Junk

Okay, okay, so I’m back for a minute. I know it's been a while, so mea culpa.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking over the past few days about clutter. This is due to the fact that our flat currently looks like a testing ground for a new and advanced brand of demolition equipment.

It all starts with parents. I grew up in a beautiful home that my parents created from the ground up. It’s a haven of tranquility and although I remember clutter in certain rooms (i.e. mine) while growing up, the living spaces were almost always free of excessive detritus. (Although, being the offspring of two teachers, half graded piles of schoolwork just blended into the background.)

It is perhaps a little unfair to compare my living environment to my parent’s lovely home- first and foremost due to the fact that our flat would fit into their house three times over. Secondly, they have a great deal more storage space than we do, so it’s not that they don’t OWN a bunch of useless crap, but it’s definitely better hidden. Our useless crap is currently all residing in the lounge like a load of unwanted and slovenly houseguests.

My parents are arriving tomorrow afternoon for a visit on their way back from a whistle stop tour of Italy. Mr. DD and I often use these visits as an excuse for a life purge of sorts. However, this time, we might just have left it a bit late.

I spent an hour or so spelunking in the space that we generously call our attic on Saturday, (Mr. DD, being 6’2”, feels a bit like a giraffe in a coat closet up there, so any marathon attic sessions are undertaken by me.) determined to find things that needed to be expelled from the premises. (So that I could make room for MORE useless crap that needed to be stored) I discovered 4 bags of charity shop clothes that had been slung into the crawl space in frustration on previous visits that were unceremoniously flung back down through the hatch, startling the Prawn. The remnants of our “weird drawer” (don’t try to deny that you’ve got one, because EVERYONE does.) from our days on Galileo were dumped into a trash bag after a quick inspection. An old bathroom cabinet that had come with the flat and had TWICE been shoved into the gods finally came down to go to its final resting place. (The tip.)

Despite feeling as though we had managed to purge rather a lot of stuff, the flat is still left looking like hell on toast and although I’m fairly sure it will be shipshape and Bristol fashion by the time my parents walk though the door, I’m ready for it to be done RIGHT NOW. Both Mr. DD and I and even the Prawn have been left feeling quite unsettled by the clutter. It leaves me wondering about the mental wellbeing of people whose lives are lived amongst clutter on a day to day basis. The people who are featured on shows with titles like, “Holy Shit, You LIVE Here?” I’ve felt unsettled, grumpy and anxious amongst the piles of paper, bedding and things that I didn’t even know we still owned. The Prawn too has been more antsy of late. So how do some people managed to live their lives voluntarily surrounded by clutter, in many cases much WORSE than ours? How do they relax? How do they not want to see the floor? How do they not want even the slightest bit of ORDER? I mean, I’m not anal by any definition, but I know when I find bits of toast and cheese on the floor, it makes me crazy. (Toast and cheese are the two elements most likely to be found in odd places now that we have the Prawn. Cheerios are just a given.) Being surrounded by heaps and piles makes me pretty miserable.

So I am looking forward to tomorrow morning when hopefully all of the heaps and piles will have miraculously dissolved into the ether, leaving my home clutter free.

At least until the Prawn has breakfast.

Sick, Sick, Sick

The moment that I have been dreading as a parent with weak constitution finally occurred at approximately 3 am this morning.

My mother told me that she too was notoriously squeamish when it came to all matters scatological until motherhood, as it does universally, beat just about all of the queasiness out of her.

Except when it came to sick.

She particularly remembers an incident that took place when I was about 8 and came down with a violent stomach flu. After emptying the contents of my stomach on the floor by my bed, she sent me to take a shower and steeled herself to clean up the mess. Only when she arrived at the scene of the carnage, she discovered that the Crime Scene had already been tampered with by our painfully brainless lab/cocker mix, Lady. This alone nearly sent her sprinting for the porcelain herself.

So, when I heard the unmistakable sound of Cardinal Chunder early this morning, I braced myself for the worst.

And the worst was what I got. After awakening Mr. DD with the words, "Honey, the Prawn has totally hosed all over her bed and I need you to hold her", I had to get to work stripping the sheets, which was a painful test of my newly hardened parental stomach. The Prawn, meanwhile, was happily charging around the living room in her pants, (having been stripped by Mr. DD) quizzically repeating, "Window?" as if to ask her father why the hell the world outside was all dark and broken and smelling like a bad night out in the city centre.

My reluctance to push the laundry through before bed came back to bite me in the ass, as, at 3.30, I was forced to fold everything in the dryer, (that luckily contained a clean shirt for Lady Barfalot) take everything out of the washer and put it INTO the dryer and chuck blankets, bottom sheets and the indomitable Sir Humphrey the Second (Lord Humphrey now, I reckon) into the washing machine.

I am pleased to say that I survived with no ill effects other than waking up for work this morning feeling like I had a hangover.

I rued not having at least chugged down a whiskey or something before returning to bed at quarter to 5 to feel like it was well deserved.

Update

Before becoming a mother, I never would have expected to utter the phrase, "STOP RUBBING TOAST ALL OVER THE DRYER!" to anyone.

It's been a while since updating this blog. Life has kind of taken over. The Prawn is now 17 months old, has a vocabulary of over 100 words and finds new ways every day to delight and frustrate us. She is currently stomping around the living room like a T-Rex shouting "OBAMA!" and spreading crumbs everywhere. We're not those parents who try to turn their kid into a walking billboard or anything, but Mr. DD bought his book last week and since then, she's spent a lot of time pointing at the cover and saying,

"Daddy!"

"No, darling, that's Obama."

"Daddy!"

"OBAMA."

"OHHHHH-BAMMA!"

So he is now her favorite person on earth. The Democratic convention, what little coverage of it we're getting over here, is a dream come true for her and a balm to soothe the gaping hole that the Olympics left in her life. "LYMPICS!" she'd yell the moment she came into the living room in the morning. But now that there is Obama, everything is all good.

There is no denying her toddlerhood now. It is upon us fully with all of it's screaming tantrums and obsessive behaviors. She knows what "no" means, but mostly chooses to ignore the word unless she herself uses it. She can say "please" and "thank you". 3 seems to be her favorite number. Spaghetti bolognaise is a firm favorite in the food department, although Ken Hom's salmon, lemon and ginger stirfry doesn't go amiss either. She wants to walk most places, but isn't a fan of holding hands. Her favorite toy is a set of stacking blocks with numbers 1-10 on them, all of which she can recognize.

The Prawn marches on.

Rock Your Sock Off

The Prawn likes Queen. We know we are doing something right.

She had her first taste of the mighty Bohemian Rhapsody yesterday evening while watching her grandfather’s Queen DVD on his amazing new massive telly. Her eyes grew large. Her legs began to twitch. She flapped her arms arhythmically. And most importantly, she went totally apeshit in the right parts.

“Can you say Freddie?” we asked her.

“FWEDDIE!” she shouted joyfully, cannoning into the coffeetable.

To further our delight at her interest in rock and roll, she provided us with this little performance in the car.

NOM NOM NOM

Now that the Prawn is de-pocked and there doesn't seem to be any sign of the disgusting little blighters on me, I can concentrate on better endeavors. Like eating.

I don't often share recipes because there are a lot of people on the web who are much better cooks than I am, but seriously, this one? BEST THING I HAVE EATEN. EVER.

Ken Hom is a minor culinary god in my book. My second favorite dish of all time is one of his as well. (Chicken and Pineapple Stir Fry with Cashews) But for your eating pleasure...Salmon Stir Fry with Lemon and Ginger.

450g/1lb fresh boneless salmon fillet
2 tsp salt
4 tbsp groundnut oil
1 tbsp finely chopped fresh ginger (I sliced this into fine strips)
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp lemon zest (I sliced sections of the skin off and chopped them into fine strips as well)
1 whole lemon, peeled, segmented
2 tsp sesame oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper
basmati rice, cooked according to packet instructions, to serve

Method
1. Cut the salmon into 2.5cm/1in wide strips. Sprinkle the salt evenly over the salmon strips and set aside for 20 minutes.

2. Heat a wok or large frying-pan over a high heat until it's hot. Add three tablespoons of the oil. When very hot and slightly smoking, turn the heat down to medium and add the salmon strips.

3. Fry the salmon without stirring for about two minutes, then gently turn over and fry until the salmon strips are golden-brown on both sides. Take care not to break them up.

4. Carefully remove the cooked salmon strips with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper. Wipe the wok clean with kitchen paper being careful not to burn yourself.
5. Reheat the wok and add the remaining oil. Add the ginger and stir-fry for 20 seconds, then add the sugar, lemon zest, lemon segments, salt and freshly ground black pepper and stir-fry gently for 1-2 minutes.

6. Return the salmon to the wok and gently mix with the lemon mixture for one minute.

7. Add the sesame oil and give the mixture a gentle stir.

8. To serve, remove the salmon and lemon slices from the wok and place onto a warm serving plate with a spoonful of cooked rice alongside.

Your mouth is going to thank you for this recipe and beg you to make it every night of the week.

Hmmmm...

Okay, so we've now established that the Prawn has a deep an enduring phobia of doctors.

Strangely, none of them have ever done anything heinous to her so far like stick something up her butt or anything. If this were the case, I could totally understand the unrestrained screamfest that accompanies every visit, but so far, none of the doctors she's ever seen has done anything worse than attempt to listen to her heart or look in her ear, both of which are near impossible when the subject in question is wailing like a banshee and squirming like an angry squid. The nurse, however, who, every time we see her, gives the Prawn a jab....she has no fear of whatsoever. Go figure.

We have a really lovely GP who actually gave us a diagnosis at first of hand/foot/mouth, but who, when consulted today with the Prawn's multitide of spots, was like, "WHOA! Sorry about that. That's DEFINITELY chicken pox." He probably couldn't get a good enough look due to the extreme wigglage of my offspring.

So, great for the Prawn. She gets chicken pox over and done with. I don't have to worry about me conceivably getting knocked up again some time in the future (ha!) and having to leave the house if she comes down with them. I also don't have to worry about her getting them (or me getting them) right before my brother-in-law's wedding. But at the moment, I have to scrupulously check for dots and have the doctor on speed dial should they appear. I'm guessing that since I was exposed so many times as a child and didn't contract them, that I probably have an immunity, but the Universe has been vomiting mouseparts on my bedspread for some time now and I'm not holding my breath.

Fuck My Hat

The Prawn has chicken pox.

This would not normally be a problem.

But I've never had them.

I'm at itchcon 1.

Fan Girl

During Wimbledon, we had the telly on pretty much from the moment we came home until 9 or so when the tennis finished. I'm not a huge tennis fan, but I like watching Wimbledon. It's lovely background noise; quiet punctuated with applause.

During the final, we were rooting for Roger Federer to beat the record of 6 victories in a row, so Mr. DD taught the Prawn to say "Ro-JA!" (Her chanting of "Ro-JA" was also punctuated with exclamations of "WIN!" with accompanying arm lifts, that we taught her when she was only about 10 months old. )

Yesterday, while attempting to get her to eat at least a 3rd of her dinner, Mr. DD was quizzing her on words she knew.

"Can you say "cow"?"

"gow!" she said with a mouthful of egg.

"Can you say "dog"?"

"dog!"

"Can you say "Roger"?"

Her eyes grew wide and her face shone with unadulterated glee.

"RO-JA!" she whispered rapturously, as if remembering some great lost love.

Ah, summer romance.

Hairy Problems

So, the march toward toddlerhood continues.

I've asked other parents if their children had gone through an insatiable grabbing phase during which ANY item, no matter how mundane or uninteresting, must be kept out of sight or reach lest an explosive episode occur. Surprisingly, a lot of them have said, "no", leaving me to think I may have a slightly compulsive child on my hands. Or a budding shoplifter.

Everything in our house has now gravitated to the middle of tables resulting in abstract piles of jewelry tools, mail and coffee cups appearing with startling regularity. The Prawn would have them all, if she could.

Strangely the most knotty problem of late has to do with her hair. (See what I did there?)

The Prawn had some good hair genes to draw on. Her father, damn him, has a long, luxurious mane of thick, strawberry blond locks. Sadly, her little genes determined that she would have hair the consistency of her mother's (the finest of the fine) combined with CURLS, which is a sure fire combo for the worst snarls in the history of the world, resulting in a 15 month old who uses more hair care products than me.

She has varying degrees of tolerance for barnet maintenance operations. It is only recently that she has submitted docilely to hats and hair clips, which has been a great relief. However, washing and conditioning is quite another thing altogether. Suffice to say that both of us need toweling off after her baths. And don't get me started on the hairdryer.

The obvious solution would be to cut her hair but since I rarely have enough luck to get her to stand still enough to eat a grape, my guess is that a trip to the hairdressers would require restraints if not sedation. Plus, I wouldn't do that to my hairdresser, who I would like to continue cutting MY hair.

Any suggestions out there for unmanageable toddler tresses?

Music Critic

Being the musos that we are, we spent last Saturday at the Hard Rock Calling festival in Hyde Park. We had toyed with the idea of taking the Prawn, but once we were there, we were down on our knees thanking the common sense gods that we'd left her with our friend The Barmaid. The line up included John Mayer, Sheryl Crow and Eric Clapton; all artists the Prawn has been listening to since birth, but the heat of the day and the enormity of the crowd would have made toddler wrangling a chore and a half.

We recorded a bit of the finale on our camera, although we found that someone else got a MUCH better video from where they were standing.



Upon returning home the next way, The Prawn toddled over to where Mr. DD was watching the playback on the camera. As John Mayer stepped up to play, she remarked, "GEETAH!" gleefully. She then looked more thoughtful, pointed, said "Babe!" and watched Mayer's solo rapturously. (I was so proud!) Eric Clapton was next up to the mic. The Prawn was less impressed and pushed the fast forward button.

Old Slowhand may be married to a 32 year old, but he's losing his touch with the younger set.

The Prawn Hits 15 Months

It's been a while since a little photo shoot, so here is the Prawn in all of her glory. :)

Changeling

I remember a fairy tale from my childhood about goblins who were wont to spirit away children and leave changelings in their place- a child that looked exactly like the original but behaved like wild animals. I'm beginning to think that if they ever come back, I'm going to trap one of those little fuckers and force them to give me back my baby.

Yes, I have a toddler.

I don't know how it happened. It seems like just yesterday that she was just a happy little spud rocking out on the carpet while Mr. DD played guitar, but all of a sudden, it's become apparent that we have something living with us that has a WILL. That must be obeyed. RIGHT NOW. ON PAIN OF LOUDNESS.

It seems to have happened overnight, really, which is why it's so weird. One day, she's a relaxed little soul and the next day she is replaced by a whinging, whining ex-pat from the planet Tantrum. The slightest delay in the execution of necessary tasks, the slightest roadblock to her finely laid plans, ANYTHING brings about Hurricane Cranky.

Functioning on 4 hours sleep as I am, (she decided at 1.30am that sleeping was for pussies) it is hard to be objective. All I know is that I started drinking BEFORE I started Sunday dinner yesterday, so it was quite a day.

On a positive note, her vocabulary is improving. She can count to 5, say "bum" repeatedly and whenever she farts, she cracks up and shouts, "TOOT!"

My mother thinks we need to break her of the last two habits, but I'm not so sure.

Here's a video of her taken in a rare moment when she wasn't behaving like a wolverine this weekend:

Lolbaby

How to tell if you have been spending too much time around the house talking like lolcats:

When your child drops her juice on the floor and shouts, "OH NOES!"

Crap.

The Accidental Racist

Now that it's become quite obvious that The Prawn has become a small playback machine, more than ever we are watching our language. ("Melon Farmer" has become a staple word in our vocabulary.) My virtual sister-in-law even takes it upon herself to thwack my brother-in-law when he lets a choice word slip. And as for her grandfather...well we just make sure that she's too far away from him to hear what he's saying when he's in a mood.

My virtual sister and brother in law just recently purchased a Wii, which I now covet highly. We spent a lot of the weekend playing on the unique console, trying everything from tennis (which nearly resulted in broken furniture and the dog getting stepped on more than one.) to ski slalom. (which was about 10 times harder than it looked.)

Our biggest group effort was in bowling, however, and we all had a rather good time trying to thrash eachother on the virtual and scarily accurate lanes. The dog, who was recovering from tennis was obviously excited as 6 people seemed to be THROWING THINGS. IN THE HOUSE. So he bounded around, the concept of virtual reality too baffling for his tiny, doggy brain, wondering WHERE IN THE HELL ALL OF THESE THINGS WERE GOING before looking up at us ruefully as if to say, "You know, this looks like it should be fun, but it's really not."

In the Wii world, one chooses an avatar to represent you. For reasons too difficult to explain, my father-in-law's team was represented by a black "Mii" in their sporting exploits. The bowling program has an announcer who comes up from time to time if you get a strike or a spare who, rather predictably, shouts, "NICE STRIKE!" or "NICE SPARE!" The Prawn, of course, was sitting around, observing quietly (although her view of the proceedings was probably not all that different from the dog's.) and eventually toddled up to the television screen to see what all the fuss was about.

Just as father-in-law stepped up to play with his Mii of color, the Prawn happily shouted, "SPADE!"

It would have been pointless at the time to point out to my howling family that she was obviously trying to say, "spare" which had been shouted at top volume frequently over the last 10 minutes.

I've talked about how I feel about racial humor before. My feelings, in short, are that the best way to take power from something is to laugh at it. In an era where everyone lives in terror of words, racism can become stronger quietly, since everyone is afraid to talk about it for fear of using the wrong term, the wrong combination of words, the wrong tone of voice. Someday I'll have to have a conversation with the Prawn about hurtful words and I hope that while she takes my advice to heart, I also hope that there is never a combination of letters that makes her afraid.

One person who definitely ISN'T afraid to mock just about anything is Kevin Smith. In this scene from Clerks 2, terminal slacker Randall Graves makes a serious faux pas. Not in the least bit Safe For Work.

Elegy for a White Donkey

Parenthood is full of small absurdities. Yesterday, I discovered the entirety of the alphabet (in magnet form) inside my Doc Martens. Instead of wondering what my life was coming to, I merely thought, “Oh THAT’S where those went.” I often think of my mother-in-law, who once opened the freezer to discover the ice cube tray contained not only ice, but several Han Solo action figures “frozen in carbonite.” I think I can just be grateful for the moment that I don’t have a boy, because I don’t think I could handle waking up with an excruciating pain in my back to discover that I was lying on Action Man. At any rate, I digress.

The absurdity came to a head yesterday afternoon while on a routine shopping trip with The Prawn. Due to the misery of the weather, she was safely ensconced inside her rain bubble cockpit with trusty sidekick, Sir Humphrey Bollagaurd as I completed my errands. When I came to Waitrose in order to purchase cupcake making supplies for the up coming natal festivities of Mr. DD and my virtual sister-in-law, I glanced down, and discovered, to my horror, that Humphrey was, in fact, AWOL.

“You’ve lost Humphrey!” I said out loud, and promptly burst into tears.

I blame my mother for this.

When I was small, she managed to instill a sense of extreme empathy that lingers with me today and unfortunately includes the anthropomorphication of inanimate objects. “Oh no!” she’d say, upon waking me up in the morning, “Bear fell out of bed! He must have had an awfully cold and lonely night on the floor.” Of course, this would emotionally cripple me for the day, imagining Bear spending the night on the floor, gazing up at me sadly, and wondering why I would be so callous as to ACCIDENTALLY KNOCK HIM OFF THE BED IN MY SLEEP.*

An instant search was mounted. I retraced my steps and stops all around town. I called back at shops I’d been in and shops along the route to see if anyone had handed Humphrey in. Then I did it again. And a third time. The town of Berkhamstead was treated to the sight of a grown woman with streaked mascara desperately hunting for a stuffed donkey.

The Prawn, meanwhile, who still has the short term memory of a goldfish, was fairly content to go along for the ride. She, of course, has no concept of “gone” or “lost”; to her, Humphrey simply IS. “Humfra!” she said happily, from time to time, deepening my despair as it became apparent that dear Sir Humphrey was nowhere to be found.

I wept bitterly all the way home, the Prawn in the backseat, happily oblivious. I could not help but imagine the sense of abandonment this well loved donkey must have felt as he tumbled from the buggy into the rainy street. I’m a 33 years old and I was devastated by the loss of this stuffed toy that my daughter had brought to life, just by loving him. I felt miserable and utterly absurd. Mr. DD was equally devastated when I tearfully informed him of the tragedy over the phone. I prefaced my confession with “Something awful happened!” leading him to believe that I’d crashed the car. I love that I married a man who would have PREFERED that I’d crashed the car.

The only thing that kept the disaster from becoming a catastrophe was that for once, the two of us had some foresight. Months ago, when it was obvious that Humphrey was becoming a fast favourite, we bought a “stunt double.” (This is when we discovered that he was, in fact, a pony called Parsley. It was a bit like finding out that your high school English teach that you had a crush on was gay.) Stunt Humphrey has been used once or twice when the One True Humphrey has been indisposed; either in the washing machine or left behind at Grandad’s house. The Prawn, of course knows only that Humphrey is white and soft, and has never been bothered by these substitutions, so when we returned from our ill fated trip, I went, with heavy heart, to the toy shelf to deploy Stunt Humphrey into active duty. In my head, I asked whatever spirit that formerly inhabited his predecessor to imbue the New Humphrey with the same spark of life, and then tentatively handed him to the Prawn, who’s face lit up as she embraced him.

To her, he is the One True Humphrey and always has been.

The Worst Supper

I remember eating out. I think it used to have something to do with eating. And maybe talking, but I can’t be sure.

We’ve been meaning to get together with the Cheerful Idiot and the Barmaid for sometime to celebrate our goddaughter’s birthday, so when we finally found a few hours that worked for 4 adults, it meant taking 3 children out in public and trying to get them to ingest something, which is always a situation to be avoided at all costs. To make matters worse, we chose a local branch of a crappy and overly pricey Italian chain joint with notoriously bad service, so we were obviously setting ourselves up for big fun. Mr. DD is also in the process of trying to get off of caffeine, so he spent the day thinking withdrawal related thoughts and wishing that he could sleep until forgetting that he’d ever HEARD of coffee, so his general fatigue was yet another factor to add to the general mayhem.

Even without the child factor, our local branch of Frankie and Benny’s (a restaurant that tries hard to convince you that it is oozing with New York Italian charm while simultaneously employing underage chavlings from the wrong side of Aylesbury.) is not exactly the venue for a restful repast. This was proven within moments of being seated when, in lieu of the traditional annoying, but generally innocuous, congregation of waiters to wish a guest Happy Birthday, the entire establishment was plunged into darkness and treated to a cacophonous version of the popular natal hymn the blared from every corner, followed by a fit-inducing light show. And then they did it again. And then a third time. The waves of hate emanating from my body could have killed small mammals.

Mr. DD and I don’t get out to restaurants much these days, but generally when we do get a chance to eat al fresco (al fresco translating to “not sitting on the couch watching The Simpsons”) it’s not quite the relaxing ordeal that it used to be seeing as how the third member of our party chews with her mouth open, belches loudly and feels that her hair is just as good a place as any for the main entrée. When wait staff as us “How many?”, “Two and a half” has become a standard answer and we tend to leave a fair amount of work for the poor sod who has to clean the table in the form of partially chewed pasta and baby wipes covered in various organic substances.

We miss dining mano y mano, Mr. DD and I.

Bad Behavior

For anyone wondering if it is possible for children to be assholes, be assured, it really, really is.

The Prawn is not generally an asshole. In the traditional sense, I suppose it's not really fair to apply the asshole label until one knows how NOT to be an asshole, but let me just go on to tell you how tired I am of teething.

What kind of crappy design flaw is it to have teeth come in one at a time, causing apparently excruciating discomfort with every new gnasher? Surely, someone, somewhere should be working on a way to get all of the buggers to come in at the same time so that we could all GET A LITTLE SLEEP AROUND HERE.

Chatterbox

The horror. It can talk.

I don't remember who said it, but a quote that sticks in my mind about children is that "it's lovely to live near a playground so that you can hear the chatter of little voices. Providing that you don't listen to closely to what they're actually saying." This fact was brought into sharp relief when I took The Prawn to our local toddler playground for an afternoon romp only to find it mostly occupied with 9-10 year old boys goofing around. I fixed them with a fairly disapproving look, but ignored them for the most part while the Prawn clambered happily over some of the equipment. However, I kept one ear on their conversation which was both shocking and hilarious at the same time. My guess is that they had been talking fairly freely before my arrival and either out of deference for my adult authority status (ha!) or the Prawn's pristine ears, while their talk remained coarse, they at least had the decency to SPELL their curse words.

"You know that blonde kid, yeah? Who called me a b-a-s-t-a-r-d?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm going to punch 'im in the f-u-c-k-i-n-g face tomorrow at break."


It took all my power not to laugh, seeing as how they'd go to all that trouble. Little s-h-i-t-s.

At any rate, the Prawn is also making more and more advanced forays into the world of linguistics and thankfully none of them have included any of the above mentioned words. It has become obvious to us that while we may still be able to swear like sailors once she is abed, that we'd better find more creative methods of expressing displeasure when she is in earshot.

Occasionally we leave her with a friend who is very good with children and we trust totally but who is, shall we say, slightly more basic in vocabulary than we ourselves are. She's someone who might say "anyfink" instead of "anything" or "I done that" rather than "I did that". One of my personal favorite derogatory phrases that I've learned since coming to the UK has been "minging", as it seems to be rather descriptive of something that is disgusting or unpleasant. This girl uses this phrase quite a lot and last night I off-handedly said it to Mr. DD about something only to hear a little voice down at knee height say, "MINGING!" gleefully. While not ACTUALLY a curse word, it's not necessarily something I want my child shouting in the supermarket, to be taken the wrong way by all and sundry. Mr. DD already taught her to say "bum" which is quite enough to be getting on with.

Her vocabulary list now includes almost all parts of the face, a fair number of barnyard animals, the number 2, the standard "mama" and "dada", clock, cheese, banana, (pronounced "nana") milk, juice, egg, a number of items of clothing, a few transportational devices and of course her first love, "guitar".

The fact that I manufactured something that is now capable of talking to me is a daily source of amazement.

Inked *updated*

When I get an idea in my head, I don’t dick around. All I can say right now is that my ankle hurts.

At this point, I must admit my profoundly embarrassing love for “reality” series, Miami Ink, chronicling the life and slightly staged times of the Floridian inkers at Love/Hate Tattoos in South Beach and the effect that these nightly forays into the world of body modification was having on my willpower to not have any more work done. Mr. DD was already getting some ink to commemorate the birth of the Prawn, so I couldn’t very well let him have all the flesh scarifying fun. After a few days of playing around in Photoshop, I came up with a design that I was happy with and yesterday, the two of us trotted off to the local inkery to get marked for life. (The Prawn was safely and temporarily ensconced with a babysitter so that she didn’t spend the duration of our appointments tearing flash off the walls and decorating the floor with as many different colors of ink as she could get her mitts on.)

Tattoos always seem to be a great idea until the moment the needle touches your skin for the first time causing a sensation akin to someone viciously and repeatedly stubbing a very fine cigarette out on you. And then doing it again, and enjoying it. This is not to elicit pity, because asking for compassion following an entirely unnecessary and self-inflicted hurt would be just a tad foolish, but it doesn’t change the fact that it hurts like the proverbial motherfucker. It’s lucky for me that my inker is not only tremendously talented, but a fast worker, so the agony was a relatively short one and I came out the other end with a rather lovely bit of art on my right ankle with should heal up in relatively short order.

Mr. DD went second and offered up his arm to the needle to be adorned with the initials of our daughter. The area of the hands, for my husband, is a bit of a delicate region. In fact, such is his squeamishness about his digits and their outlands that, if given a choice between hand surgery and losing one or both testicles, I think his boys might have a run for their money. I was expecting at least a bit of pallor, but he took it like a man under the quick hand of our artist and was soon in possession with a very cool set of initials in a great font, ironically called Skin Deep.

So, here we both sit, blogging our experiences and nursing the niggling pain in our extremities and enjoying our new bits of ink.

Until the next time.

More Prawn Than You Can Handle

This is the one time of year that I get to post "don't you wish your countryside was hot like mine" pics. Our local bluebell woods was remarkably quiet this afternoon. It's a shame that this isolated and quiet spot turns into Disney World when the flowers come out, complete with shouting children, quarreling adults and rambunctious dogs.

This is the Prawn's second visit to the woods and the site of her first smile a little over a year ago. This time, she got to navigate the paths under her own power.