Tired and Cranky Me

Though there have been a few great potential posts lately I have not been up to getting them out there in blogosphere. I'm tired and cranky -- and hormonal and totally not myself. I think the cold turkey approach to weaning my son is kicking me in the butt with a hormonal upsurge of estrogen or whatever it is. I'm feeling blah and any gifted quiet moment has been wasted away into nothing but worry, anxiety and a mixed bag of negative thoughts; that is until I realize what it is I'm doing and yank myself back into reality.

I can, fortunately, always rely on my children to keep me moving when I least feel like it. Maggie has been enjoying a summer class at the local nature center and starts of her day saying, "What am I going to learn in class today mummy?" And Ryan has been really shinning from the inside out. So lovely.

Meanwhile, trusted friends, family and hubby are bearing the brunt of my psychotic state. Thanks guys. I love you.

ps Is anyone else addicted to Hell's Kitchen like me? I'm totally hooked. Who will be the last man standing?

Tag from Cat

I have been honored with a tag by Cat, a new blogging friend -- mother to a beautiful girl about my daughter's age, and two adorable and fast growing twin boys. Somehow she manages to also be an architect, wife and fabulous mother, hence her blog name "juggeling act of life". She lives miles and miles away from here in sunny California. South Africa would be her home which makes her doubly interesting to me -- I've had a dream to visit South Africa for a long time. My response is posted below and I invite anyone to play along too, just leave a comment for me so I know to look you up. But, but, but know I have broken one teeny tiny rule. I am not tagging anyone :-( Sorry Cat. I am not tagging because I have just recently put others under the tag spell and feel the need to give them a break for good behavior :-) Anyway, I hope you enjoy learning a little more about me.

The rules:Each player answers the questions about themselves.At the end of the post, the player then tags 5 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know they’ve been tagged and asking them to read your blog.Let the person who tagged you know when you’ve posted your answer.



What was I doing ten years ago?
Condensing my life into four small suitcases for the move from England to California and planning my wedding, having a series of medical exams and interviews for fiancee visa, saying a tearful goodbye to family friends and beloved London.

What are five (non-work) things on my to-do list for today?

1) Refrain from nursing Ryan and make yummy oatmeal breakfast for him.

2) Pack diaper bag and some goodies for a picnic on the grass.

3) Take kids to Page Museum.

4) Take kids to Farmers Market on 3rd Street; pick up cherry pitter and treat Maggie @ Farmers Market.

5) Clean kitchen sink and contents -- and order dinner in.

Five snacks I enjoy
Crisps (potato chips), especially walkers (click on flavors and wait for it to load to see the huge variety of flavors, roastd chicken is one of the many favorites of mine)
Chocolate, especially lidnt's
Fresh baked cookies
Toasted bagel with cream cheese and avocado (though that's probably someone's breakfast)
Hummus with toasted flatbread

Things I would do if I were a billionaire

• Pay outstanding bills and credit.
• Buy property; new and improved home in California, a 2nd home out here for visitors, a 3rd home in England (Cambridge or Oxford I think), and a beautiful boat for the men in my family to enjoy.
• Buy plane tickets for in-law family to visit England -- they can stay in our 3rd home
• Travel; Australia and South Africa will definitely be one the list, Hawaii too, Europe -- Italy, Austria, Prague, South of France, Amsterdam, Belgium, London is a given, Scotland, Ireland and Wales.. ugh the list is endless.
• Invest and use profit to donate to charity through the year and upon death; charities serving the impoverished, sick children and terminal illness such as HIV and cancer.

Places I’ve lived:
London, Peterborough, West Los Angeles, Houston, Boston, Long Beach

Jobs I’ve had: (included voluntary to make it more interesting)
Newspaper girl delivering free papers
School Librarian
High-School Bank Manager and clerk (And yes I was kinda nerdy back then, in a very cute way)
Companion to person in need (might sound insignificant, but I gained a lot from experience)
Sales girl at high-street fashion store (you wouldn't know it to look at my wardrobe today)
Senior sales clerk at newsagents/bookstore (great discounts)
Various jobs in the travel industry ranging from entry to supervisory in the U.K. and the U.S.
Full-time student (and yes, I do consider this a job)
Full-time mother, part-time student
Stay at home mother (best job I've ever had)

Maggie has a "mating" song

Yes, you read that right. Maggie has a mating song. When she was in the bathtub tonight she said, "Mummy! Watch me. This is my mating song." She then bent her body down towards the water and blew bubbles with a little sing-song sound. I watched and asked, "Maggie what is a mating song?"
"Its when you want to mate with someone." she replied.
"Really?" I say. "What does mating mean?"
"It means you want to be friends with someone." she said.

Tell me, do you think she's been watching too many nature shows?

Weaning

I'm weaning my son from my boobs. He is twenty-one months old, three weeks and two days old. I'm writing it here to force me to commit. I am ready to wean him, I have been for a long time. I just find it emotionally hard to to do but it is time.

My last feeding was about 5:30 this morning when he woke unusually early in the morning. He was guzzling it down and was getting a lot from it; comfort and nutrition. And I admit, it was a lovely for me too. But, when he paws at my breast in public and can only be soothed by suckling at my breast when he is feeling insecure or tired my thoughts turn to weaning him.

As much an advocate I am of breast feeding, I also feel it is important for a mother to take charge when she feels it is no longer working in the best interests of her or her child. I feel this way whether the mother has been breast feeding for nothing but a couple of weeks or well into and past the second year like myself. I am in that place, the place where it is time to stop and encourage my son to find new ways of comforting himself. I think it will be a very good thing for us both; but it doesn't make it easy.

I have just put him down for a nap and did not allow him to feed. I held him close and whispered soft words in his ears. It wasn't long before the crying stopped and he had fallen asleep in my arms. It was lovely to feel his body fall limp and his soft skin brush against mine. I layed him down in his crib and he didn't stir or even flinch.

update: (12th June) Day two of weaning, and it was a breeze. He's been great and I think he understands. Very excited and feeling good about making this choice. Fingers crossed for tomorrow (we'll be out and about for most of the day).

Only a mother could laugh at this story

Today was one of those days. You know, the days which are filled with so much comical drama you look over your shoulder for the hidden camera.

Let me share the story with you.

I was running a lot of errand with my two kids today and my big girl announced she needed to go potty right as we were about to march into a shoe store to buy my son some new shoes. Although this was my third attempt to go shoe shopping for my son I was not about to risk her weak bladder relieving itself in the middle of a shoe store so we headed straight for the nearest public bathroom.

As I picked up a long stride my daughter trailed behind me with her toy stroller seating her pink stuffed cow. It was obvious that she did not feel safe picking up the speed for fear her bladder letting go. We must have been a pretty sight. I, recklessly pushing a stroller with a sleepy toddler whilst my daughter was pushing hers one handed with the other clasped right where it needed to be to stop all from flowing out.

We got to the bathrooms. We were so close and my daughter began to hop and skip from on foot to the other urgently saying, quickly mummy, quickly. I pushed on the door labelled with the woman in a skirt and it didn't open. I looked down and saw it was locked. I looked around and saw the janitor waltzing away in the opposite direction, probably bemused by the sight of me and my daughter. With one look back at my daughter, I took one giant leap to the right and pushed on the door marked with the picture of a man in pants. I opened it wide, yelled "hello" and marched right in -- said daughter ahead of me.

The men's bathroom was empty but my daughter continued to hop from foot to foot, "Mummy do they flush by themselves. Mummy, no mummy! They do. They flush by themselves." "Mummmmmmyyyyy" followed by a wail from my son. I see the urinal, it has no auto flash that my daughter can see. I pull her pants down and tell her to go. I hear no flow. I ask her if she's done. She says yes and tootles down from her awkward perch. What I see is not going down any urinal. There is a knock at the door. It is the janitor. Am I in trouble?

I splutter some kind of nonsensical thing out and she just smiles and nods her head back at me. I then hear her turning away a man with some explanation I can't fully understand. Phew I am safe. Back to the object sitting in the men's urinal and my daughter with nickers and pants around her ankles. I pick up the object with paper towel and place in proper disposal unit, wash my hands, help my daughter wash hers and head to the nearest clothing store to buy a new pair of nickers and shorts. She had wet her pants, and the change of clothing I had in my bag was wet from the leaking water bottle I had stowed in there hours earlier. Oh jeez....

For Ceci: The Two Cities

After my blog entry, "Twenty Things About Me", Fellow blogger Ceci at My Chaos My Bliss wants to know which two cities I hated. Dare I ask which city she lives in? I don't blame her for asking and I'll be the first to admit that is was foolish of me to use such strong language as love and hate. I thought about it. Really, I did. I paused as I stroked the keys h a t e but the lure of raising eyebrows and creating a wee bit of drama was just too irresistible and the polarity of love and hate was too attractive and demonstrative of how I felt at the time in which I lived in each city. If I had chosen my words more carefully I may have said something like, "... I hated living in two of them..." versus "... I hated two of them...". Or even, "I was miserable when I lived in two of them, perfectly content when I lived in two of them and quite accepting when I lived in another two. Being a penny too short and a dollar too late would seem a fitting phase right here. I hope I can be forgiven my faux pas but, Ceci, you asked a great question and I am more than happy to answer. The purge will do me good; I only hope it won't bore the rest of you.

Now for the unveiling. The first city I hated living in was Peterborough. I begin with this one as it falls further back in history. I moved to Peterborough from London when I was nineteen going on twenty. The move was inevitable and I knew it was coming but it didn't make it any easier. In London, I had a great sense of freedom. I enjoyed the art galleries and street performances, walks along the Thames and cheap west-end theater tickets. My favorite past-time was to people watch in Convent Garden with the string quartet busking in the cobble stoned piazza. I had a group of girlfriends I grew up who provided all the support and love I needed and felt quite comfortable walking into a bar and ordering myself a lonely single pint on a summer evenings with nothing but the newspaper or impressive novel for company; nursing it until it was time for me to be on my way. I loved the anonymity of the city and the security of good friends. I could loose myself in London or enjoy it with the company of good friends.

Moving to Peterborough was a big culture shock, more so than my move from England to the U.S. In actuality, the city of Peterborough only filled a short line on my mailing address. To all intense and purposes, I had moved to a small village sixteen or so miles north of Peterborough. The village had one bus service which ran every hour. I was used to having my choice of at least four running every fifteen minutes plus the underground and the train. I was also used to having a choice pubs to frequent -- more than I cared to count; the small village had two and everybody knew everybody else. A new face at the bar could bring the bustle to a standstill as looks were exchanged around the room. There was just one shop in the village and it was closed half days on Saturday and Sundays; no more craving runs to the local newsagents. That was an absolute killer for me -- no comfort food to soothe my soul on a lonely night.

Needless to say, my social life suffered and I was miserable. While I found London to provide a sense of autonomy armoured with perceived acceptance, the village I lived in felt suffocating and limiting and with few avenues to follow. In retrospect, how I came to meet my husband was nothing short of a miracle and is another story if of itself. For now, I shall simply say we met for the first time in a tiny old ford fiesta and married three years after a long-distance relationship. We'll be celebrating our tenth wedding anniversary this year.

As we all things, time and experience changes perception. When I go back to visit my family hwo live in the that same village I once found so sufficating, I find peace. I like the quieter life -- the two quaint pubs and tea-rooms galore. I enjoy the rugged back alleys backed by fields and fields of fallow land and wild bunnies jumping about the place, and I feel sad when I see a chain store planting its foundation and staking its claim. And when I visit my beloved London, I am glad that I don't live there anymore. I miss it; I miss aspects of London and what it has to offer, and I will always love London, but I know I'm happier here in California than a city dweller under the dark grey winter skies of London's city-scape.

As good a place as this would be to end, there is another city I am yet to unveil and that would be Houston, TX. Ceci, if this is where your heart is, I am so, so sorry. Houston, I'm afraid was the second city where I felt, well -- miserable. Maybe not quite miserable, but certainly frustrated. I lived in Houston for a short three months from the end of September through Christmas shortly after I was married. Unfortunately I forget the exact district.

In all honestly, my dislike for Houston probably had little to do with the city itself for I can remember plenty of good things I liked about it. The Tex-Mex was amazing. Really good. There was a restaurant we used to go to several times a week and would even make a special stop to pick up their salsa that to this day is the best I have ever tasted. Oh how we craved it for months after we left. I think hubby and I even considered using air miles to fly back on a weekend just to get of the Tex-Mex flavor again. The people were friendly there too, they always had time for you and were never too uptight.

Of course, you can't talk about Houston without mentioning Johnson's Space Center, an absolute must see and a quick search on yahoo travel tells me there's also a great children's museum there too. These are not the reasons I didn't enjoy my time living in Houston, nor was it out day trip to lovely Galveston, a quaint tourist spot fifty or so miles south east of Houston. The reason I hated living in Houston came down to transportation.

I was living in a brand new gated complex built for short term renters, mainly for businesses. We were one of the first tenants and many of the apartments and condos were empty. It was built on a stretch of road that didn't have anything for miles in either direction and the public transport was non-existent. I couldn't work due to a glitch with INS (Imigration and Naturalization Services) paperwork and I basically spent my days waiting for my hubby to come home. I was bored out my brain and having not been in the U.S. for very long was feeling a little lonely and homesick. It all sounds a bit pathetic to write it out now, but at the time I remember feeling pretty desperate. In retrospect it was probably a very good for me as it gave me pause to think about which direction I wanted to head in. It broke me free from the chains of work and allowed me to occupy my mind with new goals and revisit some old ones. Most likely, it was here where I realized my goal to return to school and complete a bachelors degree, a journey I began a year later and finally completed just last year.

So Ceci, I have bared all. The two cities I "hated" may have not been that much fun for me to live in at the time, but they did give me two great things. My husband and the path which led to a college degree. For that I always be grateful.

Twenty Things About Me

Tonya at A Day In My Life has pushed me into posting a draft I started some months back by gently (not so gently) encouraging her readers to answer fifty questions about themselves. Rather than responding to the fifty questions I'm posting this old draft I was too shy to post earlier. They are listed in no particular order.

1. Compassionate about learning -- in all realms, the self, others, cultures, art, literature, my children, my family.


2. I don't like to disappoint myself, and others even more.


3. I hate to break a promise and will go to extreme and daft lengths to keep a promise.


4. I find it easy to forgive and harder to forget.


5. My peaceful place is anywhere there's water (even the kitchen sink) but preferable a lake or ocean.


6. I like to swing on the swings at the park.


7. I've only ever loved once (that would be my hubby).


8. I spent four, or was it five years studying french -- but please don't ask me to interpret.


9. The first book I remember really loving was called, "My New Blue Shoes" and my mother used to read it to me at bedtime, over and over and over and over and over again.


10. Most Americans have seen more of the U.K. and Europe than me -- hopefully that will change.


11. My dream job without kids and hubby would be to be a travel journalist/photographer.


12. My dream job with kids and hubby is to stay-at-home and get paid for it.


13. My favorite colours to wear are brown, green, and blue.


14. I'd buy a new bag over a pair of shoes.


15. My guilty pleasures are celebrity gossip and reading other people's blogs.


16. I prefer savory over sweet foods and cold over hot drinks.


17. I have a broken nose and once fractured my tail bone (ouch).


18. I jumped out of an airplane at 8,000 feet over the Great Barrier Reef and Scuba Dived into it the following day. Magnificent.


19. I first learned to ride a bicycle at fifteen. It was pure adolescent, humiliating, torture.


20. I have lived in six cities; London, Peterborough, Los Angeles, Houston, Boston, Long Beach. I loved two them, hated two of them and have been happily content with two of them.