what do you do when its freezing outside?

… and just incase you needed proof of just how cold is it outside:

That proves it definitively.  The gospel according to iPhone shows.  More snow due too.  Joy.

So.  What do you do when it’s freezing out.

Two words:

Dress.  Up:

I think you’ll find the likeness between Keira and Stephanie from LazyTown quite uncanny.

From the mouth of babes

This is the conversation I had not 20 minutes ago with Keira:

Keira: Mummy

Me: Yes?

Keira: Can you help me write Father Christmas a letter?

Me: Of course, what do you want to tell him?

Keira: I want to say, Dear Father Christmas.  You don’t need to buy me a skateboard for christmas because Uncle Dan has got me one already (lifts skateboard to show me) and he says that he has saved you some time trying to find one.  Also, because Uncle Dan bought me a skateboard I don’t need rollers (roller skates) anymore. Oh but I do need some arm pads ’cause Uncle Dan forgot those.  Um, also Father Christmas, I would like pink laptop and some toys.  Father Christmas, don’t forget I’ve got a skateboard now and it’s very nice.  You can have a go if you would like, but Daddy has to teach me how to use it.  Thank you Father Christmas.  I love  you.  Oh no, wait – don’t forget to get Mummy a present.

Me: Is that what you want to write

Keira: Yeah and can you put a heart on it?

Her innocence makes me smile

All that mess…. for nothing!

But Mummy, I doooo like them.

Those are the pleas I hear from my 3 year old most weekends about baking.

I love how our kitchen smells when filled with the aroma of vanilla buns cooking in the oven.  I love watching how Keira’s face lights up when I tell her it’s time to decorate the cakes with her favourite rainbow sprinkles – see below an example of the cakes we make:

yummy, sugary goodness....

They look like that for about 10 minutes.

I do not love coming back to the cake tub to find that she has eaten the icing and the sprinkles OFF OF EVERY SINGLE CAKE MADE!

That’s right.  She didn’t just lick it off of one or two: she did the whole chuffing tub.

Me: Keira Bridget!

Keira: What mummy

She bats her baby blues at me

Me: Did you lick the icing off of all these cakes we made?

Keira: No.

Me: Who did?

Keira: Daddy?

Nice.  Blame reassignment already and not yet 4….. Great.

Me: Really?

Keira: Yeah, Daddy said he like the sprinkles

Uh huh……

Me: Keira, what have I told you about telling fibs?

Keira: But I don’t like the cake bit.

Hmph.

Please explain to me why I go through the pain of the weighing, the mixing and the baking only to be left with a tub full of half eaten, half licked vanilla sponge cakes?

Answers on a post card please.

Where do babies come from….

This sounds about right.....

She’s 3 years old.

I was kind of hoping I wouldn’t have to answer those kinds of questions till she was about 7 or 8.

No such luck.

I was enjoying a nice mug of tea after another long shitty day in telecoms when I look at the face of my 3 year old: innocent and pure. 

Then she hits me with it:

Mummy.  Where do babies come from?

You’re kidding me right? 

Me: Erm… 

In steps J with his scientific ‘man’ approach:

J: Babies live in their mummy’s tummy before they’re born

Keira: How do they get there Daddy?

I raise an eyebrow that suggests if this goes wrong, we’ll be having words….

J: OK, think about your tomato plant.

…. this should be a corker…

J: Your tomatoes grew from seeds didn’t they?

Keira: Yeah

J: Well, babies are kind of the same

Keira: How?

J: Babies grow from seeds and live in their mummy’s tummy until they’re ready to be born

Keira: Why?

J: Because babies can’t live in their mummy’s tummy forever.  Look at you, you’re not in mummy’s tummy now are you?

Keira:  No. 

Just as J was starting to look the cat that got the cream, he hears:

Keira: Daddy, do babies come from tomatoes?

It’s about now that J looked at me, I’m guessing, for some kind of back up.  I decided to sit back and let him roll with it.  He was doing so well after all…..

J: No Keira, babies don’t come from tomatoes. 

Keira was just sat there, big, wide blue eyes not quite getting it.

He scratches his head in bemusement..

J: Babies grow in their mummy’s tummy and then they’re born.  Does that answer your question?

Keira:  Mummy, where do babies come from?

Me: Love.  Babies come from love

Keira: Ahh, that’s lovely mummy

That’s where babies come from…..

 

Nurse Bitch

I do not like my daughter being ill.

I get it:  kids pick up germs and scuffs and scrapes.  It’s part of childhood.  A series of events that will prepare them for the world ahead.

I get it.  But I’ll be damned if I’m going to like it.

It’s like the immunisations she has to have.  I support the fact that she has to have them 100%.  Whatever she needs to protect her gets my vote.  But what I don’t like is the aftermath of the jabs.  The little dose of whatever she is supposed to be protected from.

Keira is 3½ and will start primary school in September 2010 and a week and a half ago she had her pre-school boosters. 

It was awful.  I’m still scarred by the whole event. 

Seriously – the time in the nurse’s office was the longest 10 minutes of my life and the nurse was a complete bitch.

Our normal nurse is a really lovely lady.  Mid-50′s, grey hair, sweet voice, short and round with caring eyes.  Like a child’s nurse should be. 

Not like the ill-tempered, cold-hearted bint who actually greeted me that Wednesday afternoon.

It turns out that Keira had to have two boosters.  One in each arm.

Keira screamed on site of the needles and started to fight me. 

I had to put her in a head lock and clamp both her legs between mine and hold her arm really tight so that she couldn’t move.  I felt the worst I’ve ever felt.  Ever.

It took me at least 3 minutes to get Keira into a position where I wasn’t worried about breaking her arms, her legs or her neck only for Nurse Bitch to say ‘I need to do the left arm first’

Are you fucking serious?  Sorry for the language but what the fuck? 

Me: Look, you can see she’s clearly distressed, can you jab the right arm first seeings as that’s the one I’ve got free?

Nurse Bitch: I’m afraid not Miss McCollam.

She placed too much emphasis on the Miss for my liking.

Don’t thump her I told myself.

Me: Why?

Nurse Bitch: Immunisation procedures state that they need to be done in order.

Me: I’m sure they don’t.  Look, she’s upset, can you please do the right jab first whilst I’ve got her here?

Nurse Bitch: No, I’m sorry

You bloody will be.

Me: Fine.

I looked at my daughter’s blood shot eyes and runny nose and resisted all temptation to knock Nurse Bitch to the ground and upset her to see how she liked it.

Me: Mummy’s going to turn you round baby so the nurse can do this arm, OK?  Don’t worry, Mummy isn’t going anyway.

Keira: <insert very loud screaming and wailing here>

Me: Don’t look baby, just put your head on Mummy’s chest and don’t look.

Keira didn’t follow instructions.  Why the hell would she?  She’s 3 and being contorted to fit with the nurse. 

I had to force her into the same position as before only this time so Nurse Bitch could follow some obscure protocol and do the left arm first.

Her scream sent a shiver down my spine. 

THIS IS ENTIRELY YOUR FAULT AND WHEN WE’RE DONE YOU WILL WISH YOU HAD SHOWN SOME FLEXABILITY TO MY 3 YEAR OLD!

Nurse Bitch: Now if you could turn her round we’ll do the right arm.

I switch Keira back to the position she started off in and let Nurse Bitch do the second jab.

Keira screamed again.

Nurse Bitch attempted to get close to Keira so she could apply some cotton swabs to her arm where the needles went it.

Me: Give them to me and I’ll do it

Nurse Bitch: I….

I stopped her at that point:

Me: Look, I know you have a job to do and you’ve probably been doing jabs for screaming children all day but don’t you ever speak to me like you did today again.  I may be a Miss to you but I am the mother of the girl you just injected with no feeling or foresight into how this exercise may affect her.  She did not deserve how she was treated in here today and how you handled her reaction to her needles was less than satisfactory by my standards.  Now kindly finishing filling out my paperwork so I can leave.

The young receptionist girl who’d been drafted in to fill in medical cards barely made eye contact with me.

I dressed Keira, picked her up and took her out to the waiting room where she could calm down.