff, an ickle Elf princess, and even a Ninja Penguin by special request with a full-sized beak and everything...

And then the dressing up was done, and it was time for the Treasure Hunt. On the Sunday morning Daddy seeds clues on big bits of paper all round the main building, sometimes giving them to people and sometimes just posting them on walls and stuff. Then the children have to figure out what they all mean and go get the next clue until they finish. This means lots of charging around and general mayhem, including tiptoeing through the Bar ('The Place Where Children Mustn't Go) and lots of runs through the main hall where most people go 'awwww' and the hardcore gamers moan at the noise.

When it was his turn to be a Clue, Bob the Diceman made one of the children cry by pretending he was going to eat their baby sister, and gave him a free big dice to say sorry. He gave me my very own set of Goblin Green dice when we arrived as well as a naming present, he is very very generous with his stock. My big sister and he have been friends for years and years, she even bought a set of dice made from Blue Jasper off him once, they are very tiny and beautiful pieces.

I was a Clue as well! It said 'Find The Baby In Disguise', and that was me because I was in my Tigger suit, see? When they all piled back into the Games Rooms where I was waiting I was having Tummy Time and very very nearly crawling, yay me!

Eventually after loads of clues the last one said 'The Goblin In Black Has The Final Clue', and everyone had to chase my Daddy back into the Games Rooms to pick up their prizes. They got loads of sweeties and a cuddly toy each, and the ickle Elf Princess got an extra cuddly because Daddy thought she had the coolest outfit.

Once the Treasure Hunt was over we headed back to the Lodge with Amber and had our lunch. Mummy and Daddy started packing up ready to go home while we ate, but I was so excited by this point I hardly touched it, and so I was a bit on the hyper side when we went back over for the closing ceremony.

Andrew, Duncan, John and Julian all stood up on the stage and gave their speeches about how much money Conception had raised and who it was going to (mostly Round Table and the like, but also £1000 for an equally worthy charity called Help For Heroes) and then Daddy got on the stage to do the Golden Badger Awards for the people whose characters had died in the most amusing ways. After he was done the charity people came up and thanked people for their efforts while Daddy snuggled me next to the stage - unfortunately just as they were finishing up I detonated a Size Five in my nappy and Daddy had to take me out for a bum change, so I missed most of the raffle. Daddy says it was very quick this year as people have complained about how long it was on previous occasions...

Next there was the photy session, which featured me in my special custom-made Conception X T-Shirt - but as it was outside it had to be a really quick photy shoot because lo and behold, it started snowing!!! What a great way to end the proceedings, with the first little wispy bits of snowy goodness.

After the raffle Mummy had gone back to the Lodge to finish the packing, so Amber went into the play area to run around playing Tickle Monster with some of the other ickle kiddiewids, and Daddy and I wandered around the main building having cuddles and saying hi to people. I got lots of cooing and even some cuddles off a few people when I was feeling generous enough to let them snuggle me, but eventually I started getting tired so Daddy took me back over to the Lodge. However, when we got there Mummy had already got the packing done and was just waiting for Grandad to arrive, so Mummy filled our car with stuff and when he did she took me back to the house while Grandad filled his car with the rest and took Daddy back. But as they were leaving it started to snow, really really hard - and I slept through it because when Daddy and Grandad arrived back at the house I was totally gonzoed, ooopsy!

Mummy decided she might as well just go back to the camp to pick Amber up with me asleep in the car (after clearing out enough things to make room for my big sissy of course, couldn't have her perched on the parcel shelf now could we) so off we went, but by the time I woke up the snow had mostly stopped. Bummer, huh?

So I went to bed that night, dissappointed at missing the snow and still a bit icky and snuffly (in fact I still am a bit icky and snuffly, I can't shake this naughty cold!), but in the morning the world was a bit different to the night before...

So there we were, home in the snow after my first ever Conception. And now, please join me in raising a bottle to the idea of many, many more in the future!

The BBC Online Weather Forecast - A Bit Useless, Really

2009-02-06T11:59:00.003Z

If this is 'Light Rain', then there's something gone very wrong upstairs in the old white n fluffies...

Lulu's Conception Report, Part 1

2009-02-03T21:58:00.006Z

(Filed by our Gaming Correspondent, Daddy)

Well, we did it. Sort of. We didn't stay till the bitter end, because I was ill, Mummy was just getting over being ill and Daddy was just starting on being ill, which is something he traditionally does on the Sunday about three and a half minutes after the big closing ceremony.

Conception started at about 10.30 when we arrived at the holiday camp. The nice peeps behind the desk were ready with our keys, and I officially declared the Convention open with a short speech. In Shriek.

We took our keys off to the place that would be my home for the next four nights - lodge ML6. Andrew, who is Mummy and Daddy's friend who sorts out the accommummydation was very kind and had made sure we had a lodge that was really near the main building so I wouldnt have to go too far in the coldy weather. Just as well too, it was freezing when we got there.

We seemed to have soooo much stuff to unpack. Mummy had loads of stuff in the car (as well as me), and Grandad came to help too with his car which is even bigger. It's all mod cons when we go on holiday, and no mistake. I had my high chair, my wipeable tarp thingy for it to sit on, a whole box of toys, my walker, my door bouncer, my sleepy bouncer, Whoozit, Rabbit, my chew toys, my blankies, my dummies, my vests, my tops, my trousers, my nappies, my creams (got a nasty bit of nappy rash you see) and everything but the kitchen sink really, because happily enough there was already one in the Lodge.

We even had custom made clothes (see post below) including Website Advertising, which Daddy assures me is a very big thing.

The Lodges are quite warm places, and have comfy sofas and comfy beds. I know this because due utter hatred of my travel cot I always spend nights away from home cuddling Mummy in which ever bed she's sleeping at the time, and due to my snotty cold in addition it was a foregone conclusion. Mummy and I were both snotty at this Conception, so Daddy ended up sleeping in the other room after the first night after he was subjected to the Snorting Twins all night long and got no kip at all. He did offer to take me the second night but Mummy reckoned that if he did he'd just get my cold anyway and then we'd all be ill, which is fair comment I suppose.

All in all, it was just like home really, except every time we went out there seemed to be more and more rather large men in black clothes and beards. Which brings us to what we were going there - games and gamers.

Conception isn't the biggest gaming convention in the UK, that's called Gencon. But it is the biggest one in the South of merrie old England, and is all for charity instead of money, which makes the peeps who come along much more generous with their donations.

Daddy's first function in all this is to organise the LARPs. These are the games where all the peeps dress up and actually act out what they are doing 'live' instead of rolling dice and/or moving figures about a tabletop. Daddy has to work out who gets which games and then slot people into them, and sometimes he writes them too. This year his LARP involved lots of ladies in school uniforms. Legitimately.

Daddy said he'd never written so much plot for a LARP before, but it went really really well. And there were lots of cool school uniforms - piccies will no doubt follow. Some of the last minute players even went into Bournemouth in the morning to buy shirts and ties to look more like wizards from Bogbort's - now that's what I call dedication.

Anyway, once we'd got all our things squared away it was time for Mummy and Daddy to argue about who was responsible for leaving behind all the stuff they left behind. Which included a full 75-litre rucksack, which you'd kinda think would be hard for them to miss...but eventually Mummy took me over to the house again to pick everything up.

While we were gone, Daddy had to go over and do his other job for the first time this year. This job is called Calling the Muster. It seems to mainly consist of standing next to Duncan (who is apparently a bit rusty, not sure what that's all about, I can't see all that many flaky bits on him) in front of lots and lots of gamers and yelling a lot whilst waving bits of paper. I have pointed out that this could equally describe being an MP and is presumably not as well paid, but he says even he has some moral standards when it comes to employment.

As Daddy calls the muster the people gradually go off to their games and eventually only the people who couldn't find a game they liked before they got filled up or have just turned up hoping for a random space are left. Then he and Duncan get to work running around, remembering who had a spare space and who didn't and in Daddy's case sometimes literally going into the main hall and shouting for anyone with a spot to wave their hands and shout back what it might be.

Daddy says he's never seen Conception so busy. Obviously number ten, or 'X' as it was known, was the bee's bottom. Or something like that anyway.

When Mummy and I got back from the house I had my first meal in this new place - daddy biscuit, nana, apple and dates to follow, always a good combination. Once I noshed it down Mummy put me in the new 'car buggy' (which is like the Tank in almost no way at all whatsoever, being small, impossible to steer one-handed and light as a feather by comparison) and walked me over to find Daddy in the main building.

The big bit of the holiday camp is the Main Building. It is shaped like a big L, with the main hall at one end and the bowling alley and the main dining bit at the other. And a bar in the middle, naturally. Trust me when I say that if you're going to game for five days, twelve hours a day, you'll need that part. It was fascinating to watch how the complexions grew whiter, the circles around the eyes grew wider and darker, the heads dropped lower and the look of utter determination just to get through till the next game was over got stronger and stronger. And that was just Daddy!

Anyway, we found him over in the main hall, running his Dungeons and Dragons game based on the Order of the Stick, which he thinks is a very very funny Webcomic indeed. Apparently he had it looked over and personally approved by the author himself (who even made some minor corrections to the character's abilities) so it was as real as it can be - and this year helped by, bizarrely enough, being run for a group of people who didn't know the comic but liked the idea of a bunch of incompetent misfits such as he described on the signup sheet so much they signed up for the game anyway...

I went back to the Lodge with Mummy and had my tea while Daddy finished up his game, and had my tea. We seem to have a decent enough cooker and grill thingy because I managed to have my potato stars and some sliced up chicken fillety pieces which were a bit dry but that was OK, because it meant I could munch on them good and proper. It must have helped because I popped yet another tooth the day after!

While I was scoffing Daddy came in and Mummy told him she was already cooking his tea – she was very obliging through the whole Con and cooked nearly all of Daddy’s meals, wasn’t that kind of her? Then we went back across so Mummy could Work On The Desk.

Working On The Desk means that you have to sit down a lot, and talk to all the gamer peeps. It looks maybe a bit boring (well, except for all the people cooing over me but I’m used to that by now, what with being so gorgeous and all) but looks pretty well-paid though. Loads of people gave her money for doing it so maybe she should quit her poopy job at the kitcheny place and do this instead? She could make a mint! But even though I got a little bored occasionally there were some compensations...

Daddy came back over to the Desk a little while later ready to Call Muster again – this time I got to hear him in action.

What a noisy man my Daddy is. After that experience there’s no way he can claim I get it all from Mummy ever again, that’s for sure. He also seemed to be very eager to find a person called ‘Charmingly Shallow’, but he didn’t seem to want to step forward and make himself known…

Once Daddy called the muster, he went into the main hall to run his first Goblin game of the Con. It was called ‘Goblins and Commanders – The Bottom End Of The World’ (weeeell, alright, he didn’t say Bottom but this is theoretically a family-friendly Blog after all, so…) and like so many of the games he writes all the players were playing Goblins. They had to assassinate a Humie general and crawl through the sewers (ewwww!) to reach him.

Needless to say, being Goblins, albeit of the scary sneaky kind, they made a bit of a hash of it. They did a lot of hiding and sneaking but not quite enough moving about, and they kept getting cornered by Humie guards. Luckily for them the Humies couldn’t quite figure out where they were going next and kept going the wrong way, so eventually they managed to get to the general and fulfill their mission. Unfortunately the general’s mysterious wizard adviser managed to wipe them all out after they got the general, though one of them might have escaped if he hadn’t gone all heroic and actually gone back for his Feebleminded comrade-in-sneakiness instead of shimmying out the window. Most un-Goblinlike behaviour, Daddy assures me.

The Feebleminded person was played by someone called Knobby the Goblin, who didn’t look green enough to be a Goblin at all, except curiously enough during the closing ceremony on Sunday afternoon. Daddy waved a finger at him and reminded him of all the things he’d done during and after the party the night before, and called him a very naughty Goblin indeed.

Apparently in former Conception years Daddy used to run a thing called Goblin Day on Fridays, where he and sometimes other people would only run games with Goblin characters in them. I think that must be why he has ended up being known as Goblin Boy to everyone, and even has the name printed on his Conception T-Shirts. Knobby was once mad enough to do all three games one year with the same Goblin character called Knobby, and that’s how he got his name, see?

Knobby the Goblin, not as green as you'd expect

I went back for bedtime about 8, and this was when I started getting all snuffly and snotty, as well as a bit crabby because I wasn’t feeling well and was a bit miffed that we didn’t go back home so I could have my own cot instead of the poopy travel one. So I pretty much ended up sleeping on Mummy for the night whilst Daddy tossed and turned in the bed next to her as I grumped and mimped and moaned. A lot.

In the morning, a somewhat bleary-eyed Daddy got me up for my first bottle and we fell back asleep on the sofa together as we often do at home. I woke up about 8 and he played with me until half past when we went in to get Mummy up so he could go and call the muster.

Well, it wasn’t a pretty sight, I can tell you. There were moans. There were groans. Tears after bedtime just wasn’t in it, dearie dearie me. You’d think he’d invited her to a ‘bring your own red hot poker’ self-torture party the way she carried on. Pretty much like most mornings really, now I come to think of it.

Eventually however we were able to extricate Mummy from her pit by running out of the bedroom with the covers, and off Daddy went to do muster and also something very special – yes, Daddy actually got to play a game instead of running one! He had spotted a game of 3:16 the night before and ran to the signup boards threatening to flatten anyone who got in his way in case the last remaining spot in the game went before he got there with a pen.

However, pleased though he was, there was a small sting in the tail – namely that sneaky Duncan had given that game Table 1 – right by the Desk so when I arrived with Mummy a little while later after breakfast, Daddy was right on hand to play with me whenever Mummy wanted him to…

3:16 is a very noisy game, it seems. I’m sure I heard quite a few of those bad words that Mummy and Daddy tell each other off for using, and had to Shriek quite loudly so I wouldn’t hear them properly. Naughty Daddy. But in 3:16 you play really bum-kicking space marine types, so I suppose it’s not realistic for them to use words like ‘poop’ and ‘bellybutton’ for emphasis. Though some of them did appear to be using the other kind instead of things like punctuation and grammar, now I come to think of it.

In the afternoon we had a new thing – my first game. Well, sort of. Daddy promised that he would try to run at least one game in the Lodge so she could play it, and they agreed that he would run an old classic he wrote with Uncle Dave, called Midnight’s Children. We played with Aunty Lucy, Lippy and Ryan from Yorkshire, and two other peeps who were brave enough to sign up despite the sheet saying that there would be a cute, gorgeous, but also very loud young baby present throughout. It’s a two parter as well, they were very brave to stick with it until nearly midnight. I was a tad mimpy through a lot of it, but in the end Daddy said that it was a fairly good ending after Aunty Lucy’s character got Dominated by the enemy Sorceror and killed off half the other characters, and Ryan’s got dropped off the back of the Sorceror’s Dragon boss and ended up as jam.

I always have jam with my morning toast. I wonder what flavour it was?

(Part 2 of this report will be filed by our exhausted and still rather ill correspondent when he can find time between feeding and changing to write the rest of it…)

Guess Where We're Going Today

2009-01-28T07:29:00.002Z

Lucy Explains Her Plans To Invade Next Door

2009-01-28T07:17:00.007Z

Call Me Fourteeth Williams

2009-01-26T18:51:00.002Z

..two in one day baby! Now we're up to four with the top middle ones coming out as well, and Mummy and Daddy can see the two either side of them are just about ready to pop clear as well. I even christened my new chompers on one of Mummy's fingers when she tried to show Dan my new toothies when we went to Clo-Clo's today.

So to sum up, I'm massively teething just in the runup to Mummy and Daddy's one actual holiday this year, as Conception starts on Wednesday. Daddy says the appropriate phrase rhymes with 'hug her'.

Biology Question

2009-01-25T18:05:00.004Z

If this rather fluffy-haired person...

and this very well-dressed, but nonetheless rather sheepy-looking person...

...were to have another baby, would he or she look like a half-baby, half sheep? Well, Daddy says in about eight months we are going to find out! Congratulations guys, and lots of love from me to you :)

PS See you at Conception on Wednesday. And Saturday. Er.

But Where's The Mum Gone?

2009-01-20T08:35:00.007Z

Something's going on. I know I've heard Mummy say that Daddy is sometimes into uniforms before, but I don't see how that yucky orange shirt Mummy keeps putting on can be much of a bonus for him. Plus, she's been hanging out at that place with all the tellies and kitcheny stuff wearing it, which would have to be pretty weird behaviour by anyone's standards. Lots of other grownups there seem to wear it too, I think her rugged individuality thing must be wearing off.

She keeps dissappearing off for hours at a time and leaving me with just Daddy on his own. For ages! Sometimes she is still out when Amber comes back from school, and sometimes it's already bedtime when she comes back.

I'm not sure what to make of it all. It's very odd. Especially because, like I said, she is hanging out at the place with all the machines in it wearing her yucky orange shirt, and I know this because Daddy keeps taking me to see her in the Tank. When we go in she comes out from playing hide and seek inside all the machines and gives me lots of cuddles, and then when she is finished Daddy makes her put me back in the Tank because 'if you take her out you're responsible for the screaming when she goes back in'.

So most of the time for most of the days it's just me and Daddy. Changes, changes, changes. I'm quite fascinated by his new beard as well, it is covering his chin and his top lip and I'm really looking forward to it being long enough to grab it and get a really good hold. Amber only just noticed it today when he has been growing it for nearly two weeks, her powers of observation are really stunning...

My day is more or less the same, its just that we walk everywhere. There's no car, Mummy takes it to the kitcheny place with her you see. So I have to get in the Tank (see Screaming, above) and off we go. Daddy always takes me out in the morning unless its raining really super-hard either to Sainsbury's or to Christchurch. This means that he does at least an hour's walking pushing me at breakneck place every single day, so he must be getting the old aerobic fitness levels up again. Just as well seeing as his shoulder keeps being really mean to him every time he does his weights.

I'm getting fit too! I am starting to walk with Mummy and Daddy holding me lots more, and I'm getting really good at sitting up now, I can almost do it by myself. I can when I've got a bit of a boost - it gave Daddy an awful fright when he went into the kitchen to wash his hands after a nappy change and found me sitting right up in my bouncer, grinning and giggling.

All that walking is very tiring. I never fall asleep on the way to wherever we're going, but I almost always fall asleep on the way back. Once I wake up though it's near to one of my favourite bits of the day - lunchtime!

I'm getting very good with the old diet, too. Lunchtimes is fruit all the way, baby! My favourite is banana, though if Daddy is canny and offers me apple first I'll usually nosh that quite happily. I make a lovely mess with the nana, I love the squidgy feel of it as I crush it in my little hands and occasionally manage to make contact with an area somewhere near my mouth.

After the fruit is...dried fruit. Dates and apricots with no stones in them is the thing, the dates have really sorted out the nasty mean constipation that was making me poop coke cans. Not literally of course, only Mummy drinks enough of the stuff to do that.

When lunch is over I usually end up having the Big Afternoon Kip after a bit of a play. Daddy says that one thing he's noticed now Mummy is hanging around in the orange kitcheny place so much is that he doesn't get enough time to play with me, odd though that sounds.

Whatever he says, don't listen to him. It's nothing to do with the insane amount of time I spend on each feed and the cleanup time required afterwards. Honest.

The Big Kip is usually in my bouncer, unlike the post-first feed Kip which usually takes place either in bed cuddling Mummy or on the sofa snuggled up to an equally sleepy Daddy. The Big Kip actually tends to be smaller now though, and Daddy says this is good because first it means he can serve me my tea on time and second because it means I am getting bigger and bigger and should start sleeping more at night and less in the day.

Needless to say I am employing every weapon in my not inconsiderable arsenal to disprove this theory. Generally at around 3am. After all, it's what I do.

Night night and sleep tight everyone.

Something About That Conception Thingy

2009-01-15T23:02:00.002Z

As the strange gaming convention thingy is coming soon, someone thought they'd make a video all about it. Weeell, sort of about it. I'm pretty sure that Hitler blokey in it won't actually be there, Daddy says its from an awesome film called Downfall and lots of people have done what this clever person has and added their own subtitles to this bit of footage.

I didn't really get it myself no matter how much Mummy and Daddy laughed, but hopefully the grownups will...

An Appeal From Lulu

2009-01-14T20:58:00.003Z

Daddy, Amber and I had a bit of a Youtube fest tonight after Mummy was called unexpectedly into work for a few hours. Most of it was music stuff - some November's Doom for Amber as she thinks they're ace, a really crystal clear live video from the very scary Skepticism for Daddy, and then a cartoon for me. Weeeell, Amber seemed to be jumping up and down a lot tellin me how funny it was, and was very pleased when Daddy relented and put it on.

Now she has been singing 'the Doom song' for an hour and a half. Please help me.

Caption Competition

2009-01-08T10:21:00.003Z

Come on all my dear and loyal readers, give it your best shots...

Singalonga Lulu

2009-01-08T10:14:00.003Z

"Lucy the red-nosed baby,
Had a very shiny nose,
Cos' Daddy walked her up to Sainsbury's
Wrapped up in her Cosy-Toes."

I Vill Suck Ze Jam Of Ze Living

2009-01-08T10:00:00.004Z

More Toast-Related mirth...and isn't Daddy getting quick with the the digicam when he spots a photo opportunity?

The Funniest Thing So Far This Year...

2009-01-06T21:37:00.002Z

...is, if Daddy's hysterical laughter and actual tears of mirth are anything to go by, the fact that the only foreign object I have so far ever put in my mouth and then immediately spat out again with a noise of absolute disgust just happened to be one of Mummy's socks.

Needless to say there was one of those moments where Daddy runs away into the kitchen pleading desperately for mercy, followed by the inevitable cry of pain.

Silly Daddy. You think he'd have learned by now.

Conversations With Amber

2009-01-06T21:32:00.002Z

Daddy helped translate my gurgles for me this morning, because I wanted to ask my big sister a serious question as she was getting ready to leave for school.

"Sissy," I asked via Daddy. "Why do you carry a big peebag to school sometimes?"

"It's a Peeeeee Bag," she replied.

"I know it is. But why carry a bag of wee?"

"It has clothes in it actually Lucy."

"But don't they end up smelling of wee? Doesn't Daddy have enough washing to do already?"

"There's no wee, Lucy. Just clothes."

"Then why isn't it called a Clothesbag?"

"Because it's for Peeeeee."

"Don't grown up girls use toilets for that?"

She just smiled a touch wearily and raised her eyebrown at Daddy in that way she has. Poor Daddy, he was just translating after all.

Number Two

2009-01-06T21:29:00.003Z

Aha! Fooled you, not a post about poo, but just to tell everyone that I have in fact popped a second toothy, right next to the first one. Yay me!

The Evening Constitutional

2009-01-06T17:10:00.003Z

The Evening Constitutional around the Back Garden is a fine Daddy/Baby tradition, dating back to the days when my big sister would try to go to sleep before her last feed and/or get all mimpy in general because she was tired. Back in the days of its inception of course the garden was all level with no dirty great trenches and no deadly Poo Pit and there were no bunny rabbits, two facts which Daddy assures me are closely interconnected.

The Back Garden at Night is a magical place, full of wondrous sights and sounds, not the least of which is the Daddy, the Baby and occasionally by special request the Sister too. In the daytime it has bunnies, a Suicide Robin (yes, Katie hasn't gotten him yet, but he keeps coming back for more anyway) and recently a squirrel who has started fencerunning and jumping down to forage under the eyes of a very bemused Scruffles, though it seems to have the common sense not to try it when Katie's the one out of her hutch. It also has really special Moons, Shooting Stars and the odd Santa flyby!

It might seem a bit of an odd time of year to start the Constitutional again, what with it being so freezing cold that today when Amber went to cover the bunnies we realised poor Mr.Scruffles hadn't had much of a drink today because ice had formed over the outlet of his water bottle and had half-filled it too. Amber had to break all the ice up with hot water in order to give him a drink! But Daddy wraps us both up so warm and toasty that we are like little steamy volcanoes so when we walk about the garden we don't end up like the water bottle.

We have come up with some new games to keep me awake in case I get too cosy in Daddy's arms and start getting sleepy all over again (which happens more often than you'd think despite the cold). We play Dragon's Breath and watch our warmth float away in the moonlight, or sometimes Daddy and I grab the low branches on one of the trees at the back of the garden and shake them so they rattle together. This makes me laugh like a very cute drain!

Sometimes Daddy sings to me outside. He sings all kinds of songs (except the noisy ones) in his best low and mellow voice, which always chills me out (no pun intended) no end. I don't know what the neighbours think about it all, maybe it sends them off to happy quiet land as well.

When my sister comes outside (sometimes because she is covering up the bunny hutches against the cold when Daddy and I are already out there) we play games that also make me giggle. Daddy sometimes pretends to be that Attenburr chappie and makes up silly names for her and stalks through the garden pretending he is in a nature programme with her as the subject, or is just generally silly in an effort to make us both laugh. Last night he sang a song that was so silly that it gave her hiccups. Poor Amber.

I love my Evening Constitutionals. Long may the tradition continue.

Note To Self

2009-01-06T17:04:00.002Z

I must remember that no matter how attractive the idea looks, lifting my head and then thumping it back down very very hard on the changing mat when I don't fancy having a new nappy/vest/top/babygro/trousers/anything on does NOT make me feel better afterwards.

And besides, Daddy says he doesn't want to have to ever use my name and the word 'concussion' in the same sentence, ever.*

*(Well except for now, obviously...)

New Year's Resolutions

2009-01-06T10:11:00.002Z

1. Find out exactly what a resolution is, and why Daddy has asked me all the things I want to make sure I do in 2009.

2. Learn to sit up all by myself. I'm nearly there, but I can't quite manage it yet, and it will be very handy to be able to do it at 3am so I can make sure Daddy's awake by looking at him at eye level as I start howling at the moon.

3. Avoid mentioning politics, as Daddy gets a bit...agitated when the subject comes up. And while we're on the subject, don't let Daddy out of my sight if that Mr Brown calls one of those election thingies, as according to Mummy she and Amber lost him for a month the last time around.

4. Poo little and less often. Solid foods are a bit of a pain sometimes - literally.

5. Have my first Chinese Takeaway. Apparently they are rather worth waiting for.

6. Be as cute as my sister was at whatever age I'm at. Tall order, but I'll try and manage it.

7. Improvise, adapt, avoid the problem unless it will get worse if you don't meet it head on now. Actually that's one of Daddy's but he says it's good advice for anybody.

8. Go and visit Daddy's favourite nursery where he did his Childcare training at least a couple more times before the end of the year so everyone can try and persuade him to put me in there occasionally.

Wait! Hang on a minute...

9. Witness at least one of these mysterious gaming sessions at Conception for myself, and make more than enough noise to require my instant removal.

10. Don't scream quite as much when Daddy is doing the post-feed clean up.

11. Let Daddy go to the toilet without using my best Shriek to ensure I am present.

12. Don't giggle at inappropriate moments when not managing to fulfill number 11.

There are lots more fizzing madly around my little baby brain, but for now they will have to wait as Daddy and I need to go into town and do some shopping.

Bye for now!

My First Christmas Day

2008-12-29T19:50:00.003Z

I did that Christmas thing for the first time a few days ago. It seemed to consist of rellies, shiny bright wrapping paper and lots of food. I think I liked the paper best - no offence to the rellies but they did move to Scotland after all and apparently that's bad. Certainly Daddy seems to get a little...cutting, when he refers to 'the whinging, leeching parasites', which he insists is the collective noun for a group of Scottish people.

(I am now sat on daddy's shoulders with my legs wrapped around his head, with my hands ripping at his hair. This is Mummy's way of ensuring there are typos unless Daddy stops typing and gets me undressed so she can run my bathwater.)

It started off like any other day - Daddy got me up for my first bottle, I noshed it, I fell asleep, he took me back to bed. But when we woke up my sissy got to come onto the bed and open a shiny present and a card with lots of special Gift Certificates in. That was new!

The Gift Certificates weren't like normal ones for buying stuff at Arghs and Weeweestones. They entitled Amber to special things like 'Kick Daddy off the computer for an hour' and 'Daddy cleans the rabbits out today'. She is biding her time with them though, I reckon she'll leave the bunny ones until it's raining so hard you can barely even look outside without wanting to dry off.

After I had my Tenses (which are like elevenses but a bit earlier, and a lot messier) and had the traditional screamy cleanup session after smearing myself thoroughly with nana as usual we went over to Granny and Grandad's. Once we got there we sat down in the living room and we really got down to present unwrapping in a very serious way.

I got books. I got toys. I got toys I can chew on, including a strange crabby thing with lots of little nobbly bits and a bit you can push to squeak. That was my favourite of all. It has hardly left my side, or my mouth for that matter. I have really enjoyed dribbling all over it.

The best bit was of course the wrapping paper. I lost count of how many times I gobbed my dummy out and then had it popped back in again before I could nosh some of it down - anything that pretty and shiny just has to taste good, right? I swear I only left a nanosecond between the dummy coming out and paper going in, but Mummy and Daddy were always there to make sure it didn't happen. They are annoyingly efficient sometimes, it really hacks me off!

I had a whole new load of things to chew on through the day, but the best teeth-related part of it was the lunch. It was my very own portion of Granny's special roasty dinner - chicken, sausage, veggies, taters and special Baby Gravy. Sure it took me twice as long as everyone else to plough through it but at least I wasn't groaning under the strain of not throwing up like everyone else seemed to be. I paced myself, see?

Granny doesn't half do a massive spread. Daddy said he'd go and pick the bones of the chicken after we were done so it didn't go to waste, but this most definitely didn't happen, in fact it looked more like we'd be picking his bones up off a stretcher by the time he'd noshed a couple of mince pies after the main course. Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

After such a huge nosh I had to have a good kip, but I was determined to stick around for more presents so Daddy had to take me into the little bedroom where Amber stays when she is at Granny's away from everyone else, and rock me off to sleep. I stayed down on him for ages, but oddly when I woke up I was on Mummy. I think she gets a little jealous when I am asleep on Daddy sometimes, but stealing me off him when I'm asleep is a bit much.

I was feeling so well disposed after all this noshing and napping that I even let Grandad cuddle me for, oooh, must have been a whole two minutes. Scary, huh? I definitely must have been filled up with that Christmas spirit that's in all those films Mummy keeps insisting we watch lately on the telly. As well as the sausage.

As time drew close for teatime though we decided to go home to give me my tea. This decision was slightly influenced by Mummy and Daddy's realisation that they had managed to leave the bag with my bottles in at home...so off we went back to our little house for tea.

Inevitably however one of Amber's special christmas pressies hadnt made it to Granny's, and it turned out that Mummy and Daddy had hidden it at the bottom end of my cot so well that they had forgotten where they had actually put it. About par for the course really, that.

When we did eventually open the present, it was the DVD of a film called the Dark Knight, and it had a very funny looking man in a black suit with small bunny ears on who seemed to be very upset all the time. The other person in it was a very strange man with makeup on, who talked in a funny voice in the bits I could see. Daddy says soon I will start 'getting' films, and won't be able to watch as much telly as I do now.

(Today a funny thing happened. My sister was being a bit of a sulkydraws and Daddy went up to her and licked his lips in a funny way, then said "Why so serious?" in exactly the same voice as the man with the makeup on from the film! Amber raised her eyebrows at him, and they went even higher when he started crowing about how well he had done the impression. I got the distinct impression from her that she wanted to find the makeup stick the man in the film used and insert it where the sun doesn't shine, even from my radiant Daddy.)

So that was my first Christmas. I got to see Granny and Grandad, and even the people who gave us their old high chair which I now sit in for dinnertime popped in from over the road to pay homage to the awesome wondrousness that is me, so Mummy and Daddy could say thank you in person for them giving it to us. A proper old cooing fest, all things considered.

I think I am still full of Christmas spirit, you know. I gave Mummy the present of a huge weewee all over her this morning when she changed me as Daddy got my morning bottle ready downstairs, so I know my generosity still hasn't diminished just yet...

Night night and sleep tight everyone.

Stealing The Food Right Out Of My Mouth

2008-12-29T18:26:00.003Z

The carrot and coriander Stix were 'too thin', she said at lunch. "They keep snapping," she told Daddy.

"She's had loads of food already," she said at teatime. "So I'll just finish what she can't manage," she told Daddy.

Daddy observed rather drily that it was her who had decided how big my portion of the roasty dinner was going to be, and how convenient it was that there was plenty leftover for Mummy to top up with.

Daddy says it must be revenge because I ate her watch two days ago. Weeeell, he says I must have eaten it, because Mummy let me play with it and then it was...gone. I also haven't pooped since yesterday morning, which he says is probably because I can't pass one or two of the trickier parts of the mechanism just yet.

Mummy thumped him for being so gross, so he then sung the 'I Ate Mummy's Watch' song. A lot. So she threatened him with a whisk, and he ran back into the front room with me.

I'm not saying what I really did with the watch, hehehe. Maybe I will let her have it back if she makes nice and stops nicking my nosh.

Be warned, babies of the world. My Mummy will steal it right out your mouth.

Mummy's Ebay Obsession Goes A Bit Too Far

2008-12-23T18:46:00.001Z

My Super-duper Sister

2008-12-23T11:21:00.004Z

My sister is cool. It's official. She is settling into all the huge amount of travelling she has to do to and from her new school really well, Mummy and Daddy say they love how grown up she is about getting all those buses. Some days she is up before I am!

Mummy and Daddy took me to her Parents Evening at the school a couple of weeks ago. We saw three of her teachers - her History teacher, her English teacher and her Science teacher. The Science Teacher is the one who has put her onto the idea of doing the Astronomy GCSE after finding out how much heavy stuff like Planetary Formation she did when Daddy used to homeschool her. She also said that she should look forward to next term because there will be lots of practical experiments which is one of the things she likes best.

We found out just what brainboxes the children who got into her school are though - her SATS mark for Science was the best in her whole Year when she left and that only placed her joint fourth in her class to start the Year off with - and there are five classes!

Daddy says this means she will have to Really Work For It to be top of the class now. He says that a lot, now I come to think of it. I think she must get it by now, surely? She is clever enough to have got into the school after all...

Amber's History teacher thinks she is ace too. She says she gets top marks in the work that's supposed to be most difficult for children of her age, which is the kind that involves Research and Evaluation. And next term she is going to be looking at how History gets written, and how people can sometimes rewrite it to suit their own purposes...kind of like Daddy wants to keep this Blog in archive so when I tell my children what a well-behaved little girl who slept through the night I was he can snigger and tell them what a big fat liar I am.

The other day, Amber came home really pleased because she got two merits from her History teacher, for two things written about what Daddy calls '1066 and all that'. The first one was written from the point of view of Harold Godwinson and was so funny that her teacher wrote that it made her cry laughing in her History book, how cool is that?

"Dear Diary,

William is on my black list. Big time! I know I sort of, well, did break my promise, but he doesn't have to invade to show he is upset. I mean, why can't he send a nice little letter explaining how he feels about the situation? He needs serious anger management classes. I am so going to kick his bu - his behind."

Daddy thought that the idea that William of Normandy needs anger management is very funny. But just to show that she can write deadly serious things too, my sissy also did a thing about the Battle of Hastings which Daddy says is really gritty and atmospheric.

"We are losing. Normans litter the ground and the deadly Saxons continue the slaughter. Suddenly, we Normans start retreating and the Saxons, blood crazy, run after them. I limp away, my leg wound starting to open wider and bleed.

Then our archers shoot a volley of arrows, unexpectedly, and many Saxons fall down dead. We suddenly start to move forward, fighting again. I feel weaker than ever, my leg covered in my own blood..."

Oooooooo. Scary, huh? And a bit yucky too, now I come to think of it.

I will translate Amber's military memoirs into Yell, Shriek and Red-Faced Strain when I am older and Daddy actually lets me on the puter without handcuffs, on account of me having issues with messing up the laptop once upon a time (I managed to start Defragmenting it which was quite amusing because Mummy doesn't actually know how to do it herself).

But seriously, how cool is my sister? Her writing rocks the world. When I grow up I will be a cool writer just like her, though I will write about milk and nappies and how cute Piglet is more often than she does.

She is my super-duper sister, and we all think she is the coolest big sister ever.

Party Party Party

2008-12-22T22:55:00.005Z

Tis the season to be jolly, and get presents from Auntie Holly, and other things ending in olly. Plus Mummy's birthday was on Sunday, so we had a party on Friday night to celebrate. Amber went to Granny's and lots of peeps came over to coo at me. Amongst others, Uncle Julian (he's one of my non-religious Godfather types) and Aunty Sue came over, and I even let her hold me for a little while without screaming. Wasn't I good?

Julian and Sue on my Naming Day

But the crown for the evening's 'holding the baby without the baby raising merry hell' award had to go to Ed for sheer persistence. Even when I kept mimping and looking at Daddy all imploringly as if to say 'how can you possibly leave me with this strange American for another second?' he just kept on playing with me and cuddling me. And in the end he got to snuggle me for a whole twenty minutes (!). Mummy and Daddy were amazed, not to mention mightily impressed.

Ed and I. I am reading him a story with lots of teething in it.

At first when it was Julian and Sue I was quite happy. But then for some reason lots of peeps arrived all at once, and everyone seemed to crowd into the kitchen where Daddy was holding me at the same time. I started feeling it was all a bit oppressive, but luckily Daddy saw it coming and took me out of there before I fully let fly. Apart from that I actually quite liked having lots of people there, they cooed and cooed and cooed and gave me lots and lots of attention. And if they weren't paying enough attention I just gave out a quick yell and that got them back where they should be, i.e. worshipping at my little feet.

Nutty Nate was there. He's the one Daddy and Julian started moshing with during Mummy and Daddy's wedding reception, suits and all. His luverly lady Kate was there too. She has uber-big hair, it is totally awesome and seems to get bigger every time we see her.

Nate and Kate at Mummy and Daddy's Wedding

Big Dave and his girlfriend Alex came too (Daddy doesn't seem to have any photy's of them, sorry) - I had to stay away from Alex though because she is a scary ill person. Daddy says she was a Plague Bearer and she didn't seem to argue with that one. She did make sure it was still OK to come over though which was very kind of her to do.

Big Dave is a super-clever person who knows loads and loads about the stars. My big sister wants to do GCSE Astronomy and he will says he will help her out loads and loads because he is only one more degree away from being a full Astronomer, which I think means he can look at a star and tell you what its called, how far away it is, and probably what it had for breakfast as well.

Also Rob (who Daddy keeps referring to as Jack Silver, after the bumbling Vampire he played in the game Daddy first met him in) was there. He is High Priest of the Temple of Prog, which sounds very grand indeed to me even though I don't know exactly what it's all about. But that's OK, because Daddy says no two people have ever managed to agree on exactly what being Prog means anyway.

Unfortunately for Mummy, because of people being ill, people related to people being ill, and people having to work late, none of what Daddy calls Mummy's 'girlie mates' made it over, so nearly everyone who was there was a gaming person. And those gamer peeps, my they do like to talk shop, so to speak. It's like another language really, though I'm one to talk I suppose what with my fluency in Yell, Shriek and Red-Faced Strain.

All in all despite the occasional moment when people didn't pay enough attention to me, and a bit too much gaming natter for the non-gamers present, it was a really great night. I even went to sleep near the end after exhausting myself with all this social stuff, despite a few people still being downstairs making noise.

I hope we do it all again for Mummy's 25th next year. I don't get to properly entertain nearly often enough.

Growing Up

2008-12-22T21:52:00.004Z

So when I get big will this ickle baby moey...

Turn into this one?

I'm just asking.

Food Glorious Food

2008-12-22T20:21:00.003Z

I don't like Goop. I really don't. It seemed to take Mummy and Daddy ages to figure this out, and even when they did it took Daddy a week of constantly badgering Mummy to make her give up on the enormous quantity of blended carrot she'd stored in the freezer for my mealtimes. But give up she did, and now I get lots of proper solid goodies, and Mummy says that when we got to Granny's on Christmas Day I will get my own little Christmas Dinner with non-salty Baby Gravy and everything! Only three days to go, I can't wait.

I have a super-duper big high chair, I feel so grown up when I sit in it. Daddy lays down the blue tarp thingy on the floor and then lifts the chair onto it, then he puts on my one of the special bibs with the pouch to catch dropped food in, sits next to me in his puter chair and passes me my nosh. And then picks it up when I drop it, unless my aim is good enough to get it all the way off the tarp of course.

My first feed of the day is still a nice carton of Number 3 milk, given by a somewhat bleary-eyed Daddy. I quite often go back off to sleep soon afterwards, or even while I am being burped, and sometimes Daddy takes me back to bed where I have Mummy snuggles and he can catch up for an hour too.

For my elevenses (or tenses depending on when I have my first feed) I have nana. Daddy cuts it into three, then slices the bits down the middle from top to bottom so I can grip them. For a given value of 'grip', obviously. Needless to say, this isn't the cleanest exercise in the world, and when I am finished I am usually a bit covered in sticky nananess where I have gummed it down to a sticky paste then swallowed, well, some of it anyway. Still, I am yumming it up which is the main thing.

After I have consumed my nana, I get half a Farley's Rusk to nosh. Daddy loved Rusks when he was a kiddywid and it's obviously been passed on via the old genepool because I nail them really well and manage most of it with only one or two hurls to the floor in the process. Daddy says having the tarp (the main part of which was used to make the cold-weather covers on the bunny hutches) and the ever-helpful Milton sprayto clean it off afterwards saves us a fortune in food...while I munch my rusk Daddy quickly makes my bottle up while I'm not looking (sneaky) and then he gets me all changed and cleans me up while it cools down.

I don't like the Being Cleaned Up part of this process. I just about tolerate it as long as the water on the flannel is nice and warm, but I still really hate it when Daddy puts it in between my fingers to get all the nanery (which Mummy says is a real word no matter what Daddy says) gunk out.

For my lunch I have my crunchy carrot Stix - they are really yummy and I can hold them better than the nana as they start off dry until I have munched on them for a while. Sometimes I go through five or six of these if I'm really hungry.

For tea I sometimes have apple, but Daddy doesn't like giving me that just yet as I try to swallow pieces that are a bit too big and I choked once, so he normally cooks me up some fresh broccoli instead. I hold the stalks and then kind of suck the florets off the top. Greeny goodness!

Of course, there is one thing about this newfound love of solid foods. The nappies.

Ah well. Can't have everything...

Goth Baby

2008-12-22T19:38:00.003Z

Yep, I now have a proper all-black Goth Baby outfit. Now as I'm sure you'll all agree I look great in black, all I have to do is learn the lyrics to 'Bela Lugosi's Dead' and how to look all depressed and alienated when I'm out at the Under 1's Group and Daddy says it'll be official - I can drink the milk of the living and everything. Go me!

I Popped One!

2008-12-22T19:24:00.002Z

And no, I meant a tooth, not one of the other things that seem to come out of my bottom at inconvenient times. Yes, as of three days ago Daddy noticed that the traditional gumming ritual felt a bit different, and sure enough there is a little white fang to be seen. It's only tidgy do far, but it is literally pushing out further every day. However this does mean that the Bonjela is being deployed more frequently than usual, and dribble levels are reaching flash flood proportions.

Mummy says I should probably wear a bib all day for the moment. Daddy says what the hell, just tie a small bucket around my neck and that way I've always got something to drink.

Now there's a real actual toothy in there Daddy has to be very careful that I don't actually bite down with the right tool for the job instead of just licking at the Bonjela-covered finger a lot. But I got him once already, hehehehe. You wait, Mummy and Daddy are so used to me grabbing the nearest available limb and slobbering all over it that they will keep forgetting that we've moved into new territory for a while. And I can giggle at way they keep crying 'owwwwwwww' every time I get them.

Ah, the parents of the baby, what sweet music they make...

Sitting Up Straight

2008-12-22T18:58:00.003Z

I am now spending more time on the floor than before, because I am the big sitting up straight baby. Mummy sits me down amongst a nice pile of cushions with my toys, and I play with them until I get bored, sometimes not falling down for an entire minute or two. Granted, I can't actually sit myself up yet (though I am trying very hard and making the cutest noises in Red-Faced Strain) but I can stay up as long as I want once I'm there. It rocks.

I am also standing up rather well in my new Walker. Unfortunately this means that yes, I managed to kill off the old one. I just bounced and bounced in it too much and the seat started to come away from the frame. It was rather old anyway as it used to belong to my big sister and it had been up in the loft for ages, Mummy said, and if you bounce up and down on an old thing like that it is liable to break eventually.

I hope that doesn't mean that Daddy will break if I bounce up and down on him. He's getting on a bit too, you know.

My big sister's walker, 1997-2008.

Bad Daddy

2008-12-22T18:30:00.003Z

Daddy is sorry.

Daddy is very sorry.

Daddy is very, very sorry.

Very sorry indeed that he hasn't updated the Lulu Blog for such a long time. In his defence, he has been busy listening to Mummy moan that he hasn't updated the Lulu Blog for such a long time.

He has also been busy writing this. He says he has never, ever written so much plot for a LARP. I think he's a bit tired, mentally speaking. And Mummy says he must be mental to write so much plot, though she helped quite a bit. He says some of her plot ideas were nearly as twisted as his, which I think is praise indeed.

Anyway, instead of writing one giant update, he is going to do lots of little ones to share the latest developments in my awesome life with you all while Mummy and Amber sing the Speckled Frogs song and the Bubble song to me. Granted this isn't exactly going to help his concentration, but I'm sure he'll manage...

Photy Goodness

2008-12-03T18:46:00.005Z

"I've got the whole world, in my mouth, I've got the whole wide world, in my mouth..."

"Aaaarrrrrrrrr me hearties! I'm Toastbeard the Pirate, and ye'd better just hand over any valuables before I get ye with me spoon! Milk, nappies, teethin' rings, I'll be takin' it all!"

Pugilism And The Single Baby

2008-12-03T13:35:00.002Z

This week I have been mostly learning how to sit up on my own for the first time, and also splitting Mummy's lip open and breaking her nose. It's a funny shape now but I'm sure it will grow back. It's not as if it hasn't been broken about nine times already.

Mike Tyson, eat your heart out. Eighteen years, and your milk is mine.

Gorgeous Cute Baby In Swan Horror!

2008-11-29T16:56:00.003Z

Witnesses report that a brave Daddy heroically let a swan peck at his arm - twice - to prevent it from possibly doing the same to his cute, gorgeous, insomniac baby girl. It seems the Daddy and baby (with big sister) were at 'the bridges' in Christchurch when the swan decided to come out of the water and try to eat their lunches. When they failed to share it grew agitated and was only diverted by some of the duck's bread they had bought. However, our intrepid reporter has discovered that the swan then decided to try to sneak up on the stationary buggy just as the baby was being lifted out for the ritual Feeding of the Birdies, and came within a few inches of the baby's arms.

The Daddy then heroically placed his arm between the baby and the hissing, greedy swan and quickly unstrapped her and lifted her out whilst fending off the nasty swan. He was very brave and noble and wonderful and didn't tell our reporter to say that at all.

They say lightning doesn't strike twice, but our cute and gorgeous reporter's sources tell us that in this case this isn't true. These poor, brave people have been victims of multiple swan attacks on previous occasions.

"I don't know why they seem to target us," said the Daddy, shrugging his ruggedly handsome and noble face. "They must have just got to know our faces by now and that we always have lots and lots of bread because we love feeding the birdies so very very much. And they're such greedygrots that they don't want to wait for us to actually give them the bread."

Have you been a victim of a swan attack too? Are you worried by the possibility of escalating swan attacks? Send your swan attack horror stories to the Editor at tabloidbirdiefrenzies@lulunews.com.

Bournemouth Bournemouth Bournemouth

2008-11-27T08:56:00.004Z

Yes Bournemouth, Lulu was back! You see my big sister had managed to leave her Peebag on the bus (still having trouble getting why she carries a bag of wee around to school three times a fortnight, but there you go) but luckily it had been handed in to the driver and so Mummy and Daddy took me into Bournemouth to get it and decided to make an afternoon of it.

I didn't want to go in the car at first, and had a righteous mimp about it. Well all right, to be precise I didn't want to have any clothes on at all and had a righteous mimp about that, and then had a righteous mimp about getting in my coat and the car seat. However Daddy cheered me up from the back seat by pulling silly faces at me and talking to me as usual and my mood soon improved.

When we got to Bournemouth we parked opposite one of Daddy and Amber's favourite places - the great big Ohdeeon. This is a place where you go to watch films on great big giant screens and you dont have to put tapes or DVDs in them first. Daddy and Amber used to go there on a Sunday morning to see lots of films because they did very cheap movie tickets for kiddiewid films. They even had an 'on the way to the cinema' song and everything!

After Daddy reminisced about the Ohdeeon we walked down to a bookshop called Waterstones and bought some books about children who have misplaced their things but take a while to find them, like "That's Not My Dragon" and "That's Not My Rabbit". I guess they must be for my sister as she is always losing things. Maybe there's one called "That's Not My Peebag".

I started to get a bit mimpy in Waterstones as Mummy got to the counter then asked about 10,000 more books. That's what Daddy said, anyway. She said it was only one or two but she was in there an awfully long time so Daddy wheeled me backwards and forwards outside untul she was done.

I was still a bit mimpy when we walked down to get Amber's peebag from the Yellow Bus office near the big Square. I soon got distracted though, as there were lots and lots of things to see. Every year in Bournemouth as December draws near there are lots and lots of new stalls that spring up outside, both in the Square and leading up Commercial Hill. They are all in neat wooden booths that look like mini-cabins, and they sell lots of food and drink and christmassy things for all the people that flood Bournemouth looking for presents at this time of year. People were just starting to put them up when we got there, so if we go back again before Christmas there will be lots and lots of cool food and shiny things to play with, yay Bournemouth!

After going to get the peebag and seeing the stalls being put up, we went inside a shopping mall on Commercial Hill. Mummy went upstairs to the sports shop and Daddy took me into a place called Humv to look at the Metal CDs. Apparently one of his fave bands from when he was young and had hair down to his bottom (still have trouble picturing that) has a new album out and he got all excited, bless him.

However by this point I was getting tired and just like last time everybody seemed far too busy to coo over me, so I started turning heads by conducting our conversation in Yell. Daddy stopped looking through the CDs and talked to me for a minute, and a very miserable looking boy with the floppiest fringe ever bumped into the Tank and gave Daddy a really evil stare, as if it was his fault that he missed seeing a four foot tall ABV (Armoured Baby Vehicle). Daddy politely suggested that if he cut his fringe he might be able to avoid stationary objects, and he stalked off with his lip wobbling.

I think Daddy made him cry. I know I'd cry if I had a haircut that stupid.

We went outside of Humv to wait for Mummy, but she took ages and ages upstairs doing her shopping (again). When she eventually did emerge we went to have our lunch in the Moon! Twas funny, I always imagined it would be more cratery and white, but instead this Moon was full of people having drinkies and nosh.

We found a little table in the corner of the Family Area, and the momentous occasion of my first ever sit down meal occurred. Mummy went to order her and Daddy's food and get some hot water to heat my bottle up, and when she had got it Daddy gave my bottle while Mummy went outside for some potential lung cancer, as Daddy puts it. I really don't think Daddy likes her smoking again, you know.

Well, I can tell you I felt very grown up indeed, having my bottle in a proper restaurant like the grownups do. I am a proper Big Girl now!

Mummy and Daddy both like eating out, as Daddy says that food always tastes better when someone else has cooked it, and Mummy generally adds that with his cooking it's pretty much a certainty. They both like Chinese and Italian food, though Daddy still likes Rice even when he has Italian food. He usually has something meaty whereas Mummy has something Spaghetti-like. His favourite is a special Seafood Risotto, Mummy's is Spaghetti Bolognese. Unfortunately these dishes are from two different restaurants, but that's Mummy and Daddy for you.

After we all had our lunches, we went back home and I fell asleep in the car. It did seem to me that my big sister was back early, and Daddy said that this was because she had been on a whistle-stop tour of lots of different places where people worship God. Or Gods. Or ancestors. I think he must mean like her Dungeons and Dragons playing Lamb worships Azuth. I wonder if she went to an Azuthan Temple?

After all that excitement I really didn't want to go to sleep and kept waking myself up to play with Daddy after my last feed. I managed to get up, do a big stinky weewee so as to require a big bum change, then fight the sleepiness until Mummy got home from hockey practice. It's a great talent of mine, that is.

Today I did really well with my baby rice, and Mummy and Daddy were very pleased. I think they wish taking these luverly solids would help me sleep better, but you can't have everything.

Grandad is very pleased with my insomniac tendencies of course. He says I am his revenge on Daddy for not going to sleep until he was 4 1/2 years old. Daddy says it wasn't his fault, he didn't know better. Grandad says neither do I, so that all works out in the end. Not sure I follow the logic there, but Grandad seems very pleased with it so who am I to argue?

Night night and sleep tight everyone.

Yummy Goodness & Why My Mummy Has To Be A Very Patient Lady

2008-11-23T18:02:00.004Z

I am finally getting into this weaning thing! Baby rice is true yummyness, I have now decided. What helps is that Mummy got my big sister's old baby walker thingy out of the loft and I can sit up in it and play, and eat my food as well as my toys! So this way there isn't as much messyness (as long as they keep the bowl out of my reach of course) and I have discovered that its actually fun to, you know, eat the food instead of just letting it dribble back out again. Or gag on it.

Now Daddy is feeling better and not doing his celebrated 'man coughing up a lung' impression, I have been catching up on playtime. Whether or not I should be doing inconsequential things like sleeping or feeding is frankly irrelevant. I yelled my displeasure for a solid hour yesterday morning when he dared to try and get me down for the post-first-feed nap I hadn't had earlier. Between you and I, I think he was getting a tad frustrated by the end of it all and Mummy very kindly got up out of bed to come and help him out.

Mummy has been helping Daddy lots while he has been ill, he says she is teh star. She has been doing the washing up sometimes (granted this has been on the grounds that there isn't much point getting it clean if he then coughs all over it, but still) and has managed to make his job easier at least once a day by forgetting to boil the water for my feed when he asks to so he has to give me a carton instead. Isn't that generous?

Some mornings she has also got up to me and let him sleep in, like Friday when we take my big sister straight to the swimming pool instead of her getting the bus to school. Well, all right yes he did get up to make sure Amber was ready for school at half past six, but that's not the point. He got to go back to bed again for a whole two hours when we went off to pick up Frankie and go to the pool, so he was quids in there.

In other news, Jacques the Shark accidentally ended up in the washing machine today. He got a teeny tiny bit squidged and Daddy says he now looks like he's had one too many glasses of champagne instead of his usual suave expression. We're still not quite sure how he got there, I think maybe Mummy was trying to get rid of him because she is getting miffed off with Daddy running him through my bathwater whilst chanting the Jaws theme in a French accent. Every time.

Poor Mummy. I don't know where she gets the patience.

A Strong Possibility Of Future Embarassment

2008-11-23T17:55:00.003Z

Daddy says this is the first item in the 'photos to put off the first boyfriend for life' archive. Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

Shooting Star

2008-11-20T22:03:00.003Z

As if seeing Santa the other week wasn't cool enough, last night I was having my evening back garden time with Daddy and we saw an actual shooting star! It went very quickly out from behind the tree and looked like it nearly crashed into a house. Though it was fun to see it, I wouldn't even want that to happen to one of those 'hippees' Daddy doesn't like (who must have really done something to annoy him in the past).

The trees were particularly amazing last night. Even though they don't have any leaves on them now its winter, they looked really eerie all lit up by the big light outside the annoying DIY neighbour's patio door.

We couldn't find the moon, though. It was very, very strange. We cast around, looking up at the sky together for ages. We saw lots of stars, but no lovely big round moon. Amber came out and told us some of their names, then predictably Daddy made up some silly ones like 'Uneven Shiny Line' and 'Big Bright One Next To Two Little Ones'.

Anyway, outdoor nocturnal silliness aside, I've got loads to tell you all about but Daddy isn't feeling all that well still so most of it will have to wait until he's feeling well and truly better. He has a husky voice which is annoying because he can't do so many funny voices for me or sing to me much at all, and his nasty choky fits keep waking me up when I'm asleep in my bouncer. This officially Sucks. I think he may be on the sofa again tonight as well, which means I will only have Mummy to wake up every single hour of the night.

The not sleeping thing is part of the weaning, the paediatrician lady said to Daddy when he took me to see her the other day. So I think Mummy and Daddy kind of wish they'd got started on it a bit earlier, but there you go, you can't have everything in life. Soon I may actually achieve the desired state of eating one part baby rice to making fifty parts mess.

Could happen, you never know.

Daddy Forecast

2008-11-18T18:57:00.002Z

Here is the Daddy Forecast, gurgled by weatherbaby Lulu.

Coughing continues strongly, voice is becoming huskier with the possibility of severe loss just in time for the weekend. Headaches due to excessive coughing and fitting 5'10 frame onto 4 foot sofa increasing steadily, general exhaustion levels also on the rise with strong possibility of abatement tomorrow when I visit Dan and Clo-Clo for the day and he spends it sleeping.

Now I shall hand you back to non-weatherbaby Lulu for a general news update.

Thank you, weatherbaby Lulu.

Bong!

Daddy still sicky.

Bong!

Baby hits six months and starts weaning with varying degrees of success.

Bong!

Baby sees Paediatrician in followup appointment, gets cooed over and pronounced healthy and cute but also awkward and insomniac.

Bong!

Daddy pledges detailed update as soon as he's feeling better.

Bong!

Night night and sleep tight everyone.

My Sister, Poopyhead

2008-11-15T21:18:00.002Z

Daddy says my unfortunate big sister won't thank him for posting this, but I thought the way the seagull managed to just perfectly hit her fringe so there was a big blob of birdy goodness hanging down her fringe in front of her eye was just too good not to share.

In other news, Daddy's sickyness has brought his cough up to the point where he will be on the sofa tonight so he doesn't wake me up. Must be preemptive karma for embarassing Amber like this.

Still Sicky Daddy

2008-11-15T10:22:00.002Z

Well, it hasn't got much better really. Daddy still isn't quite the ticket, and it's getting on my nerves now. He has started making that revolting burbly noise and trying to pull his nose off with that funny white papery stuff that makes pretty patterns on the floor when I knock the roll off the desk. He is also not playing with me all morning like he's supposed to. After the 5am shift this morning I fell asleep after my bottle and when I woke up I wasn't downstairs in my bouncer with him ready to play in that cute bleary-eyed way he has first thing in the morning, I was in my cot again!

I wasn't having that, so I made my presence felt with some judicious random yelling. But then Mummy got up and took me downstairs instead of Daddy. This isn't right, Daddy should be on call when I want my cuddles and silly music videos and other things.

So I mimped. And mimped. And mimped.

My sister got up out of bed after a while and Mummy tried to see if I would play with her. What was she thinking? I wanted my Daddy!

So I mimped. And mimped. And mimped.

Eventually Mummy gave up and got Daddy out of bed, and now, about ten minutes later, I am contented, and shall fall asleep as soon as I have dictated this in my best happy Gurgle.

And Mummy shall be, perhaps understandably, a little bit miffed off.

Sicky Daddy

2008-11-13T22:50:00.003Z

Apologies to all my avid readers, but Daddy isn't very well at the moment so blogging may be light for a couple of days. He is feeling rough enough that Mummy kindly took pity on him and let him sleep for a whole three hours in the daytime today. Shame I'd got him up from 4am really.

I have been giving him lots of cuddles and smiles to cheer him up though, and we have been dancing together to lots of music videos like this one, which he says is one of his top ten songs of all time even though the Youtube version of the video isn't very good quality, and the band are 'a bunch of hippies really', whatever that means . So presumably this must mean he isn't feeling that dreadful really, so I'm sure normal service will be resumed soon.

Night night and sleep tight everyone.

I Saw Santa!

2008-11-13T21:59:00.002Z

I did! Well, alright, my big sister saw him first when I was in the back garden cuddled up to Daddy having my evening constitutional, flying across the sky towards the moon. His big red Santa Suit (which is like my Sleep Suit but bigger and redder and more furry) was winking on and off as the moonlight hit it, and when he flew across the face of the moon I'm sure I could see him waving at me. We get the best moons in our back garden so I could see him really clearly.

Daddy said good girls get lots of presents from Santa. However considering it was 4.30 am last night when he said it after he gave up and brought me downstairs, my hopes aren't high. Damn.

Yorkshire

2008-11-10T21:38:00.004Z

I have returned from the wilds of Yorkshire. And believe me, when I say wild I really mean it as regards the return trip. It took poor Mummy and I a whole nine hours to get back through wind, and rain, and more wind, and more rain.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's rewind back to Friday morning when Mummy and I set off for Yorkshire.

Daddy got me up bright and early for first feed so Mummy could get moving as quickly as she could and avoid the rush hour in the places we'd have to go through to get to the moteyway. I think she actually managed to only come back in to the house to pick up something she'd forgotten once (instead of the usual three or four), that's how ferociously focussed she was.

The weather was gorgeous on the way, and as we wended our way north, and well clear of nasty poopy London (as Daddy calls it) I was so impressed with all the cool landscapes. There were so many different things to look at - new hills, trees, people. The great outdoors, baby! I love it.

Eventually though it was time for me to have my next feed, and we stopped just before a place called Oxfood which presumably has lots of farms in it. I didn't mind stopping to nosh some milkies, but then once I was finished Mummy had the barefaced cheek to try and get some food of her own from somewhere called Macadees.

I didn't like Macadees. It smelled funny, and being in there was stopping me from enjoying the thrill of the open road, or something. I put up with it as we waited in the queue to be served, I put up with the smelliness, I even put up with waiting to go back into the car. But Mummy actually let go of me with one of her hands when she picked her juice up off the counter, and this was just the last straw. So I decided to use my baby martial arts to deliver a swift kick to the offending article and show my displeasure.

Unfortunately it all went a tad wrong. I'm not too sure how I did it, but I kicked at an angle that sent the juice all over Mummy's face. And my face. And my hair.

Mummy? Not impressed, I can tell you.

So there I was, on the way to Yorkshire to meet my cooing public, and now I smelled of orange juice and baby wipes. So I didn't try any more of the old high kicks again. I'm only in my Pink Babygro after all. When I get my Black one I shall be able to aim them perfectly to only get Mummy with a flood of juice and avoid myself.

I fell asleep after a while, quite a long while in fact. By the time I woke up we were well along the Moteyway. This is a very long road with lots and lots of cars on it, and Mummy gets to drive much faster on it, which she is very pleased about. Also it flashed by so fast that I could barely take in all the sights, but there were lots of other cars that seemed to be barely moving at all next to ours. It was very strange, that. The background (trees, fields etc) seemed to whizz by, but the other cars only seemed to be moving a tiny bit. Weird.

And then, after a whole seven and a half hours (apparently) we reached Yorkshire. Yorkshire is where Granny B lives. It is a house with a nice garden next to lots and lots and lots of hills. Because I was still a bit sticky from all the Macadees orange juice I had a special Yorkshire bath, which means I went in the kitchen sink and made a big splashy mess! It wasn't like at home where I have a special green baby bath, and have lots of towels laid down to stop me soaking the carpet. I thought everyone had baby baths, but obviously they do things differently 'north of Watford', as Daddy calls it. Shortly before receiving a ding from Mummy, usually.

When I went to bed I did not like the feel of my travel cot. It was very different to my supersoft bed at home, plus I was still a bit of a snotbox from my cold. So Mummy gave up and laid me down in my beloved bouncer and I passed out almost straight away. It had been a long day's travelling, after all. Apparently Mummy kept waking up to check on me all night, but I didnt stir on account of all that hard looking about and yelling I'd done.

In the morning we went from Yorskhire to the village, which is called Honley. But inevitably Mummy forgot her car keys and so Granny B pushed me along in my cousin Molly's pram and I fell asleep, as I like to do in the Tank. But when I woke up we were somewhere very odd. A lady was pouring water and stuff on Mummy's head, and there were ladies and men with scissors chopping off other people's hair! It was very disconcerting, but I was OK for a while because there were lots of people cooing over me. Some wore funny uniforms and were the people doing the hairchopping, so I was a bit unsure about them. After all I don't want them going near me with those fierce looking scissors, I've barely got any hair to get cut off in the first place!

Anyway, all went well until someone tried to attack Mummy with a very stubby looking object that I recognised. It made a strange noise and it started to blow poor Mummy's hair all over the place. If I hadn't gone completely howl-at-the-moon mad at this I think it would have charged up and blasted Mummy like some sort of weird raygun. I've seen those dodgy sci-fi movies Daddy likes, I know what a raygun looks like and I'm not having anyone point one at my Mummy!

Once I had saved Mummy from death-by-raygun, we went to see Aunty Jayney and Bob next. I was still very upset from the trauma of nearly seeing Mummy blasted into atoms, so when Jayney wanted to snuggle me I really protested. But she is annoyingly persistent and eventually I gave up and allowed her to cuddle me off to sleep for a little while.

I was supposed to meet one of Bob's grandchildren today, but she had the dreaded Chikunpops. Apparently this is a nasty illness that makes you feel really yucky and then go all spotty. Daddy gets very annoyed about it, because he says some people are really silly and think that children can only get it once whereas they can really get it loads of times as not all kinds of Chikunpops are the same kind. So if they are like like the Poppin Chikun then there must be Barbecue Chikunpops and Spicy Chikunpops and that sort of thing, I suppose. Anyway, some people actually bring their babies to see other children who have the Chikunpops so they can get it when they are tiny, which is about the meanest thing I can think of doing ever!

(Daddy's Note: It really is an Urban Myth of the silliest kind that children can only get chicken pox once. Amber has had it three times, I know of one girl who has had it six times. So don't ever, ever hold a 'chicken pox party' unless you want me to come over and make you eat ten snotty hankies by way of a metaphor for what you are doing to your children.)

It was all go today. No sooner had I woken up from my sleep then off we went again, this time to a special sale at the mill that Grandad B works at. All his friends who also work there and other people there to buy woolly things (no sheep for sale though, I was a bit disappointed about that) endlessly cooed over me, so by this point I was cheering up quite considerably. Then we went back to Jayney's to switch cars and left to go to another special Cooing Party. It was organised by a very nice lady called Granny Walker (who isnt Mummy's Granny but seems to get called that anyway and there were loads of people there to coo over me. I was the centre of attention for ages, it was great! True, there was a grownup called Virginia there who seemed to be getting quite a bit of greetings too (something about her 21st, Granny Walker must have a lot of grandchildren then) but really she got much less attention than me.

After my next bottle and a giant poopoo, Mummy took me out into Granny Walker's back garden to see something I've never seen before up this close - a great big horsey! I've seen some go by pulling carriages when I've been sat in the Tank but I never realised just how big they are before. Mummy wouldnt let me touch the horsey's mouth like I do with her and Daddy though because horseys have great big teeth and big flappy lips and I might get swallowed. Urgh, what a yucky thought, I sort of lost the urge to play 'Lets rip your lips off' after that.

Once everyone had had at least one good coo over me we dropped Granny B home and then went to see Grandad B and Granny She and the doggies.

Their two doggies are called Rubble and Freddie. They are both very bouncy and friendly doggies (not like Syco at all) and I played with them for hours. Rubble ate my little feet and made them all slobbery, and Freddie licked at my hands. I giggled like a maniac, they were so funny! Mummy reckons Milton's shares must have climbed after all the sterile wipes she got through, whatever that means.

I even got to pull Freddie's ears, bonus! Then I sat with Granny She and watched Mummy fight Rubble for the doggies new 'unbreakable' chew toy, which seems to be able to make a grown woman sprawl about on the floor playing tug-of-war with a doggie. What a versatile toy it must be. I watched Mummy rolling about and laughed like a drain the entire time.

Next I got to open a present!. It was a snazzy new coat, and I liked it so much that I tried it on straight away and then wore it outside to step into Grandad B's back garden and watch the fireworks go off nearby. I love fireworks - they go bang and pop and fizz and make pretty colours in the sky. Luckily the noise doesn't bother me at all, because I know that the bangs mean there are more pretties on the way.

As the fireworks finished, Grandad B's friends Diane and Robert came and cooed over me, but I was so tired out from all the excitement of the day that I went to sleep when i really shouldn't have done. I was rudely woken by Mummy to go back to Granny B's house to have my last feed of the day. Unfortunately for Mummy because I'd has my Powernap I was still very awake after the last bottle and I didn't want to go to sleep yet, after all this was about as exciting as the busiest day ever! Even after she finally got me down I still woke up at 3am. And 4am. And 5am. And 6am.

I think there was a pattern emerging at this point. Mummy took the hint and got out of bed to give me my first feed shortly afterwards. But joy! My cousin Molly was waiting downstairs for me when I got there, having her breakfast with Granny B. She is a bit bigger than me, she isn't quite big enough to be walking yet but she does crawl a lot. I think Granny B was having trouble catching her so she could give me all the morning smiles I was due.

After I played with Molly for a while Mummy packed all our goodies in the car and we left Yorkshire to see my namesake, Auntie Lucy. She is one of my two Godmothers and she lives with her fiance John in a big building with lots of floors and a really funny glass lift thingy. She is also a gaming and fantasy geek like Daddy, yay! Or not depending on your point of view.

Aunty Lucy also has a nice slidey wooden floor that I got to go dry swimming on. Dry swimming is what happens when a baby knows how to do all the motions to start crawling but hasn't quite figured out how to do them at the same time yet. I'm getting really good at it.

I also got another present from John and Lucy - a Tigger suit! Lucy took some photys of it next to me, but I didn't like it when John loomed over me to take some of the two Lucy's. He is very tall and a bit scary, so I kind of mimped until he took the hint and backed off.

After lunch we said goodbye to Aunty Lucy and John and Mummy said we were leaving Yorkshire and going home, which didn't make much sense because we left Yorkshire and said goodbye to Granny B earlier on. However we were soon on the way as Aunty Lucy lives very near to the Moteyway and that's the speediest way to travel, baby!

At least it is when the wind doesn't roar and the rain doesn't fall down in sheets. You see after we stopped for my next feed, I did a huge weewee shortly afterwards so Mummy had to stop at the next services to change me. And then a few minutes after we got going again I detonated a Size Six in my nappy, just to shake the journey up a bit. Well I wanted the fresh air, didn't I. It's not my fault Mummy wouldn't take the hint.

After all the delays for bum changing we were running later than intended so we were still on the Moteyway when night fell and the rain really hit hard. I didn't like this at all, as now I couldn't see much of anything and Mummy had to slow down as well, so I screamed for 50 miles straight to make sure my displeasure was fully understood.

However we took a big break just before that Oxfood place again and a funny thing happened. Suddenly Mummy's friend Sam and two of her friends were there, and I got some serious cooing. Now that made me feel much better, I'd gone without a good coo for hours. As Sam lives near us, from then on Mummy followed her car down the roads so she had a good target to aim at. It all turned into a bit of a blur for me afterwards, I think I fell asleep at least once before finally, after nine hours of gruelling travel, we arrived home at Chez Lulu.

When we got there Daddy wasn't very well. It seems he felt very ill in the car coming back from Indiecon and had been laid down for a couple of hours before we got home. So there was poor exhausted Mummy coming indoors and wanting to hand me over to Daddy, and Daddy thinking he was going to throw up any minute when I got all excited and started kicking at his tummy while he gave me a welcome home cuddle.

I decided to make them feel better by not going to sleep for ages, as I figured they could use the company to cheer them up. Oddly enough they didn't seem to appreciate the gesture all that much, the ungrateful pair.

So that was my trip to Yorkshire. I enjoyed it very much up until the darkness and the rain fell on the way home, and I'm sure I'll have forgotten about that part soon. And so will Mummy once her ears have stopped bleeding from all the screaming.

Night night and sleep tight everyone.

No Matter What Daddy Says...

2008-11-06T20:58:00.002Z

...I don't see the problem with weeing everywhere just as he has finished drying me after bathtime (so he had to change his trousers, at least it wasn't a poopoo). After all, Mummy always says when a girl's got to go, a girl's got to go...

Space Baby

2008-11-06T20:00:00.002Z

My sister has taught me how to play Space Baby in my bouncer. We wave my arms and blast off into space, and then we pilot our bouncy spaceship to all kinds of exotic planets. We visited Planet Baby and bought a dummy, then went to Planet Chunder and bought a Whoozit. Then we went to Planet Lucyhome and bought a Tinklebunny! It cost me five Dribbles.

Mummy calls Tinklebunny (who makes a pleasant tinkly noise when I shake him) Jinglebunny and gives Daddy very black looks when he doesn't go along with her.

I love playing with my big sister. I will miss her when I am in Yorkshire this weekend. I won't even be able to tell Daddy much to post on here every day either, but he says Mummy will ring him at least once every hour so she can fill him in.

I slept for ages last night and Daddy actually got something almost resembling a proper night's kip (though my poor sicky Mummy is still coughing and was stuck on the sofa again) after trying a late bedtime to knock me out. I almost managed a Powernap at 8.30 when Daddy took me out the Back Garden to watch the fireworks but he spotted that I was falling asleep and managed to wake me up, curses! He is trying it again tonight to see if I will still stay crashed out and only wake up three or four times like last night.

It's going to be bathtime soon, and I shall splash and splash and splash and splash. It's what I do. I splash, therefore I am, Daddy says. It's as good a philosophy to live by as any I suppose.

Night night and sleep tight everyone.

But Daddy, Mummy Isn't Blonde

2008-11-04T20:00:00.003Z

I don't get it. Why does Daddy keep saying Mummy is having a blonde week? I mean it's not like her hair hasn't gone through a lot of different incarnations since they met - at first it was bright pillarbox red, then red, then black, then black with a red streak, then back in black again, then browner, then her natural brown and even ended up green for Conception when I was in her tummy, like I explained yesterday.

But it's never been blonde.

Sure, she is having a few odd moments. Offering Aunty Chelle a lift home from work when she visited her at Comet and then going straight home and leaving her there, that was a doozy. Going out of the door calling annoyedly that she needed to get going and whatever Daddy was telling her would have to wait whilst he was trying to tell her that she had left her car keys behind, that was another good one. And there have been any number of superficial injuries from banging into things. Also managing to change the central heating settings to turn off the heat by banging the kettle spout into the switch so Daddy and I were somewhat cold this morning, that was a good one.

Bless her, she isn't having a good time.

But she's not blonde, Daddy. I can't imagine where you got that one from.

The End Of An Era (Well, Halfterm Anyway)

2008-11-03T21:57:00.004Z

Yes, I have Officially caught Mummy's cough. This Officially Sucks, and means it's going to be another very long night for my dear parents. They are starting to look a bit ragged around the edges now. Daddy is even drinking Coca Cola for the caffeine content seeing as he doesn't normally touch coffee with a ten-foot pole.

My big sister goes back to school tomorrow. This also sucks. She has played with me lots and lots this halfterm, and changed more of my nappies than Mummy did today! She is teh Star.

I wouldn't go off to sleep this afternoon, so Daddy sung me that weird lullaby he likes. I don't know what the words all mean but it's very soothing and often calms me down and helps me get my Powernaps. Mummy frowns if she's there, because apparently she doesn't think all the words are 'entirely appropriate' but Daddy takes the pragmatic, if somewhat suicidal attitude that 'it calms her down so bog off'.

We all went down to Mudeford Quay today and fed the ducks, swans, cygnets, seagulls, weird looking big seagulls with grey hook beaks, moorhens and other feathery creatures. The seagulls really swarmed and whenever one managed to grab a piece of bread from the air and fly off with a pack of his friends in pursuit Daddy amused us by doing a racing commentary to accompany the action.

At one point Mummy thumped Amber upside of the head with a loaf of bread when she kept dangling slices over Mummy's head and seeing if the seagulls would do their business on her. The bag split and slices of bread flew everywhere. Daddy laughed so hard I jiggled up and down so fast I could barely focus on all my seagull friends, though he says this is Setting A Bad Example. I don't know why, I think it's all very funny just like he does and that can't be bad.

All in all despite the coughyness it's been a good halfterm with my big sister, all things considered. And I'm off to Yorkshire with Mummy this weekend to be cooed over by all the Mummyrellies while Daddy and my big sister go to Indiecon, which Daddy won a free pass for by answering lots of questions in a quiz. Yay for Daddy and his geeky knowledge of roleplaying games!

Night night and sleep tight everyone.

The Coughing Cavalier And The Fairy Dressmaker

2008-11-02T07:51:00.003Z

Mummy isn't very well. She has a nasty cough and is all snuffly. Because of this she hasn't slept in the bedroom for two nights. It's miffed me right off because Daddy just isn't as good at popping my dummy back in and patting me back off to sleep when I howl at the moon. Plus of course with Mummy not there, there isn't anyone to poke him in the ribs and stop his snoring. Terrible it is, like a warthog being dragged through a threshing machine.

On Friday afternoon Daddy and Amber took me to Granny and Grandad's along the beach in the Tank. I was already in a crabby mood however, after Daddy did a great big sneeze before we got in the car down to Mudeford Quay and made me jump. And Yell. A lot. So I was already feeling seriously snippy and eventually Daddy had to take me out of the Tank and carry me for half a mile or so until we reached the part where we have nowhere else we can go but the Beach.

Well, I wasn't best pleased to get put back in for that part, no sir. I howled, but Daddy was his usual awkward self and strapped me in anyway. This might be because he knows me very well, and knows that after about one flat minute of jouncing and bouncing on the sandy beach, I'll go to sleep for sure. And I did, too.

When I woke back up later on after Daddy had managed to maneouvre the Tank over the sand, he seemed to be a lot redder than before. Funny that. Still, he says it helped keep him warm after shaving his head about 15 minutes before we set out. Maybe that was why I saw his scalp turning blue.

We didn't stay at Granny's too long after Daddy and Amber had their lunch there, with me naturally sat on Daddy's knee and making all possible effort to either a) pull the mat and everything on it off the table or at the very least b) give Daddy indigestion. Ah well, at least one out of two isn't bad.

On Friday night it was Halloween, but as Daddy was out Gaming with Uncle Julian and Amber was at Granny's, there was no trick or treating going on. Besides, Daddy used to take Halloween quite...seriously, and he thinks that only new people knock on the door now on account of the things he has done to trick or treaters in previous years. My big sister says that not many people dare to pick marshmallows off the point of a bloodstained kitchen knife and so they go where the pickings are a bit less fraught with nappy-wetting terror.

The first year Mummy moved down from Yorkshire, when trick or treaters knocked on the door Mummy would open it and run away screaming in fake terror while Daddy chased her with the kitchen knife and then dragged her back inside, still screaming. Anyone who knocked on the door a second time would get sweeties.

I do wonder about my Daddy sometimes.

Anyway, despite Mummy putting a big sign on the door asking people not to knock on the door after my bedtime, a very silly boy who was more than big enough to read the sign still did, and he really banged on it too. It made me stir, and Mummy was very annoyed. But as I subsided again, he banged on the door again even harder than the first time, and she opened it and said some mean but justifiable things to him and his mummy who was standing across the road. Something about having him spend a bit more time in school and learning to read instead of trick or treating I think it was. Daddy thought it was harsh, but also fair.

Yesterday Mummy managed to fight through the unbearable ickyness of being and went to play her first hockey match with her new team. She said she felt much less ill running around in a wet field than she did when she came back home. Daddy said she must be allergic to my sister, which earned him a ding from both of them. I really do wonder about my Daddy sometimes.

Last night's bathtime was great fun too. I managed some serious legkicking and got water over my sister, which was good stuff. But then Daddy had a bit of a moment with the talc and it kind of exploded out of the container in his face as Mummy had mixed them up and this one doesn't have solid sides. And judging by the amount of talc on his trousers, T-Shirt and face he must normally squeeze the solid one quite hard when he opens it up.

Really am wondering about Daddy now.

It got better though. I must have managed to loosen the plastic plug thingy on the bath just as Daddy lifted me out to dry me. So it was juuuuuuuust ready to pop out of place as poor Daddy lifted it off the floor.

I shall draw a polite veil over the proceedings in the next few moments. Let's just say I don't think I ever want to know what some of those grownup words mean.

Later on Mummy went off to a Halloween Party (just for an hour due to her ickyness) at her friend Sam's. She wore her short skull dress and her cool Vampire cloak that Aunty Fi made her. Who's Aunty Fi?

This is Aunty Fi. She is the bestest dressmaker ever. She made Mummy's wedding dress and makes all her own costumes for those LARP thingies Daddy likes to do, as well as other people's.

This is Mummy's Vampire Cloak that Aunty Fi made. Isn't it cool?

After she passed her driving test the first long trip Aunty Fi took was to come down here to sunny Christchurch to see me. She is one of the best cooers ever. Mummy and Daddy say they are very lucky that she is their friend. Apparently when they first met Daddy was a Dwarf and Aunty Fi was a fairy who had lost her kingdom in a game of Poker.

Still worrying quite a lot about Daddy actually.

It was at this Conception thingy that Mummy and Daddy met at. That's me in the picture that flashes up near the top of the screen on the website, by the way. Only you can't see me because I'm in Mummy's tummy still.

Well I'd better go off for my last feed now. I think poor Daddy is experiencing typing fatigue as I've been demanding enough that it's taken him most of the day to write this post. Bless.

Night night and sleep tight everyone.

A Change Daddy Can Believe In

2008-10-30T21:42:00.004Z

Today was an unusual day in many respects. For starters, Mummy got up with me at 7 and gave me my first feed instead of Daddy, I think my constant wake-up-and-howl-at-the-moon-for-no-apparent-reason routine from 2am had left her with a 'what the hell' attitude in the end. She even took me out to Sainsbury's after my feed so Daddy could catch up, so he got to sleep in until 9, the lucky thing.

Once Daddy got up I had lots of time playing with him and my big sister. She has been very cuddly with me today, we have had lots of quality time singing silly songs and playing with my toys. Daddy says she has been a brilliant help today and has let him do lots of little jobs.

I have also been in my new bouncer as much as I am allowed to be today, spinning and dancing and generally grinning until the dribble hits the floor unnoticed. It rocks my world.

I have been cunningly waiting until mid-feed again to ambush Daddy with nappy-based detonations. It's so much fun lying in the crook of his arm and watching his expression change as I fire off and he starts wondering whether or not its escaped into my trousers.

It did at lunchtime (after Mummy went back to bed with a sore throat after yelling herself hoarse at hockey practice last night), hehehehe. I managed to get it on the Booties-She-Can't-Take-Off, which was very annoying for Daddy as he'd only just got them washed and dried after the last time. When will he realise that I just don't like doing the whole 'clothes' thing?

After lunch I had a little sleep because I wanted to get in on the act with Mummy, but just as Daddy was about to make himself lunch the old Daddy Dinners Radar went off and I woke myself up. I'm just too damn good...

I was in very vocal mood after my lunchtime Powernap, so I decided to discuss the likely outcome of the US Elections with Daddy and Amber. In Yell. I woke Mummy up when I did it, my bad.

Daddy says what he had to deal with during my lunchtime feed is the only kind of Change He Can Believe In.

After I woke Mummy up Daddy took me up so I could have a cuddle and apologise, while he made his lunch. But she stayed in bed with me and gave me some toys to play with, and it was just so warm and cosy in there with her that I went to sleep all over again and stayed down for over an hour while she snuggled me. This meant that Daddy and Amber could have cuddles and play computer games together, which is good as she is on holidays from Big Big School this week and we all want to make the most of it.

Of course for Mummy and Amber, making the most of it seems to mainly consist of making really really sticky and yummy chocolate cakes that Daddy can't have because they will upset his tummy, and then waving them under his nose and saying 'Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm' a lot. Daddy is making some really quite scary threats to try and make them stop, but they just keep on grinning and saying how yummy everything tastes.

When they brought in the saucepan with the chocolate sauce in it to show him he started muttering about that divorce thing again. I really must find out what that means.

After my 5 o'clock feed I had Bath Time. Bath Time is great stuff, I always manage to soak Daddy as much as possible. Last week I got him all wet and after he changed his trousers he sat down to change my nappy then realised he was sitting on the towel he had put down to catch all the water that got over the edge of my baby bath earlier. Poor Daddy.

This time I had all my Zoggs in the bath. I have three of them - Sven Penguin, Jacques le Shark and the Zogtopus. Tonight I really wanted to eat Jacques' Fin, which Daddy says is a delicacy in some countries. Aren't I all sophisticated with the international cuisine there?

After I had had a good splashabout, Daddy held me while Mummy washed my hair. This is not my favourite part of the whole bathing experience, and boy did I let them know how I felt about it. Still, I always have fun when Daddy lays me down for drying out afterwards. He wraps me in the towel and rubs me dry, then assumes his long-suffering expression as I throw myself onto my Tummy just as he is trying to put the Talc on it.

I always seem to end up with Daddy blowing talc out of my tummy button. I have a proper Innie, and it does tend to get filled up with the talc when I wont stay still. Which is every time really, now I come to think of it.

After my bath Mummy went off to the pub to see Dan, so it was just the three of us. I was enjoying a cuddle with my big sister so much that I fell asleep on her - right before my last feed. In my state of being 95% asleep, I could just make out Daddy explaining what a pain I am to get to sleep if I have a nap before that last feed, so Amber woke me up again. I was not impressed, and vented my lack of impressedness in the time honoured fashion.

One major Yell later, and it was time for Amber to go and shower, and for me to have my last feed. I scoffed it down whilst Daddy carried on talking to his friend from America, Daphne, on the puter. They discussed how cute Mummy and Amber and I am, and lots of that Pottylicks stuff that Daddy and Grandad talk about a lot.

In the end I was so shattered that after I had said goodnight to Amber and Daddy zipped me into my sleepsuit and laid me down in my cot I barely had time to dictate this in Gurgle. It's been a long and busy day, and I have to get my head down now so I can be fresh in the morning after waking Mummy and Daddy up every hour of the night.

Night night and sleep tight everyone.

Lulu Of The Dance

2008-10-29T15:13:00.003Z

This afternoon I have experienced true bliss for the first time. The door bouncer thingy we got from Clo-clo is just the bestest game ever. I floated like a spacebaby and spun around to check out the spinniness of the washing machine then spun back to see Mummy, Amber and Daddy. Then Mummy lowered it a bit so my little feet could touch the ground and instead of floating I started bouncing!

If I pointed my little toesies I could push myself back up and do funny little leapy movements like one of those people on the telly who dance about looking like they have something shoved where the poo comes from (as Daddy so elegantly puts it). Mummy pointed out to him that I am technically part-Irish as Mummy's biololological Mummy is from Ireland, so it must be in my blood. Daddy said that that kind of dancing is actually about as truly Irish as his left armpit. Maybe he has a four-leaf clover growing in there?

High Arc Trajectory

2008-10-29T07:56:00.003Z

By way of a wake-up request I managed to throw my dummy out of the cot this morning and hit Mummy right on the head!

When I grow up I think I shall be like Daddy's friend Murray.

(Daddy's Note: The rest of Murray's site is most definitely neither safe for work nor for those of a Leftist disposition with any form of heart condition. Don't say I didn't warn you...)

The Quest For Peppa Pig

2008-10-28T20:44:00.003Z

Today was a Big Day Out. Mummy and I said goodbye to Daddy and Amber after my mid-morning feed and we went over to Dan's to see Clo-clo.

Clo-clo is Dan's daughter. She is bigger than me, a whole year and a half old. She is very, very blonde and curly and is lots of fun. She did get a bit jealous when I showed off my new command of the English language by calling Dan 'daddy' fifteen times, but apart from that she was very friendly as always. She shares her toys with me and is very generous when I come to see her.

When we were at Dan's we watched Dora the Explorer together and we each had one of Mummy's knees to sit on and bounced and danced to the music. Then Chloe and I both had a cuddle with Dan and Chloe's cousin Charlie took lots of pictures of us.

Charlie is even bigger than Clo-clo, he is a whole three years old! Which thinking about it makes Mummy quite old, and Daddy positively ancient.

We went to some new shops that I had never been to before next, but it was a bit boring so I fell asleep for a while. After I woke up it was very weird, we were all just standing around doing nothing that I could see, and so were the other people near us.

Then something new and exciting happened. One of the great big cars which dont make the passengers wear seatbelts and which you have to pay money to ride in came along, and we all got on it! Well, this was all very new. There were lots of people and new things to look at, and I could even look out the window like I do in our little car.

We rode into a place called Pool in the great big car. I looked to see whether it would be very wet or not but apart from a bit of rain it was barely even damp, so it was a very silly name for it. When we got there we met up with Dan's niece Charlie, who is a Big Big Girl like Amber. By this time I was very hungry, so we sat on the in a place called the Dolphin Centre and Mummy fed me. Like Pool, the Dolphin Centre has a silly name because there wasn't a single dolphin to be seen splashing in the fountains. I was quite disappointed about that.

After my feed we went to look for a genuine celebrity - Peppa Pig was in town! Clo-clo really likes Peppa Pig, and Daddy has let me watch her on Milkshake a couple of times in the morning. But when we got to her Travel Pen (which must be like my Travel Cot but muddier) there were so many people queueing up to see her and have their photy's taken that Mummy and Dan gave it up and just held us up high so we could see her.

She was Big, and Pink. Yeah. That was it, bit of a letdown really, all things considered.

For everyone else's lunch we went to Burger King. Everything there looked really yummy, especially the leaflets and napkins, several of which I attempted to nosh down while everyone else ate the boring stuff like burgers and fries.

After lunch it was time to go and see Dan's sister Vicki, who has two tiny babies who were born at the same time a few weeks ago. Chelsea and Charlie are also her children, and they have another sister who is also an Amber like my big sister. Dan said it was only a ten minute walk from Pool, but Mummy says she could have killed him because it was over thirty minutes. She says he has no sense of time at all, but that seeing as he works in a shop where he can go an hour without a customer coming through the door that isn't surprising.

So anyway, over hill and over dale we went, and by the time we got there I was so hungry that I had got a big bubble of air in my empty tummy and gave Mummy a huge, window-rattling burp after my feed. I think it made Clo-clo jump.

After my feed I played lots with Charlie and sat in a very unusual juddery bouncer. I thought it was great, but it did make the photos Charlie took of me very blurry unfortunately. Considering he is only three he does seem to like taking lots and lots of pictures.

When we went back to Dan's afterwards I was very tired from all the excitement, but I soon felt better when I got to have a go in a another special bouncer. This one was even better than the vibrating one, it goes in a doorway and you can sit right up in it and bounce about! Dan has given it to me as Clo-clo is too big for it now, so if I play my cards right and actually sleep for more than forty minutes at a time Mummy and Daddy might let me have a go on it tomorrow.

This week Mummy and Daddy have been mostly exhausted.

It was getting late, so Mummy and I got in the car and drove home. I tried really hard to go to sleep but Mummy wouldn't let me because it was getting close to last feed, and if I have a Powernap right before that I am a nightmare to get to sleep. Least thats what Daddy tells me, anyway.

When we got home I got lots of cuddles with Daddy and my big sister. They had really really missed me and were very pleased I was home. They were also pleased that I had been so well-behaved today - did you notice that not once have I had to reluctantly admit to kicking off whilst we were out? I've just been that good.

Daddy says I am teh Angel.

Daddy and Amber were also really pleased that I said 'hiya' to Chelsea earlier, too. I am getting good at this Big People language, though I still prefer a learned, erudite discourse in Shriek really.

I was so happy with all the attention that I detonated a serious Size Seven in my nappy right before my last feed, and had to dictate the last of this post in Red-Faced Strain. Mummy said it actually felt like her sinuses were stinging. Daddy said not to be such a big wuss.

I am very very tired now, so I think I shall fall fast asleep with that final feed. Hopefully I will be as good overnight as I have been through the day and Mummy and Daddy can catch up on a bit of sleep.

Night night and sleep tight everyone.

The First Word

2008-10-26T22:47:00.002Z

At 5 months and nineteen days old there was the Word. And the Word was 'Daddy'.

Grandad says we're on the slippery slope now, and no one will be able to shut me up until the 22nd century.

That Is Illogical, Mummy

2008-10-25T22:51:00.002+01:00

We got two £75 discount vouchers from Comet in the post today. Mummy says this means when she has finished her Driving Instructor Training we can now pay £120 more for a new TV than we were going to before we got the vouchers.

Daddy says that's insane. Mummy says it's Female Logic and mustn't be questioned. What do you think?

In other news, we went to Christchurch today to help my big sister spend some of her birthday money. She bought some cool things and got herself a Raspberry Ripple Milkshake from the Chilly Wizard man. I was looking quite carefully, but he still didn't have a pointy hat or a staff so I call shenanigans on him being magical. I think he just makes really yummy ice cream.

Today I have been very mimpy indeed. My toothies are being a pain in the, erm, mouth. So I am spreading the pain around by doing most of my business in Shriek all say long. I even managed to give Daddy a headache by sheer volume earlier, that'll teach him not to pop those teeth for me when I want him to. I don't care how he does it, I'll take pliers or experimental dental surgery at this point.

I also managed to really get him good earlier by pooing nicely whilst he was in the middle of changing the first half of the poopy nappy. He shouldn't have been quite so quick to lay me down, should he? I mean you'd think he'd have figured out what a little wotsit I am with the nappy changes by now, and pooing in mid-change takes me to a whole new level of sheer, bloody-minded awkwardness. That's what Daddy says anyway, and as his dutiful little girl who am I to argue?

See the butter in my mouth? Not melting.

Mummy and Amber are going to do lots of baking in half-term. So they picked up a recipe book in Christchurch and we all went to Sainsbury's to pick up ingredients before my last feed. Mummy and Daddy had a playfight over who got to push me when we were in there. In the end Daddy jumped up on Mummy and she nearly had to give him a piggyback until we got home. At one point he grabbed the trolley and backed off, calling 'Toro, Toro!' and got a ding. I don't know what a Toro is, but I don't think Mummy appreciated being compared to one. Silly Daddy.

I didn't want to go to bed when we got back though. Mummy and Daddy ought to have figured out that if I manage to get a little 15 minute Powernap before my last feed I'm going to be impossible to get down straight away. And tonight I managed to drop off on the way back from Sainsbury's.

So in the end after much upset and Headflinging upstairs in the bedroom, Daddy took me out the back garden in my baby sleeping bag and my famous yellow blanky. He stood so the wind wouldn't get me very much and cuddled me and sang to me until I went to sleep. I must find his singing and the sound of the wind whistling through the trees very soothing indeed.

Night night and sleep tight everyone.

Violence, Mayhem, Ducks

2008-10-24T18:52:00.003+01:00

Utter chaos ensued at Mudeford Quay tonight. First Daddy was trying to get revenge on Amber for trying to annoy him by talking through his headphones at him in the car, and he let the car door swing back when she had her hands full of bread so she'd have to put the bread down to open it again. But she didn't notice.

Ding!

Then whilst nursing her sore head, she tripped up coming out of the car and the loaf she was holding swung out and hit Daddy right between the legs.

Ding!

Then when we got the harbour, Amber wouldn't stop singing the really annoying bit from 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' so Mummy advanced on her and swung a loaf at her - but she tried to avoid it, tripped over and went backwards onto the floor.

Ding!

But it wasn't over, because Mummy was laughing so hard by now that she wasn't paying very much attention to where she was throwing, and she hit a duck in the beak with a slice of bread.

Ding!

I consider myself rather lucky to have escaped the carnage. Specially as Daddy kind of owed me one for managing to get poo all over him earlier when I had an escaped detonation and I kicked my little poopy legs at him.

I'd had some good fun with him out the garden before I fired it off though. We even saw Katie do her first poo of the day in the Poo Pit when we swapped the bunnies out together. She squatted down on the edge and then gradually kind of edged backwards, inch by inch before deciding she'd found a comfy spot. It was very strange how precise she was.

Daddy was back at his silly gaming tonight though, playing his 'bluff Yorkshireman' Albert Woolshaggery in Uncle Julian's Hawkmoon game. Uncle Julian has assured Mummy that he really did randomly role a Grim Northerner and this wasn't just him being mean about Yorkshireness. What are the odds?

So anyway, because Daddy wasn't here naturally I decided I would have some quality time with just myself and Mummy after Amber went to bed. So I stayed awake till gone 9 even though my last feed was at 8, wasn't that kind of me?

Night night and sleep tight everyone.

Today I Have Been Mostly Napping

2008-10-23T23:22:00.004+01:00

I got woken up first thing in the morning at 6 o'clock by Mummy and Daddy today. Actually woken up before I had slept my fill, can you imagine that? I was so shocked at this blatant flouting of the parent-baby conventions that I just noshed the entire thing without really remembering to be awkward about it. But the one good thing was that I got to have some sissy time with Amber before she went off to school.

Even more shocking was what happened at 8 o'clock - Mummy got up and let Daddy go back to bed. The world is turning upside down, it really is.

The reason I was woken up bright and early was that I was supposed to go to baby swimming with Mummy and get in the pool at 11, so I needed my feed to be just after 9. But dyu know what, I really didn't feel in the mood today, so I decided to detonate an actual Size Eight in my nappy at 10 o'clock to help delay matters and then decided to use my baby self-hypnosis to put myself to sleep just at the wrong time. So no swimming for Lulu today, especially when Mummy realised that she would have to wake Daddy to get towels out of the airing cupboard to go swimming with anyway.

So after the deadline was finished, I woke myself up and pretended to be sooooooo upset about missing swimming, and we went to wake Daddy. He was pretty hammered still by the looks of it - and he made a very rude gesture indeed at Mummy when she suggested that I should jump on him to wake him up properly.

After lunch we went to Mudeford Quay - and I promptly fell asleep in the car for a while. Mummy and Daddy just stayed in the car and chatted while I had my Powernap, and by the time I woke up we needed to get back for the next feed. This was mean, I wanted to play with the gulls and the swans! So when we got home I expressed my displeasure in a very polite and reasoned manner for the next couple of hours. Right in Daddy's ear.

Daddy rallied magnificently though, and off he went to fetch Amber from the bus stop. When they came back I had loads of Big Sister Time in her room. We played lots of funny games and I managed to cuddle lots of toys, bonus!

I love my Big Sister Time. She is helping me learn my words just like Mummy and Daddy are, and she is also coming up with lots of new choruses of Coming Round The Mountain. And she has more cuddly toys than you can shake a stick at, what a lucky thing she is. Soon I'll be big enough to play with Skullsplitter the Barbarian Baby Bear as well, that'll be so cool!

Well I thought I was going to have to give it up and miss Mummy at bedtime tonight, as normally on Thursday night she goes to the pub to see her friend Dan, but as luck would have it he was doing an early shift today and Mummy had forgotten, so she suddenly got a phone call at 6.15 and went rushing out of the door after realising she was very late indeed. So what this meant was that she would be back at 7.30 instead of 9.30.

I was so chuffed I forgot to be a total pain in the bum with my next feed and fell asleep with it. Damn!

Mummy came back from the pub as she was supposed to, but her tummy was feeling very wobbly and so she couldn't snuggle me. So here she was, unexpectedly available, and I couldn't take advantage of it. I was really, really not impressed and I let Daddy know about it in no uncertain terms. I think even he didn't know some of the ruder Shriek words I was using. In the end he had to sit me down in front of the Pretties he sometimes puts on the puter for me so I could watch them dance in time to his noisy music and play with the keyboard.

Its amazing how many times I could hit just the right keys to mess up his listening pleasure.

However, despite the setback of Mummy's tummy I was determined to have my last feed with her, so I decided to be a real pain for Daddy so she would offer to take me instead. And my cunning plan worked really well too, as that's exactly what happened. However by the time my feed had finished Mummy's special telly programme with all the dead people and the lady whose boots Daddy is always admiring in it had started, so I was denied my bedtime Mummy snuggles and had to settle for Daddy instead.

I tried to fight the sleep, but my heart just wasn't in it. My little cot is just too comfy for words, and I'd defy anyone not to crash out in it. So as Daddy types this I will be fast asleep, waking up between now and the morning only to yell blue murder should I decide I want the dummy back if it has dissappeared from the vicinity.

Night night and sleep tight everyone.

Mummy Passed The Test, And Will Remain Nothing Like Galadriel

2008-10-23T22:23:00.006+01:00

I went to the library with Daddy yesterday. Mummy needed to get prepared for her Uber Driving Theory Test Of Doom and I was being a bit of a mimper because I knew she was going out soon and wouldn't be back for a long time, so he strapped me into the Tank and off we went, leaving her to stress in peace.

Daddy seems to know a lot of people in Christchurch. It seems like every two minutes we were stopping to chat with pregnant ladies, older ladies, ladies with children and even the lady behind the counter in the library started handing him things when we were in there. Daddy ummed and aahed and wasnt sure whether or not to tell Mummy that the pregnant lady's baby was actually overdue but her bump only looked like Mummy's did at about four months.

When he did later on, Mummy just said 'I hate you' and walked off in a huff. Daddy should have resisted the temptation, but then Daddy is really, really bad at that.

Anyway, after we got back from our walk I had a little sleep after crashing out in the Tank, which is definitely more comfy than the ones Grandad used to drive by all accounts. When I woke up Mummy still wasn't home. I was so outraged that I completely refused to nosh the feed Daddy gave me and I think he felt a bit stressed that I hadn't had any lunch. Neither had he of course, serves him right for not getting Mummy back quicker.

However Daddy is nothing if not persistent, and he calmed me down and stopped me screaming my head off eventually and got me a fresh bottle. I suddenly realised there was a big hole in my tummy where the milk should be and actually noshed this one. I think Daddy felt quite chuffed.

In the middle of that feed Mummy rang in with good news - she scored 95% on her test! Daddy was very pleased for her and when we finished the feed he gave me a burping and then stood me on the desk in front of him and we did a little victory dance to Adrenalin O.D.'s version of the Baby Elephant Walk. This, however, shifted what was also part of the reason I hadn't wanted the first feed.

One poopy nappy change later (and my wasn't Daddy lucky that Mummy came in part way through to stop me flinging myself happily about and making things considerably harder than they needed to be) and it was shading towards one of the favourite parts of my day - Amber Time!

Whenever Daddy can, he goes down to the bus stop to pick up my big sister from there so he can have some nice time with her as she walks back and find out how her day at Big Big School has been. Today however she had forgotten her bus fare so Mummy took me in the car to pick her up so daddy could get on with some housework. But even though I didn't really feel like a drive, Mummy made me go with her anyway. How dare she not take the hint of nearly an hour's solid screaming?

Later on and Mummy was nursing a headache which had mysteriously appeared during the ride to Amber's school. Because we were now having a mild evening, Daddy took me out the back garden in my yellow blanky and Amber came out with us. At first Daddy pretended he couldn't find her by always turning away from her and making her do really silly things to stay in our sight. This made me giggle a lot.

Then Daddy decided to do his best impression of a man called Davidattunburr. He put on a very breathless and silly voice and pretended to be hunting Amber, only he called her the 'very rare Lesser Grinning Idjit' and said she could be tracked by her spoor of coats, purses and pencil cases. Amber tried very hard to be outraged but ended up not being able to help giggling in the end. It seems my sissy is being a bit careless with some of the things she takes to school, and Daddy is getting a bit miffed off with her about it.

We had a really good time out in the garden. When we got back in however I made really sure that there would be no escape to hockey practice for Mummy and her headache, no sir! So I detonated a serious Size Seven in my nappy, which then exploded out onto my leg. And so Mummy helped Daddy by holding my little tentacles away from my bottom. By the time we were done and I had screamed a bit more it was late enough and Mummy's head was banging enough that she blew out hockey practice, yay for me!

So at bedtime I got Mummy cuddles even though I wasn't supposed to - I think I'm getting rather good at this...

Beaches, Buggies, More Shiny Things, Apologies And Shameless Plugging

2008-10-21T19:49:00.004+01:00

I walked the beach to Granny and Grandad's today! Yep, I got to do that thing that Daddy and Amber often do but Mummy will never do.

Well, I say walked, what that means obviously is that Daddy pushed me along in the Tank for ages and ages and I got to enjoy sun, sea and sand. Bits of it must have hurt as well, cos even though the Tank is an all-terrain vehicle with big wheels and suspension and all that jazz, its still not easy pushing a quarter-ton of buggy and baby through soft sand for several hundred metres, which is what Daddy had to do when we got to the bit where Amber and Daddy normally play chicken with the tide (and Amber loses, bless her).

Pity in many ways that I slept through most of it really.

I missed the Big Digger doing its digging too, Daddy says. I reckon I would have liked that a lot. Ah well, maybe next time. What I did manage to see was the two Coastal Protection chappies and their doggy. Their doggy is a big black doggy, and Amber and Daddy met them before when they were having a tea break by the bench Amber and Daddy had a rest on.

You see Amber and Daddy were admiring the doggy, who was sat behind their van. Then the two men started the engine and Daddy jumped up and yelled at them because he thought they were going to leave the doggy behind or even worse maybe run her over! But it turns out that she is used to them doing this and she runs along the promenade behind the van all day when they are working. She looked like a very good runner when Daddy pointed her out to me.

The waves were really pounding in, and Daddy kept trying to get me to look out at the sea. But I preferred looking up at the cliffs, because Daddy told me they have loads and loads of wild bunny rabbits in them. Apparently the bunnies make loads of burrows in the lower slopes of the cliffs (and trust me, there's a good reason why the place Granny and Grandad live is called 'Highcliffe'). I was a bit disappointed when we couldn't spot any, but then again Daddy was looking out over the sea and being all awestruck and wussy so he probably wouldn't have seen anything if ten of them had stood on the slopes and recited Pocoyo scripts with a bullhorn.

Once we reached the end of the promenade we had to go up the roadway that the Diggers and the Coastal Protection people use to get down to the beach. It is very steep indeed and Daddy was looking a little...red when we reached the end.

When we got to Granny's she cooked Daddy his favourite lunch - boiled egg sandwiches. We sat in the dining room like civilised folk in Grandad's computer chair and I demonstrated my alien superstrength by managing to grab and pull the entire tablecloth with everyone's lunch on it several inches towards me. I'd have had the whole lot down if Daddy hadn't stopped me, the big spoilsport.

I actually let Grandad have a good cuddle today for once. It was only when he put me higher up to lay my head on his shoulder that I realised that Daddy had strayed at least six feet away from me. I wasn't having any of that nonsense so I let the bottom lip wobble like the opening note of a dodgy folk song, then let rip.

Daddy cuddles are just better.

Later on Mummy came over to Granny's after finishing her revision for the day. She and Daddy took me to see the other purveyor of the shiny things, not-Auntie-Christine. She is the lady that sold Amber her huge poster of 75 gemstones when Amber was only about five and was really amazed at how much she already knew about shiny things. She has a huge black doggy called Hendrix who is sometimes in the shop and is really sweet.

Unfortunately I wasn't...brilliantly behaved, let's say. After a few minutes of cooing Mummy took me over to see some of the gemstones in the thick glass containers just in case there happens to be one or two that Amber actually doesn't have, and I managed to get hold of the Carnelian container and sort tip them all onto the floor. A bit.

Daddy did that thing where his eyebrows go up at Mummy and explained that it might be a bit better if I wasn't allowed within tentacle's reach of anything grabbable. So Mummy handed me over to him and he showed me more shiny things. From a distance.

Thing was, I was feeling a bit hard done by. It was only one container full after all, its not like they were really shiny, after all. So I decided to show my displeasure with a nice big chunder. All over Daddy's arm. And down his trousers. And on the carpet too.

Mummy and Daddy were very embarassed and very apologetic. So they should be too, not letting me play with all the shininess! So we went back to Granny's and went home to await the return of Amber so we could tell her all about our day.

Night night and sleep tight everyone.

Daddy's Note: The store in question is Precious Pebbles, and the owner has always made time for Amber and explained/discussed mining and extraction processes, markets, artificial growing and all kinds of technical stuff to her from a very early age, when a lot of proprietors might have been completely disinterested in engaging with a small child. She has given us many discounts and directed us to new and rare stones to add to Amber's collection, and has enhanced her education in her Gemology/Geology hobby no end. So if you are looking for something shiny to give for Christmas, please click the link and I am sure you will agree you could do a lot worse than this as a way to say thanks on our behalf. And also, sorry about the chunder on the carpet.

Shiny Things

2008-10-20T22:37:00.006+01:00

Mummy and Daddy took me to Christchurch today, and we bought lots of stuff - apples and grapes from the fruity people, sweeties from the sweety stall for the Charity stall my big sister is running this week at her big school, and Daddy even got a huge bread thingy with loads of really unhealthy food in it from the burger van. It was even Mummy's idea, because she needed to go straight off to the pub to sit and do tons of revision for her special test on Wednesday as soon as we were done and there was no way I was going to let Daddy cook anything properly today.

My toothies are really getting at me this week. I am not letting anyone get away with any of that fancy 'leisurely meal' business, no sir. I want my comfort cuddles when I want my comfort cuddles, and delaying tactics like sleeping are not going to be an obstacle if I can help it.

Anyway, while we were there we went to see my friend Christine. She works in the place with all the pretty shiny things in it, and she is one of my biggest fans. She always gives me cuddles and coos over me for ages.

Christine is also my big sister's friend, in fact when she started working at the shiny things shop Amber taught her lots of things about the shiny things - what their names are, where they come from, how they are dug out of the ground and all that. She is named after a shiny thing, after all.

Once a few years ago, Amber made Christine a special drawing with lots of the shiny things in it. Now it lives in a special folder Christine uses for all her college work and she takes it in whenever she has a special test like the one Mummy's having this week. She says it's her good luck charm.

Not long after Amber made Christine the special good luck drawing, Christine gave Amber a huge piece of this shiny stuff that hadn't been properly cut to be supershiny. It's bigger than my hand! Awesome huh?

My big sister is super-clever. I think she knows everything there is to know about the shiny things, and one of her books about them weighs as much as I do, and it's nearly as big, too.

The best part is that she actually has hundreds of the shiny things upstairs in special cases. She even has a special shiny thing that isn't actually that shiny but has to stay inside its case because its poisonous and no one can touch it! Its called Wulfenite and its really funny looking.

She has a poster with seventy-five (!) different shiny things on it and she already has a piece of nearly 60 of the 75, how cool is that? One day she wants to own one of every single thing on it. She'll probably do it too, she is very persistent about this kind of thing.

Daddy's favourite is a piece of green quartz from a place called Madagascar. He loves to look at that piece nearly as much as Amber does.

Anyway after all that shiny things talk I am off to sleep now. I hope my toothies don't make me start howling at 1am again. And 2am as well. And 3...well, you get the picture.

Night night and sleep tight everyone.

The Great Sort-Of Escape

2008-10-18T21:22:00.004+01:00

After Granny She and Grandad Butterworth came for breakfast, Daddy had a phone call from my friend Jenni. She is a very nice lady who used to come and play with my big sister a lot before Daddy even met Mummy but, and apparently this is very important to point out, never ever played with Daddy. Don't know why, I like playing with him, after all he is lots of fun.

Anyway, Jenni (who refers to my Daddy as Donkey Boy, not sure what that's all about either) wanted to bring her baby Lilyana, her Big Brother Dandan and their Daddy Chrisboo to play with me. Wasn't that kind? So after Granny and Grandad went off to London to see Aunty Holly, they came over so they could pay homage to the wonderfulness that is me.

Well they were suitably cooing, but there was also a lot of cooing going on over Lilyana as well as she kept walking between the grownups with her arms out. This is one of her New Things apparently, like my Late Night Poopoos and Standing On The Furniture. Everyone seemed very impressed, I just watched very intently and took notes. After all, anything that earns this much cooing's gotta be worth a go.

My big sister took Dan up to her room and they played for a while. They seemed to have a good time judging by the thumpity bumpityness going on. After a good play Dandan even got to go and help Amber do the Swapping of the Bunnies, but he had to stay on the patio in case he got bunny poo all over his trainers. Daddy told everyone a funny story about how a little boy called Flynn wouldn't do that one day and fell arms first right into the bunnies' Poo Pit at the end of the garden. Oopsy, that can't have been nice!

The Poo Pit is where our rabbits mostly go to toilet. Daddy says it's like a trap in one of his roleplaying games because the soil has gotten so fertile from all the poo that it is almost all grown over with really lush plants now and you can't see it and need to make a big Spot Roll to not step in it. But even though it's pretty gross, it's very handy because we don't need to clean Mister Scruffles or Syco out as often as we might do if it didn't exist. When we let Mister Scruffles out in the morning the first thing he does is rush up there and sit on his hindpaws looking all...relieved.

As it was a nice day I decided we should all go down to Christchurch Quay and see the seagulls again like I did yesterday. But when we got there, though there were quite a few and Mummy had to duck once or twice to avoid a wing buffet, it still wasn't as crazy as yesterday. I didn't get a chance to grab another gull this time, dammit!

After we fed the ducks, swans, seagulls and cygnets we went to the Playground. I like the playground, there is usually lots of children in it and adults to coo over me, plus I get strapped into a hoodie top on the swingswongs and giggle and giggle as Mummy and Daddy push me backwards and forwards.

However after I did my swingswong, Dandan decided to give Amber a race across the green. He likes to run a long way when he's in the mood, his Daddy said. And he certainly ran off very far and she didn't seem able to keep up, which was a bit odd as he's four and she's twelve. In the end Daddy had to go and run after him and bring him back and no matter how hard he tried to run off, Daddy managed to catch him up. But then Daddy's even older than Amber so he must be really fit and sporty, right?

Daddy says that anyone reading the Blog may consider this sentence a Straight Face.

Once Dandan's sort-of-escape was over Amber saw her friend Alice helping her little sister around the climbing frame. I want to try that soon, the climbing frame looks like good fun. It has ropes and bars and poles and a slide, I'll be spoilt for choice!

Alice hadn't met me yet, so she came and had a good coo over me while Mummy changed my nappy on the bench. Once she had finished worshipping me we decided it was time to go, and so we said goodbye to everyone and headed home.

What a day it was, all these people coming to see me. Because I was feeling thoroughly content with all the attention I'd received I decided not to play up with my last feed tonight, besides this time it was Mummy giving it to me instead of Daddy, bonus! However, thinking about it as I'm dictating this to Daddy whilst lying in my little cot, it's Daddy who's going to get me to sleep tonight so I've been kind of cheated again...

Night night and sleep tight everyone.

So Close But Yet So Far

2008-10-18T17:27:00.004+01:00

You know how I always wanted to grab one my my shrieky seagull friends and bring him home to play? Weeeell, I managed to do the first bit today down at Christchurch Quay!

See, Granny She and Grandad Butterworth came down to see me yesterday, and we went down to the Quay so they could see me feed the birdies. And they certainly picked the right day because there were huge swarms of seagulls down with the boats. Mummy reckons there must have been at least fifty, that's like all the seagulls in the whole wide world!

Normally Daddy holds me while Mummy feeds the birdies, but he had to go home as my big sister was due in from school soon so he had to be there to let her in. So to make it easier Mummy knelt down with me to throw bread up in the air for the seagulls, and thats where the fun started. See, because Mummy couldn't get the bread too high from down there, the seagulls had to swoop down really low, and one of the cheeky wotsits started hovering right in front of me and snatching the bread from her hand.

But you can't get in range of the Lulu tentacles without consequences, oh no. One good lunge as he came into land, and if Mummy hadn't been holding onto me I reckon I could have gotten more than the wingtip I did get. I am faster than a hovering seagull, me. Daddy says this is further proof that I am in fact an alien.

On thing though. The seagull didn't seem best pleased when I demonstrated my superspeed, in fact he said some very rude words in Shriek as he flew backwards. I didn't know what half of them even meant, but I'm sure they weren't nice words.

Once I was done harassing the seagulls we went back home and Granny She and Grandad Butterworth went to check in to their hotel. Mummy played with me for a little while then went out to go and have dinner with Granny and Grandad, so come last feed time it was just Daddy and me again.

Well I had to play to the crowd, didn't I? So I gave Daddy all my best moves after about fifteen seconds of drinking - the Side-to-Side Headfling, the Throwback, the Arching Spine and of course the essential I-Don't-Feel-Like-Feeding-Just-Now-Thank-You Shriek, thus waking up my unfortunate big sister who had only just gone to bed.

But here's the thing. The last couple of nights these extremely effective delaying tactics have resulted in the Return Of The Mummy before bedtime. But this time Daddy was annoyingly persistent and after a good Yell break he only went and got me to drink over half the feed, didn't he? I must be falling down on the job, because I was so shattered after all that effort that I fell asleep about ten seconds after he got me in my Baby Sleeping Bag and laid me down in the cot.

And I still never got my seagull.

Coming Round The Mountain Marathon

2008-10-17T19:54:00.002+01:00

Up to twenty choruses and counting of variations on 'Coming Round The Mountain' including the everpopular "She'll Be Pooing In Her Nappy" and 'She'll Be Weeing Over Mummy'. I am riding on my big sister's leg and doing it all by myself without any encouragement.

Damn, I should have got sponsorship.

Special Message For My Cuz

2008-10-16T22:46:00.002+01:00

I am sending a special message to my cuz Emma to help her cheer up a bit as she is very down in the dumps. Here is a piccy of me to make you smile and realise that no matter how miserable you feel, there's always someone who looks even more miserable than you do!

Hugs and kisses,

Lulu

Birthday Girl

2008-10-16T21:42:00.002+01:00

It was my big sister's actual birthday today, she is 12 years old. Daddy says he can't believe she has survived this long without bodily dismemberment by her closest relative i.e. him. Though I always thought bodily dismemberment was Syco's job. Certainly that suicidal Robin Redbreast coming back to play in the garden again today must be a prime candidate for the full treatment.

My big sister had lots of presents to open today, mostly from Mummy and Daddy. They bought her books and crossword puzzles and DVDs and some funny socks with skulls on. Aunty Hayley from all the way in London bought her a DVD, my Great-Aunty Jayney and Great-Uncle Bob bought her this very woolly coat thingummy, for a minute I thought they'd skinned a sheep and sent it in the post. Granny Butterworth sent her lots of money for new clothes, Great-Auntie Avril sent her a cool scrapbook and Granny and Grandad themselves just sent her lots of money to spend on whatever she likes!

Tomorrow Grandad Jonathan and Granny She are coming down all the way from Yorkshire. That's the place with all the hills Daddy's absolutely not allowed to make jokes about, ever, on pain of pain. I'm sure they will bring her a cool present too.

Amber seemed a bit stressed tonight, Birthday or not she had lots of homework and she was having trouble with a poem about a parrot. She also had to clean out Syco's hutch, which must be a very messy job what with all the bunny weewee, poo pellets and pieces of cat. But we had lots of playtime at bedtime while Daddy made my feed and then later on wrestled with her duvet cover after washing her sheets today. She even chilled me out and made me giggle when I was howling at waking up after falling asleep in the back garden with Daddy. I must have been tired, I almost never do that. It was a special night too, the first time I had been outside while it was cold enough for my breath to steam. Yay for my super yellow Blanky!

I made sure I stayed up for Mummy's return from seeing her friend Dan at the pub by the simple expedient of detonating another Size Six in my nappy in mid-feed. I think Daddy is getting a bit unamused by the late night poopoos. But I got my Mummy cuddles at bedtime, so I think I can live with his crushing disappointment.

Night night and sleep tight everyone.

Cooing Party

2008-10-16T17:11:00.002+01:00

A strange thing happened last night. Mummy and Daddy put together a special surprise for me at my big sister's school. They got hundreds of Mummies and Daddies together in the Hall to come and coo over me! Wasn't that nice?

Granny and Grandad came over to look after Amber while we were gone and we drove off to the school in the dark. I spent a lot of time looking around at all the lights from the cars and streetlights and the like. When we got there I was confused when Daddy got me in my coat and out of the car because normally when we go to Amber's school I stay in the car and wait for her to come out. This time she didn't come out because she was already at home, and I got to go in!

Well, what a gathering. There were hundreds of Mummies and Daddies, and lots of banners with the grown-up 'rytin' on. I'm not sure but I guess they must have said 'Welcome Lulu' or something like that.

Lots of Mummies and Daddies smiled at me as we walked through the crowd, and some of them stopped Mummy and Daddy so they could have a quick coo. Frankie's Mummy was there too, and she cooed a lot and said how big I'd got even in the last few weeks since she'd seen me.

Mummy and Daddy talked to some of the Mummies and Daddies for quite a long time, especially the ones with the big badges on. But here was the funny thing - whenever Mummy and Daddy talked to the people with the big badges, all they seemed to want to talk about was my big sister! I hardly got a mention at all, it was most annoying.

I was still miffed about this when we left the school, and decided to be really crabby in the car on the way home. Unfortunately Mummy went straight off to hockey practice when we got home so I couldn't continue to vent at her, but once Granny and Grandad had gone home and Amber had gone to bed I decided to let Daddy feel the full force of my displeasure by refusing to touch half my last feed and then detonating a very pasty Size Seven in my nappy. Late night pooing, that's the new way to assert myself, yeah baby!

Hopefully now Mummy and Daddy have learned their lesson and next time they throw me a party they won't be rude enough to talk about how my big sister's doing at school instead of how wonderful and cute I am.

Footsie 100

2008-10-16T16:13:00.002+01:00

I went to the Under 1's group with Mummy yesterday, and I met my friend Liam there after we saw him in the supermarket the other day. He is about a month bigger than me. Daddy says its highly amusing that I've already inherited Mummy's taste for Older Men, whatever that means.

My Mummy and Liam's Mummy sat opposite each other on the floor so Liam and I could have a proper chat. He speaks very good Gurgle, and quite good Shriek as well.

But then a funny thing happened. Liam and I discovered how much fun it is to tickle each other's feet with our own feet! Mummy says this is called Footsie. I like it, its a lot of fun to play and it made us both giggle a lot.

Daddy doesn't like touching Mummy's feet at all, though. I never see them playing that game. In fact come to think of it though she does giggle a lot when she tries to get him to play with them.

Funny that.

Suicide Birdie

2008-10-16T06:44:00.005+01:00

We have an ickle Robin Redbreast in our back garden. He appeared in the morning, and started bob-bobbing about. First he bob-bobbed onto the grass, then onto the fence. Then he bob-bobbed onto the bar underneath the table that Syco's hutch sits on and Daddy pointed him out to me through the patio door. I thought he was cute.

But through the day weird things begin to happen. First Daddy saw him bob-bob onto the table that Syco's hutch sits on and stand on it. Right next to the bars. Syco perked up at the chance to try and claw something, but then he seemed to come to his senses and fly off. But then later on after Syco and Mister Scruffles had been swapped out we heard my sicky-sister-who-felt-better-but-then-got-all-sicky-again-but-is-
now-feeling-better-a-second-time making a noise like a dying badger in the kitchen while she ate her tea. Daddy and I rushed out to see if she was all right but it turned out to be wheezy laughter.

The robin, it seems, had landed in front of Syco. She went all on the alert, ready to disembowel. But then it bob-bobbed very fast over to play with her and before she could do anything it had landed again - on her nose.

Apparently she went a bit, well, syco. But the thing was that being on her nose it was out of reach for any of her usual tactics - biting, clawing and especially kicking unless she wanted to concuss herself with her own back paws. So it got to fly off again unscathed, and Syco had a very embarassed tear around the garden to make herself feel better and settled back down to eating grass again.

Daddy and Amber are very impressed with the Robin Redbreast, though Daddy reckons she will be ready for it next time and all we will find will be a few little red feathers floating forlornly on the wind. But still, what a Brave Birdie he must be.

Noise Glorious Noise

2008-10-15T10:59:00.002+01:00

Today I have created a brand new Day. It is International Speak Only In Shriek Day.

Daddy says I am most definitely over my cold now.

To Bournemouth And Beyond!

2008-10-14T20:51:00.003+01:00

Yep, it was my first trip to the 'Big City' today. I have been to Christchurch many times, to Boscombe, to Southbourne, to Highcliffe, to Yorkshire (the place with all the hills where Mummy comes from), but I've never been to Bournemouth itself until today.

See, Mummy wanted to do a quick Christmas shop for all her family, but also (and much more important) she wanted to open me my very own bank account. I have no idea what this means, but apparently those Guvmont people that Daddy's always swearing at have given me some money to go in a special place until I'm all growed up. So I guess they can't be all bad, right?

Daddy has promised to type that faithfully, though he seems to be wanting a shower now.

Well we got to Bournemouth and straight away I was a bit surprised at how many people seem to live there. There were lots and lots and lots of them, all scurrying about like the ants in our back garden. And almost none of them stopped to coo over me either, its not right!

The first shop we went too had lots of pretty things in it, but smelled really funny. Mummy said that no, it wasn't because she had done a bottyburp, but because they had lots of candles and incense and things like that in there. It was a good place to hang out once I got used to the smell, because all the people that were too busy to coo over me when they were outside wanted to coo over me once they were inside. I felt much better and happier after having my fragile ego massaged for a while.

Next we went to the Early Learning Centre. Wow. Now I know how that boy from the film Aladdin must have felt. It was like someone had got every kind of toy in the whole world and put them all in one place. I wanted to play with everything and did my best octopus impression and grabbed for every toy in sight.

Seeing as the Guvmont had given me all this money I asked Mummy if she wouldn't mind spending it on as many toys as possible instead of putting it away till I grow up, but she said no. Poopy Mummy.

Finally after cruelly taunting me with all the toys and then dashing my hopes of a cot full of so many of them I wouldn't be able to move at night, Mummy took me to the Bank to open my Bank Account. When we were inside we saw a very nice man behind a desk who gave me one of those toys that go all windy and have beads to push along the wires. They go 'clack' a lot which is a funny noise, though Mummy reckons the man got far more fun out of it than I did. I was perfectly happy crinkling and crunching the till receipt she gave me.

I love receipts. They are just the right size for my little fingers, and they feel interesting to touch and make a great noise too.

Once we had opened my account we went home and I fell asleep in the car. When we got back I woke up rather on the hungry side and woke Daddy up yelling for my bottle. He had gone to sleep for an hour while we were out after making sure my sicky sister was all right. I have given her my nasty cold you see, and she was off school coughing and sneezing and generally being a snotbox. Poor sissy.

Once I'd had my bottle I concentrated on taking up where I left off this morning - making as much noise as possible to show my appreciation for feeling all better again. So Daddy has had to translate Yell, Shriek and Red-Faced Strain as well today, I think the poor soul must be feeling a bit harassed. Mummy says not to worry though, he has always been a very cunning linguist.

I was a bit miffed off tonight actually. For a start the phone kept ringing and once Daddy wanted to speak to Ruth and had the audacity to attempt to talk to her on it while holding me. The cheek of it! Well, I wasn't having that, let me tell you. So I squirmed, moaned, yelled and generally writhed about as much as possible because he wasn't paying me enough attention i.e. 100%.

Mummy left Daddy to it a bit and he got miffed off, so when Ruth made a joke about building up his arm muscles by holding me he made another one about arm muscles. I didn't get the joke, but when he said it he did the grin he does when he is annoying Mummy, you know the one I mean?

Sure enough, he tried to use me as a human shield to avoid a ding, does he think he is Saddam Hussein or something? But Mummy took me off him and then he ran and shut himself in the bedroom. He is such a wuss sometimes, I don't know why he makes jokes that annoy Mummy if he is just going to run away afterwards.

Anyway, once he let Mummy in the bedroom and took his punishment, I carried on making it as difficult as possible for him to talk to Ruth on general principles. He apologised for spending most of the conversation talking to me instead of her but she said she finds it very relaxing to hear him talk to me down the phone. That kinda sucked, relaxing was really not what I was going for!

So I was still feeling snippy as it got later on. I couldn't even have my nightly constitutional in the back garden because it started raining hard two minutes after we got outside, and besides I couldn't even see the moon anyway because of all the rainclouds.

Well, after all my mimping I am feeling very sleepy as I dictate this to Daddy, so I will probably fall asleep with my last bottle of the night and go to bed.

Night night and sleep tight everyone.

I Was Ill But I'm Feeling Much Better Noooooooooowwwwwwwwww...

2008-10-13T22:14:00.004+01:00

Seriously full moon tonight when Daddy and I went for our nightly jaunt in the back garden. No other garden gets moons like this one, I am so lucky!

I don't quite follow the post title though, I think it's Daddy's little joke.

In other news, my sicky-then-not-sicky-anymore sister has caught my icky cold so is therefore sicky again. She is not having a good time of it right now, bless her.

I'm feeling much better though. Mummy will put me to bed in my cot without the bouncer to prop me up tonight as my little nosey has mostly cleared over the course of last night and today.

Mummy and Daddy took me shopping in Tesco today. Much cooing was had, and we kept bumping into other Mummies that Mummy and Daddy know. One lady that Daddy knew from when he was studying to look after other little kiddywids like me didn't know that Mummy even had a baby in her tummy because he hadn't seen her for ages, and she was really pleased to meet me because I rock, so there!

I rode in the trolley seat in Tesco, it is really good fun. I got a big bottle of juice to chew on and noshed the cap for ages before giving it up as a bad job. Nowhere near as nutritious as milk or Daddy's hand (which I love trying to chew on when sits me on his lap to burp me) but I still howled when Mummy took it off me to give to the lady on the checkout.

I had another mega-kip on Mummy today. I had a feed just before 3 and then Daddy got me to sleep and then handed me over to Mummy so I could try and break yesterday's record nap. I think I did it, too. I've just got oodles and oodles of sleep to catch up on so I'm trying as hard as I can to sleep.

Anyway, Daddy said this would only be a quick post because he is very tired, so night night and sleep tight everyone.

Still A Snotbox

2008-10-13T06:53:00.003+01:00

Daddy promised he would write this when he got up to help my big sister be ready for school tomorrow, but he had too many jobs to do last night while Mummy was over at Aunty Chelle's to post then, plus I wasn't exactly cooperative about going to sleep. Because I'm not feeling all that well and am still full of cold, I didn't want my last bottle and didn't want to go to sleep at all.

See I haven't been in my cot the last two nights due to all the snottiness. Well, I have, but actually Daddy came up with the idea of making sure I was propped up by having me sleep in my bouncer in my cot so Mummy could still reach over and cuddle me if I woke up but I wouldn't be as horribly snotty and sleepless as I was laid down flat.

I've still had...better nights though. Daddy spent the day trying to get me to catch up as much sleep as possible, leaning down and patting me back to sleep every time I stirred and cuddling me whenever that didn't work. In the afternoon I slept for 2 and a half hours, most of it on Mummy, my longest daytime nap ever! In fact Daddy had to tell poor Aunty Chelle that Mummy was going to be late because I was still asleep on her, hehehe.

I couldn't go over to the Bowlplex for my big sister's Birthday Party though, I was really bummed about that. Mummy said everybody had a good time though, and she brought me back a Teddybear, bonus! Amber's friend Frankie came back with us for the afternoon and I gave her lots of smiles. She says I look like her little sister Livvy when she was ickle.

To sum up, I have not been a well bunny. I only got a half hour outside in the back garden with Daddy yesterday, that's how ill I was! Though Syco gave herself a clean right in front of me, that was really fascinating. Probably washing off the blood from the last cat she disembowelled, Daddy reckons.

Anyway, I will get Daddy to tell you all about my day again today and hope things will get back to normal again tonight as I'm sure I feel much better now.

Snotbox

2008-10-11T20:34:00.004+01:00

That's what Daddy calls me, and he should know as him and Mummy have been wiping the lovely stuff off my face all day. And most of last night. So much for Daddy's lie-in.

Daddy is feeling a bit snuffly and off-colour himself, and is worried I may have given my little germfest to him. Which considering it is my big sister's Birthday Party tomorrow morning at the place with the big balls (as Daddy calls it) means there may be trouble ahead. It also means he will only be doing a short post tonight, so enjoy it while it lasts.

In other news, I have managed to have loads of playtime with my big sister today for the first time all week due to her sickyness. It's been great fun, we even ballroom danced once and Daddy made that 'Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww' noise when we did it.

I wore my new black T-shirt today, I am teh Goth. Yes, granted the huge pink coat over the top when we went to the harbour this evening kind of destroyed the effect, but what the hell. I felt Gothy. As well as snotty.

I also set a new record for sheer splashiness at bathtime tonight. I rock.

Night night and sleep tight everyone.

Fighting Back Against The System. Man.

2008-10-10T22:12:00.003+01:00

Yep, that's what I've been doing today. Asserting my Baby Rights against the Matriarchal/Patriarchal Hierarchy. Right on!

See I'm supposed to have a daytime sleep for at least an hour or so as well as my little naps or I get really cranky by the evening. That's what Mummy and Daddy aka the Parental Oppressors say. But would I succumb to the demands of the System today? No, I wouldn't!

What's brought all this on? Weeeell, I got my first ever black T-Shirt today. As I am a proper Gothy rebel now I have the clothing to prove it, I thought I'd better get with the struggle. Or Something.

Apart from the general snippiness caused by my lack of a proper kip, and my poopy teeth still giving me serious issues I had another fun day, actually. I stayed with Daddy while Mummy took Amber and her schoolfriend Frankie to the swimming pool they go to on a Friday morning and then Mummy went swimming with her other friend at a different pool, just to be confusing. Once I had my 10 o'clock feed Daddy took me into Christchurch in the Tank (well that's what Daddy calls my Buggy/Car Seat combo anyway). Apparently when Grandad was in the Army he drove Tanks, which means he was a bit of a funny soldier to be pushing baby buggies about the place. When he learns to speak Gurgle I shall ask him about it.

When we got to Christchurch we went to the Library. That's a place where you have to be really quiet and not make any noise, Daddy says, so I decided to be good and hardly made a sound the whole time we were in there. Daddy was so pleased with me that he took me to see one of my top Cooing friends, the lady who runs the Chilly Wizard shop.

She is a very nice lady, who always spends ages talking to me in between customers. The Chilly Wizard is one of Daddy's favourite food places as it sells special Sorbets that he can eat because they have no Dairy in them to hurt his tummy, and also they sell Ice Cream for Diabetic people (who must be from Diabia or somewhere else exotic) as well as regular ice cream.

They make the best Ice Cream in Dorset Daddy says. When they say they are offering Strawberry flavour, they really mean made with fresh strawberries, right there in the store. Sometimes you can watch them making it if you are there at the right time, and whenever the Lady is trying out new flavours she always offers some to Mummy, Daddy and Amber so they can try them out and tell her what they think.

Daddy's friends always come in pairs. Yesterday we walked out of the Sports Shop from seeing one friend and then saw another, and today as soon as we left the Chilly Wizard we saw another friend of Daddy's. Daddy hadn't seen her since I was born as apparently she works very long hours and he hardly ever bumps into her anymore.

She gave me very big smiles and Cooed over me lots and lots, and I gave her great big smiles back again too. I think she is very nice and I hope we will bump into her again soon so I can have more Cooing. She thought me having my own Blog was a very funny idea and said she would come and read all about the rest of my day. So if she does come and see what I've been up to, then hello and big hugs to her :)

We popped into the jewellers for yet more Cooing (I have so many fans) and then Daddy walked me back home again to see Mummy. Mummy gave me my next feed and then we went shopping for more clothes for me in Boscombe. This was when I got the black T-shirt I mentioned above, and felt like a proper Goth Baby. I also got a new sleepsuit, two more tops and a really cute pair of jeans. Bonus!

It was all go though, and Mummy had to go and pick my sister up from school and then came back to collect me and took us both over to Granny and Grandad's house so Daddy could get on with some jobs he had to do. I let Granny hold me for a whole five minutes without screaming the place down, wasn't I good? Course I screamed the place down the second she'd used up her five minute goodwill quota, but that's not the point.

Once I came home with Mummy (Amber stays over at Granny's on a Friday night normally) I finally succumbed to tiredness during my feed and fell asleep for a while. But when I did wake up, my was I a cranky little soul. Daddy had to wrap me up in my lovely yellow Blanky and take me out to the back garden. It was very dark outside, but the clouds were only thin and weedy so I could see the gorgeous moon again. It was very bright tonight and I stared at it for ages, couldn't take my eyes off it in fact. In fact it was so relaxing that I dozed off again, right there in Daddy's arms!

When I woke up I still wasn't a happy camper because I just hadn't had enough sleep, and I was virtually ready for my last feed before bedtime, too. I was so wrecked that I went to sleep in my cot while Mummy and Daddy sorted out loads of washing on the bed next to me.

Mummy and Daddy are very tired so I may give them a lie-in tomorrow. I'm thinking that giving into the demands of the System may earn me more cuddles, now I come to think of it...

Night night and sleep tight everyone.

Daddy And The Curse Of The Delayed Dinners

2008-10-09T21:35:00.002+01:00

Well, no one can say I didn't have a busy, busy day today. I've been all over the place and it's liable to be even busier tomorrow apparently :)

Because of my sicky sister's tummy still being a bit wobbly, Mummy took her into school in the car this morning to help her keep her strength up after being on a diet of rich tea biccies for two days. Poor Amber, now she is at Big School she has to go and see all her teachers and find out all the oodles of work she has to catch up on. I went with her and Mummy to see her into school and so Daddy could get a bit of extra sleep for once.

Shame Mummy was being incredibly loud on the phone when she came back in with me really. Ah well, c'est la parenthood.

I didn't want my next feed. I'm not sure why, I think maybe I must have thought they'd watered it down like yesterday. I wasn't having any of that nonsense again, no Sir! So I had a bit of an empty tummy when Mummy took me to my First Splash baby swimming group, but I didn't care because they have these really fun toys to play with in the pool. I got to play with the Purple Starfish and the Nemo toy, but then I got my hands on my favourite - the Froggy.

Would I let go of it, even when the session finished and it was time to get out of the pool? Well, I'm sure you all know the answer to that one.

When we came back from Swimming I was in a much better mood, and I noshed my feed just fine this time. However just as Daddy took advantage of Mummy giving me my milkies and sat down to enjoy his scrambled eggies on toast, I detonated a Size Eight in my nappy. And the word 'detonate' is accurate too as it exploded out of the top of my nappy, went almost up to my shoulders inside my T-Shirt and got all over Mummy's top and trousers.

See now I thought Daddy would be really pleased that I got Mummy so brilliantly, but it turns out that grownups don't like having to deal with poo when they are about to eat. I don't know why that is, but he didn't seem very happy about having to help change me. He said something about it being just as well he doesn't like Brown Sauce too, I think that's a joke.

After the huge Changing of the Nappy and the Eating of the Cold Scrambled Eggies, we went to Christchurch so Mummy could buy a new hockey stick, and we saw a nice lady in the sports shop who was my big sister's dinner lady once upon a time. She didn't realise that Mummy and Daddy were connected and was very pleased that I was Daddy's baby, and asked lots of questions about me and how Amber was doing at Big School.

Then Daddy walked me down to Christchurch Quay in the buggy while Mummy took the car, but we literally only got three metres before he saw his friend Denise, who hadn't met me yet and wanted to have a good coo. I like cooing, it always makes me smile so wide my dummy falls out.

When we got to the Quay, the seagulls were out in force. Within the first few seconds of Mummy starting to throw bread in the air, we had dozens and dozens swarming us. They made so much noise even the ducks seemed a bit worried, and there were so many buzzing us that Daddy got a wing buffet on his head, and had to step back very quickly with me when two of them had a mid-air collision and one nearly landed on me.

I just wasn't quick enough to grab him and bring him home though. Poo.

When we got back from Christchurch, Mummy went off to pick Amber up from school, and I suddenly realised I hadn't had a sleep all day. So Daddy cuddled me off and I went in my bouncer until Mummy and Amber came home, and she snuggled me on the sofa and we had our afternoon nap together. When I woke up I felt much better and I had lots of cuddles with Mummy and Daddy while Amber did her catching-up homework. Unfortunately Amber then had a little moment when she went to get a towel for her shower...

It seems that earlier on Mummy banged into a picture frame that was on a dresser table in Mummy and Daddy's room and moved it out of the way onto the bed. Then Daddy took a load of washing upstairs and put it on the bed without knowing the picture was there underneath. And when Amber clambered onto the bed to reach the airing cupboard there was the proverbial cracking sound, and that was the end of the picture frame.

Problem was of course that now there was lots of little bits of glass on some of the washing and on the duvet cover - this is officially Not Good. Funny thing was this happened just as Daddy's meatballs and pasta that Mummy had kindly cooked him was ready, so he had to wait for his food again!

One day Daddy will get to sit and eat his meals when they're actually ready. It will almost certainly be a Tuesday.

Later on, I felt a bit hard done by when Mummy went to see her friend Dan at the pub after Amber went to bed, so I had a bit of a mimp at Daddy and he took me out into the back garden to chill me out.And joy, the moon was out and the clouds couldn't cover it. I spent ages staring at it once Daddy pointed it out to me. There were lots of lovely stars as well and we stayed out there for quite a long time. I was so relaxed that I had another little nap before my last feed.

Mummy came back from the pub just in time to put me to bed, bonus! Daddy got me in my baby sleeping bag thingy and then Mummy stayed with me through the inevitable Footslamming and Dummygobbing. Daddy says that if I was a Dwarf baby I'd be from the Footslammer Clan as I like to do it so much.

Well that's about it for another busy, busy day. Night night and sleep tight everyone.

Aunty Chelle

2008-10-08T21:49:00.004+01:00

Auntie Chelle isn't really my auntie, but she is our fun friend. She is always very happy to see me and always gives me lots of cuddles and playtime. I spent ages with her today when Mummy picked her up to come and visit us all. We went to Sainsbury's for that 'bredunmiwk' stuff we always seem to go there for, and then we came home to see Daddy and my sicky sister, who isn't as sicky as she was and is going back to school tomorrow if she isn't sicky again. This is officially Good News as she might have had to miss her birthday party on sunday if she didn't get better.

When we got back home Daddy gave me lots of cuddles and he snuggled me while I had my bottle. I have been having cartons today as my tummy has been a bit funny too and cartons are better for me than powdered milk. Mummy and Daddy were silly enough to try and water my milk down this morning to help my tummy - I wasn't having any of that nonsense and I made it very very clear too. In Shriek.

Once I had finished my bottle I did a big window-rattling burp and went to sleep for a little while. When I woke up I had some Tummy Time on my Eeyore blanky and Aunty Chelle took this lovely picture of me.

Daddy says modesty is a virtue of people who have nothing to boast about so I'm going to shamelessly blow my own trumpet and say how totally cute I look, so there! Aunty Chelle was so pleased with herself for getting me at just the right moment, she was grinning like a Cheshire Cat. Even Amber stirred from her pit of Unclean Sicky Doom and said how nice it looked.

Aunty Chelle stayed for dinner and I grinned at her and flailed about on Mummy's lap. Mummy managed to eat her tea while I did it as well, I was very impressed.

After tea I went back to Aunty Chelle's and played with Kizzy the little yappy dog. I like to try and stroke her fur but Mummy doesn't let me because doggies aren't very clean creatures. Daddy says the caretaker's great big woofy dog at his old school wasn't very clean at all, in fact it used to go up to the gate and 'put on a show', whatever that means. Maybe it did poetry recitals or some light opera?

We were just getting ready to go to Mudeford Quay when Mummy suddenly remembered she was meant to go to Hockey Practice tonight, so we had to rush back home, hand me over to Daddy and then off she went, and came back without any new artificial joints or breaks of any sort, bonus!

Daddy says This Won't Last.

I was very good for Daddy, I snuggled into him and we watched a show with a spaceship in it, it was really cool. I even gave him a lovely goopy yellow poo to change, he seemed very pleased with it. He always takes the poopy nappies out to the kitchen when he's done with them, I think he must be making a collection out there somewhere.

I didn't want to go to sleep after my last feed though. I did all my favourite tricks - the Footslamming to kick my covers off, the Gobbing of the Dummy, and then just as Daddy went back downstairs I heard Mummy come in so I asked her very politely if she wouldn't mind coming upstairs to see me, just for a few brief moments. In Yell.

She did, yay for my powers of persuasion eh? But now I'm very tired and I am going to get my beauty sleep so Aunty Chelle can come and take more super-cute pics of me tomorrow.

Night night and sleep tight everyone.

Our Bunny: Still An Idiot

2008-10-08T21:41:00.003+01:00

Syco kept jumping over the sawdust bale into the kitchen tonight and Daddy had to help me chase her out again three times. Then when the tumbledrier finished he shut the door and was very relieved that she couldn't do it again.

Then about a minute later there was the sound of bunny meeting glass. She is just that stubborn, and also it seems rather unobservant. What a dimlo bunny she is.

I'm Not Well But At Least My Aim Is Improving

2008-10-07T22:26:00.002+01:00

I got Daddy today, right up the arm, just as he was putting my new nappy on. It splashed all the way up to his elbow, bonus!

But I'm not a well bunny. Mummy and Daddy think Amber has given me her nasty bug, which the doctor says is an upper digestive bug. I knew Daddy shouldn't have had those choccy biscuits.

Whatever is up with me, I haven't felt very hungry for the last two days and have been right off my feeds. In fact I've found much more interesting things to do when Daddy is trying to feed me, like Mummy. Wherever she is in the room. But Daddy is very interesting too, specially when Mummy is feeding me.

This week I am learning what bibs are for.

Daddy took me out into the garden tonight when I got a bit snippy and I got to see a perfect half-moon. It was amazing, I stared at it for ages as the clouds scudded across it. Daddy sung to me in my Blanky and then Amber came out to get a bit of fresh air after she had a sicky moment. Then she went back in and Mummy came out and quickly cleaned Syco's hutch before it got totally dark, so I got to spend time with all the family in my wonderful garden tonight, yay me!

I went to the baby group today but another Mummy upset my Mummy by making nasty remarks, and even made one about dummies. I love my dummy, and its a load of stinky poo to say bad things about mummies who let their babies have dummies. For starters, I bet her baby didn't start teething at nine weeks!

Also I got very miffed when Mummy went to the loo, and screamed and screamed and screamed. About six Mummies and the health visitor all cooed over me and tried to distract me so I will have to do this more often I think, all the attention was really cool actually.

Then a Big Boy (who must have been at least three) fell over and banged his head and went to sleep straight away. Everyone was very worried and he had to go to the hospital where babies sometimes come from, that has Daddy's old Nursery next to it. I could wave at him from the balcony when Mummy took me outside and he was playing in the garden with the Nursery children when I was first born, it was great.

Mummy didn't panic when the boy banged his head. It helped that his Mummy was a nurse too, but my Mummy is so cool that she has done all kinds of things to help sick people who just keel over in front of her. I was there a few months ago when she helped a man having a heart attack in Boscombe, she was so calm and collected that I didn't even kick off and yell once the whole time. She even delivered a baby in the medical room at the Littledown Centre when she was a Lifeguard, and the lady was so grateful she named her new baby girl Amiee after my Mummy!

I slept in a bit this morning, and Mummy and Daddy have asked me nicely if I wouldn't mind doing the same again tomorrow so Daddy can ring up and yell at the people who are meant to look after our house about our stupid bathroom fan. It keeps making horrible rattly noises and this is the fifth time Daddy has had to get them to fix it. I think if they don't disconnect it like he asks them to he will probably beat the engineer to death with his own toolkit. I'm definitely going to watch, because I'm as miffed off as Daddy about the poopy thing always working itself loose again about two minutes after the man fixes it.

Night night and sleep tight everyone.

The Moon Lay Hidden Beneath A Cloud...

2008-10-06T21:12:00.002+01:00

...is a pair of funny people that Daddy likes listening to, but its also what happened when he took me outside in the back garden tonight when I was getting snippy. We waited for the moon to come out from behind a house in the next road, but as soon as it did Daddy had just enough time to point it out to me before a nasty black cloud drifted over and covered it and then wouldn't let it come out to play. Poopy cloud. I was really looking forward to seeing it nice and bright as well.

In other news, Daddy fixed the puter tonight while Mummy was giving me my last feed. Now Mummy and Daddy won't be fighting over who gets to go on the laptop, yay!

This is my second night in the baby sleeping bag, hopefully I will sleep better than last night. I was a bit of a sod apparently, though when Mummy fell asleep this morning thirty seconds after promising Daddy she would give me my first feed I was Stealth Baby again, yay me! Mummy managed to sleep in till 10 because I was such a quiet girl. Daddy helped a bit too, so as a reward I gave him a lovely big yellow poo to change. Aren't I generous?

Night night and sleep tight everyone.

Sicky Sister

2008-10-06T17:28:00.003+01:00

My poor sister isn't very well. Her tummy has started hurting again and she has been sick at school, so Mummy had to jump in the car to go and get her just as Daddy was starting his lunch.

I am afraid he didn't enjoy his scrambled eggies on toast very much as I was not in the mood to chill out in my bouncer. Or on my Eeyore blanky with my toys. Or pretty much anywhere but in Daddy's arms being cuddled, in point of fact. Oopsy.

I am officially not allowed to play with my big sister until at least tomorrow night now. This is very annoying, and I have been making my displeasure about the situation very clear, in fluent Yell.

Our Bunny Is An Idiot

2008-10-06T17:25:00.001+01:00

Syco thinks she is so strong and tough that she can jump back in her hutch even when Daddy has closed the door. This is Not True. But it is very amusing to watch, especially when she lopes off as if nothing has happened and it was some other bunny that just made a total pillock of herself.

Attack Of The Killer Swans (With Extra Really Big Waves)

2008-10-05T21:49:00.004+01:00

Mummy is scared of swans! I never knew this until this afternoon. We went to Mudeford Quay when the rain stopped and the sun poked out a tiny bit, but when we got there the winds were high and the tide was very high, so when we went to the harbour path the water was lapping over the edges.

Daddy turned away to look at a birdie and when he looked back he saw there was a swan right behind Mummy and me. Mummy shrieked and jumped away, and suddenly it seemed like every swan in the world could see our bread (and Daddy's Danish pastry) and started to clamber out of the water together. It was awesome!

Mummy didnt think so though. Even when Daddy became the bread-waving Pied Piper of Mudeford and led about a dozen of them away and even hand-fed the really pushy ones, Mummy kept calling his name when one or two stray ones came to play with us because Amber had another loaf of bread. He seemed to be a bit busy protecting his Danish though. He said one swan that wouldn't leave him alone must have a Sweet Beak.

Just when we thought Daddy had managed to take them all over to him, he saw that one swan had been wandering across the green all by itself and was coming up behind us. We think maybe it was the Goth Swan from the other night. Mummy and I had to get away very quickly as we thought it might bite us or make us listen to Marilyn Manson or something.

Once Daddy had managed to get most of the swans back in the water with a trail of bread we went to the main part of the Quay where the sea is. And I saw something I've never seen before - because of the wind and the very high tide the sea was crashing into the sea wall and was washing and crashing right over the edge under the rails and into the car park. People's car tyres were getting wet, and you couldn't walk along some of the main pathway unless you wanted your feet to get really wet.

There are three levels to the sea wall part of the quay, two steps and then a big five foot high wall. There were a few bits where the water was actually splashing up on top of the whole wall! My big sister is so brave, she decided to walk the whole length of the upper step and back again despite the big waves crashing up. Daddy said the sea missed its cue because when she got to the other end and waved at us a huge wave crashed up and would have soaked her all over - about five seconds after she started walking back.

Where the railing meets the sea wall the waves meet something weird called a 'cross-current', Daddy says, so the waves look like they are going to roll right in over the edge but then sort of stop. But today when there was only a small wave going sideways when a really big one rolled in it really did wash all the way over and soak everyone's feet who was within about thirty feet of the edge - Mummy said Amber could play chicken with it because some other children with wellies on were already doing it. And the sea won because she got soaked up to the knees in the first minute, hehehehe.

Daddy said that would happen because Amber usually gets her feet wet when they walk the beach to Granny and Grandad's and they go next to the tide. We always make sure she has an extra pair of socks and trousers just in case.

We are going to buy a tide timetable so we can try and visit the Quay at high tide again when its windy, and also next time Mummy and Daddy promise they will remember their mobile phones so they can get some pictures of the giant waves. Poor lambs, they just aren't up there in the hightech age like I am.

Daddy says that sometimes in the winter when the sea is really stormy they have to close the entire car park and stop the cars getting in because the sea rolls all the way over and floods it out. I'd love to see that.

By the way, tonight I am trying out my new baby sleeping bag for the first time as my little lungs need the window open a bit but this means its getting cold. As I like to be really close and snuggly in my cot this should help me sleep better. Wish Mummy and Daddy luck!

Night night and sleep tight everyone.

Bullseye Baby

2008-10-04T22:47:00.004+01:00

My aim is improving, Daddy says. I managed to wee right up Mummy's leg when she was changing me tonight! Aren't I getting good?

In other news, my big sister wasn't very well when she came back from Granny and Grandad's this afternoon. She didn't feel very well in the car and then she was sick in the toilet. But when she was feeling better Daddy took me upstairs to grin at her and help her cheer up.

When she came downstairs Daddy and I made a cross shape out of the DVD and telly remotes and yelled 'Unclean, unclean!' at her which was maybe a bit mean as she doesn't smell very much at all (certainly not as bad as Daddy's bottyburps) and has a shower every night. She said she would come and breathe on him if he didn't stop being naughty so he shut up. She seems all right now though so maybe we can have a good game with my favourite teddybear tomorrow. He is big and brown and is taller than me, but I'm sure I will get taller soon and then I can pick him up and snuggle him.

I want to play with Skullsplitter the Barbarian Baby Bear as well, but I'm sure I heard Daddy say that someone wants to ban him, which is a bit harsh. After all the worst he ever does is to accidentally say rude words on camera during broadcasts of 'Morkahn and Skullsplitter's Animal Experience', and then make a mistake with a throwing axe and hit the camera crew. Oh, and give my big sister hiccups by making her laugh too much.

Daddy says its a shame I have inherited my Amber's tendency to giggle too much and get nasty hiccups. Mummy says she doesn't let Daddy play with my sister at bedtime anymore because he always makes her laugh too much and gives her the hiccups, which means she won't go straight to sleep. Daddy says he has been doing that since she was small and doesn't see why he should stop now just because she is in Big Big Big School and is this super-duper mature girl nowadays.

My sister is really Big and Brave. She is nearly twelve which is really Big and has to get two big buses to school everyday and put up with stupid girls from another school and sometimes she has to drag her great big peebag as well. I'm not too sure what that is, it sounds gross but it can't really be a bag full of weewee can it? I mean why?

My sister lets me lay on her bed sometimes when we play. It is the comfiest bed in the world. Daddy says when he used to play games on it with Amber he would want to go to sleep on it all the time because it is so comfy and soft, and Amber had to make Skullsplitter jump on him to stop him going to sleep, yay the Barbarian Baby Bears! I lie down on it and giggle lots and lots when Amber plays with me in her room.

I was miffed that I couldn't cuddle my sister today because Daddy wasn't sure if she had a Bug. I looked very carefully but I couldn't see any beetles or spiders or anything like that, so I think she will be able to snuggle me and play with me tomorrow.

Night night and sleep tight everyone.

Daddy Broke The Puter & Other Stories

2008-10-03T22:23:00.005+01:00

Silly daddy. He was cleaning the nasty dust off the vents in the puter and he thinks maybe its his magnetic personality that has stopped a bit of it from working. He is understandably miffed off about this so I've given him four poos and rivers of dribble today to help him feel better.

He has decided that my poos smell like rice pudding that has gone off. As apparently my first solid food is going to be baby rice I'm getting a little nervous about this thought.

Mummy is going to make Daddy watch a chick-flick tonight as punishment for being all annoyed when he broke the puter. I'm not sure what that means but it must be like that film with the piggy in it that we watched yesterday, only with a cute little chick in it.

My big sister went to Marwell Zoo today and brought me back a birdie - a penguin that Daddy wants to call 'Plonker' only Mummy won't let him. Apparently I am supposed to name all my toys myself, so I want to be like Amber and have chainmail teddybears called cool things like Skullsplitter.

In the evening we went to Mudeford Quay again and I went to sleep in my new megacoat. It keeps me toasty warm and Mummy likes it because she can cuddle me afterwards and warm herself up. We saw eighteen swans, but Daddy says one of them was having a Goth day because it swam away from its friends and didn't want to have food fights like the others did.

Daddy says that one year there were proper Black Swans living in the reeds opposite Christchurch Quay. I wonder if they were Goths too?

Snippy Day

2008-10-01T19:20:00.002+01:00

I have officially had a Snippy Day. I've been in one of 'those' moods all day, apparently. Personally I think I've been nothing but sweetness and light all day (well except for mimping all the time, and not having a proper nap out of sheer stubbornness, and being a pain with my feed and getting milk all over Daddy's arm, and pulling handfuls of Daddy's chest hair at the same time then protesting mightily when I get scratch mitts put on me, and also come to think of it managing to cut my own tongue a tiny bit when I pulled my hand out of my mouth thus freaking out Daddy who was pushing me to meet Amber at the Bus Stop at the time).

See? Mummy and Daddy are being dreadfully unfair to use a word like 'snippy'. It's just been a normal day at the office really.

Note To Daddy

2008-10-01T17:18:00.002+01:00

You may think you can get away with singing me every single chorus of "10,000 Transparent Bottles Going In The Steriliser" when Mummy is washing up the baby things, but you just can't.

Stealth Baby

2008-10-01T14:02:00.002+01:00

It's official, I am a Stealth Baby. That's what Daddy said when he managed to smuggle me out of the bedroom, change me, make the bottle, feed me, burp me, play with me, see my big sister off to school, change the subsequent Size Seven detonatation, play with me again and then get me back to sleep - all without waking Mummy up.

Now I am off to my under 1's group with Mummy, I will see all my little friends there. I'm looking forward to it especially as I missed Breast Friends yesterday because Mummy was out. Daddy would have taken me but Mummy said it wasn't meant for him. When he said he has always been on very friendly terms with breasts from Somerford, she thumped him.

I think I'm learning when Daddy is going to get thumped. If he says 'you can't, I'm holding the baby!' and grins a lot, it means he's in big trouble and is going to get a ding.

Tummy Time

2008-09-30T17:46:00.004+01:00

Now I have discovered my tummy and all the fun things I can do while lying on it, I want to be on it all the time. Even when Mummy is changing my nappy. This is making Daddy laugh.

When I lie down on my big Eeyore blanky I play with my teething keys which make tinkle tinkle noises, then I roll over on my tummy and try to inhale everything within reach, including my own hands. This means that Mummy and Daddy need to keep moving me about so I'm not lying in a pool of my own dribble. They are very obliging like that.

When I'm on my tummy everything looks closer somehow. But its really difficult to reach stuff because I'm holding myself up by my arms, so I have to Yell to get Mummy and Daddy to bring me things to chew on. This is because I have three - three! - teeth coming.

Poopy teeth. They started coming at nine weeks. Daddy says this is further evidence that I am an alien brought to earth to frustrate his plans to dominate the universe. Or something. What it means is that I have to fight my compulsion to shove my hands in my mouth all the time - I'm not very good at it unfortunately, so Mummy and Daddy have to keep wiping my face and popping my dummy back in after extricating my hands. Sometimes they make a cool 'pop' noise when they come out, it makes Mummy and Daddy laugh.

It is my ambition to be able to do what Nate does and fit my entire fist in my mouth without chundering. After all, everyone should have a hobby.

Can Someone Tell Me What Divorce Is Please?

2008-09-30T17:40:00.004+01:00

I don't know. But since Mummy discovered her old CDs last night and started playing lots of these funny people like Bewitched, Ace Of Base and Five, Daddy has been muttering about it constantly.

My Wonderful Garden

2008-09-29T23:10:00.004+01:00

I love our back garden. I'd spend all day out there with Daddy (apart from the times when I'm having my feed or down one of the Quays feeding the birdies, obviously) if I could.

When I'm in a bad mood I tell Daddy in my most persuasive Yell that I want to go outside. So he puts on his T-shirt and my jacket if its cold and we go out the back and into the garden.

There are so many fun things to look at out there. We have two bunny rabbits, who are called Mister Scruffles and Syco. Well that's what Daddy calls them, anyway. Mummy and Amber call Syco 'Katie' instead, but Daddy says 'no, she's a cat-beating syco'.

When Syco is in her hutch she doesn't seem to do very much, and Daddy says she is doing her impresson of a Big Fat Dead Thing. It's quite a good impression actually.

Mister Scruffles has been changing lately. He was brown all over, but now he seems to have lots of black patches on him, especially around his bottom. Mummy has been wrapping him up in a cloth and doing things to him. Mummy says he needs to shed his extra fur, but he doesn't look very happy about it. When she wraps him up, his fur flies everywhere and Daddy says Mummy is plucking him like a chicken, whatever that is.

There is a big tree in our garden. I can spend ages watching the wind move the leaves about, and today I sat on Daddy's lap for five minutes looking at its reflection in the patio doors. I think it's so amazing.

Daddy says we are on a 'geese flight path', whatever that means. But those great big birds that make the 'honk, honk' noise and fly over twenty at a time are wonderful, I follow them until they are just dots in the sky.

I love the sky too. I look at it in total silence for ages. Daddy tells me what he thinks the weather is going to do when I am looking up at it. Tonight there were big clouds so he says maybe it will rain and all the grass will be wet in the morning.

Our garden has the best sky ever. It is huge and blue, and at night has hundreds of stars in it that I love to look at wrapped up in Daddy's arms and my special yellow Blanky.

I have had lots of time in the garden today. Once Syco sniffed my toes and I giggled. Daddy says she is figuring out what I am and whether or not I am edible. The way I saw her polish off the carrot Mummy gave her today he might not be totally kidding. I'm sure nothing can get that fat being purely vegetarian, that's for sure.

Tomorrow I am going to see my friend Chloe. She shares her toys with me and is really nice. I'll tell you all about it afterwards.

Night night and sleep tight everyone.

My Busy Day

2008-09-28T19:59:00.007+01:00

We never found the salesman, in the end. Daddy seemed a bit dissappointed. I looked and looked from my little car seat when we went down to Mudeford Quay this morning, but I just couldn't see him.

When we got to the Quay we did just about my favourite thing ever - feeding the birdies. At Mudeford there are the big white ones with the wings that are twice the size of me, and the little ones that go quack a lot and stay clear of the big white ones, and of course the best ones - the shrieky white ones that snatch the bread right out of the air and hover in front of me almost close enough to touch.

I say almost because no matter how hard I try, Daddy never lets me get quite close enough to grab one to take home and play with. It'd be great to have my own birdie to speak Shriek with, but the little guys never seem to want to let me cuddle them, even when I stick out my little arms, kick my little legs and use my most persuasive Shriek speeches. I can feel the beat of their wings on my little face, but they always fly off a bit just when I think I can get one of them to be my new friend.

There are lots of people at the Quay. Some of them coo over me, and Mummy likes it. But when some of the old ladies ask how old I am, but they always seem to think I'm a boy, which is probably why Mummy keeps making me wear pink even though Daddy says she swore blind I was going to be a tomboy from the day I was born.

After we fed the birdies, Mummy took me home for my feed and Daddy and big sister Amber went off to walk the beach from Mudeford to Highcliffe (where my Granny and Grandad live) because Amber wanted to build a barrier to stop the sea coming in. When they got to Granny and Grandad's Amber had very wet feet and Daddy said it had worked really well except for the bits when the sea washed over it and it crumbled away.

Going to Granny's is sometimes fun. Sometimes I get lots of cuddles from Mummy and Daddy and they take me into the huge garden which has an actual wood at the end, yay the Grannygarden! I also get to sit in Granny's little house which lives in the Grannygarden and has very creaky chairs in it.

Sometimes it isn't fun. Sometimes they let Granny cuddle me, and I scream my freaking head off. Grandad thinks this is very funny, Mummy feels guilty and Daddy mutters about babies being scared of Dragons. I don't think he means Granny to hear, but he always seems to talk loudly enough for her to just about hear it, and she thumps him around the ear and he says 'ow' just like when Mummy does it.

Today was a fun day. I had lots of giggles in the little house in the garden with Mummy and Amber and Granny, while Daddy ate his lunch with Grandad. Mummy rolled her eyes and said they were talking about Pottylicks again, which doesn't make much sense because I've heard about potties, and I don't know why anyone would want to lick one, I mean really!

Then Mummy went inside and Daddy came out to cuddle me, and Amber ran away from a spider that was inside a bucket. I thought this was very funny, especially when Daddy pantomined the tiny spider jumping out and ripping Amber's face off and said not to worry, it was about the size of his fingernail and he could definitely beat it in a fair fight.

Then I had my feed and I fell asleep. When I woke up we were in the big place with all the people and the things to buy, and I smiled at everyone and they made Squee noises. I don't speak Squee yet, I think it must be for grownups only.

But my day wasn't over yet...after my next feed we went back to Mudeford again, joy! This time it was getting dark as we arrived, and we went to the harbour side of the Quay where there were lots and lots of swans, double joy!

Daddy counted 21 of them all trying to grab the bread off us and fight each other for it. Swans bite each others necks when they fight, they are mean birdies sometimes.

But there was also two ducks having a *huge* fight, Mummy even filmed it on the camera. I felt quite dizzy watching them go round and round in a big circle, flapping and quacking. The swans stopped eating our bread to watch them too, I think they were taking bets on the winner.

Daddy took pictures of Mummy and I kneeling down to feed them, then Mummy tried to use the timer on the camera to take some of all of us. But Daddy wouldn't stand still and kept being really silly when Mummy asked him to stand in a certain place with me. No matter how hard she tried to explain it to him, he seemed to keep getting it wrong. Amber thought it was very funny, and Daddy seemed to laugh a lot as Mummy got all annoyed with him. I wonder about my Daddy sometimes, I thought he was cleverer than that.

Then I went home and had a bath with Mummy, and then, and this is the funny thing, Daddy got all annoyed with her instead because she forgot everything for my bath - soap, shampoo, my ducks, my sponge, towels, everything! And Daddy seemed to get more and more miffed every time she asked him to bring up something new that she had forgotten. She whispered something to me about 'revenge' which is a funny word she uses a lot. So does Daddy in fact.

They both seemed to be a bit tired after all the excitement of the bath, so as I was having my last feed I decided to give them a nice big present to cheer them up and detonated a Size Four in my nappy. I'm sure they were very grateful.

Night night and sleep tight everyone.

Imminent Death Of A Salesman

2008-09-28T08:18:00.004+01:00

I'm dictating to Daddy now whilst lying in state on my bouncer. In Shriek.

I'm in a good mood actually, considering I was woken up by Mummy bounding out of bed at 7am on a Sunday morning. Not sure why the time and the day's important, but Daddy seemed to think so. I suppose it might be because I was a bit late - normally I like getting him up for my first bottle at 5.30 on a Sunday, its a nice time of day - the birdies are just starting to sing.

Mummy woke my big sister up as well when she ran into her bedroom to look out of the window. She said she thought it was Saturday when she stays at Granny and Grandads and wouldnt be in her room. My, how we laughed. Well, I did anyway. No one else seemed to be amused at first, though Daddy was when Mummy said that the reason she jumped up was someone was knocking at the door, and thats why she went into my big sister's bedroom. Apparently it was a man with a clipboard and a shoulder bag who looked like some sort of salesman. At 7am on Sunday morning.

Daddy thinks we are going to find him just down the road, hanging from a lamppost by his bagstraps, probably with his clipboard shoved in the place I use to fill my nappies. Sounds uncomfortable.