Techno-whizz and not yet two

Yesterday evening, I made the mistake of leaving my mobile on the floor for a fraction of a second. At least that’s what I assume I did. When I went to check it before turning in for the night, I found it on the sofa with the Bluetooth light flashing. My first thought was, 'Excellent! So finally the Bluetooth is working! I can copy my pics of Babe to my laptop.' (I had spent hours recently, trying to turn the Bluetooth facility on, and failing.) This thought was closely followed by another: 'Hang on, who exactly has got it working?' (Other Half is not a techno-whizz - well, actually that's the understatement of the decade, but suffice to say, I knew he wasn't involved.) Closer inspection of the screen also revealed a 'signal disabled' message. My powers of deduction led me to Babe... But how on earth had he succeeded where I had failed, and how the hell had he stopped the phone working in the meantime?

I spent a good fifteen minutes scrolling through the Bluetooth facility, trying to turn it off, and getting increasingly incensed. Meanwhile, I realised that the phone must have stopped receiving calls and messages at least three hours earlier, and I’d been expecting a couple of friends to be in contact that evening. Bloody hell! Grrrrrrrrrrr!

I decided to try turning the phone off and on again. Twice. On the second attempt, the Bluetooth stopped flashing. I considered tinkering with it, to see if I could now get it working again, but my priority was to have my phone working before I left for work at ten to eight the next morning. I know from bitter experience that on the one occasion I haven't got my phone with me, something bad will happen. (Last October; morning off work; Babe at nursery; me lolling in bath for first time since he was born; Other Half calls, screaming hysterically down the phone; Babe bitten by spider at nursery; ambulance has been called; I run down road in trousers-no-pants, shoes-no-socks, dressing-gown-no-bra and wet hair flapping in the wind.) (You're thinking this is made up, too, but I swear it's not. Babe was fine - when I arrived, the spider in question was in a plastic cup with cling film on top and the two ambulance men were looking at spiders on the Internet. I was about to expire...)

So, eventually, after a whole lot more fiddling, swearing, throwing the phone at the sofa (I held it together sufficiently to restrain myself from chucking it at the wall, but it was a close call) and raised eyebrows from Other Half (I don't often hold it together), it occurred to me that trying to call someone might re-activate the signal. It did. ‘Re-activate signal?’ the screen display asked. Unfortunately, ‘Yes, effing please’ was not an option available to select.

At least I have now learnt the hard way not to let Babe anywhere near my phone. It is small and not hard to put on a shelf he can't reach. The same can not be said for the oven. Which is why the timer has been set for a casserole that will be done to perfection some time in the year 2015.

Monday tomorrow... hooray!

Two more choking espisodes

I’m not sure about including both these anecdotes today. The second is not really about motherhood or being married to an East European. It is simply horrifically revealing about me, personally, and the sad thoughts I have and the pathetic ways in which I entertain myself. I fear some readers will be embarrassed for me as they digest it. But there does seem to be something in the air – all these near-choking episodes are quite a coincidence. So – gulp – here goes.

***

A dear friend nearly lost her life on a fishbone a few days ago. Not a very original way to choke, but that is exactly what happened. Sadly, her son (Babe's Best Friend) had to watch her other half pounding her on the back to dislodge said fish bone, and became distraught, convinced that his dad was assaulting her, and hasn’t yet fully recovered . So I should at least be grateful that my ear-plug choking episode took place when Babe was safely out of sight.

The other choking episode this entry relates to unfortunately once again involves me:

Other Half and I pay an extortionate monthly fee to belong to a gym. And our sole reason for belonging is that the only exercise I can tolerate is swimming, but where some people are afraid of snakes or spiders, one of my day-mares is the thought of slithering around on a dirty changing room floor. Ugh! I’m getting shivers down my spine just thinking about it. All those bits of soggy loo roll and matted hair, and I slip and fall and get all mushed up in it… AGH! AGH! AGH! Hold that thought!

So, we belong to this very expensive gym because the swimming pool changing rooms are clean. And I love it. I’m a different person around water. Calmer, more relaxed, full of joie de vivre etc. And at our gym, they turn the lights down at 9pm, so people going for a late night swim benefit from underwater lighting, which is perfect for floating, or pretending to be a gentle but sylph-like dolphin. Or whatever.

Now, I am not what you’d call a flirt, and I’m obviously not on the pull, but neither am I an idiot and I can see that some gym members use the pool to eye up potential life partners (or shags, or animal counterparts, or whatever), and sometimes it’s hard not to get inadvertently drawn into this. No matter how hard you try not to make eye contact – easier to avoid when you’re wearing goggles but mine are a bit tight so I only put them on for underwater stunts – you find that you do occasionally. And once you’ve accidentally caught the eye of someone a couple of times, before you know it, you both think there’s a bit of a potential thing going on, even when there quite definitely isn’t… This can be really annoying if the person in question is the wrong gender/type/swimming too close up behind you with goggles on, etc, but can be flattering if not.

Last week, I accidentally caught the eye of someone. He’s a bit of a hunk (although much too hairy and tall. I like my men about my height and quite compact. When I say compact, of course I don’t mean, OK, WHATEVER – the Ed) and I wasn’t too annoyed about it. And when I went back last night he was there again.

Apart from the fact that I still look five months pregnant in my swimsuit, my hair was down and though I say so myself I was looking kind of cute. I definitely caught him checking me out as I slid into the pool as elegantly as I could. And I continued to bask in the attention as I executed a few dolphin lengths, did a few more sitting on a float and moving in a backwards direction (which is great for the arm muscles but probably looks a bit weird and definitely annoys other swimmers) and I stared pointedly at the ceiling whenever we passed, so that I was in no danger of giving him the come-on.

Gradually the pool emptied itself of swimmers and it was just him and me left. I felt it was time to leave, as I didn’t want to get myself into a situation, but I didn’t want him to see how big my bottom is as I pulled myself out of the water. Plus I really wanted to have the place to myself. It’s like a blue, if oblong, lagoon. And fun :). So I hung in there, did a few more kicking lengths with the float, and he bailed first. Hooray! But joined two other men in the poolside jacuzzi. Not so hooray – as I still had to work out how to leave elegantly. Still, I was pretty sure he was still looking at me, and I couldn’t resist the temptation to show off a bit. I had a captive audience, as there isn’t really anywhere to look, other than into the pool, when you’re sat there in the bubbles.

After a few lengths of different strokes with the float, I decided it was time to impress with what I like to refer to as my ‘shark-slice one-breath’. I went to a very good (utterly dull, but good) girls’ school, which means there is nothing I can’t do reasonably well, and this includes swimming. Well, it used to include swimming. These days, I’ve still got the strokes but somewhere along the way I forgot the breathing techniques, which is how and why my shark-stroke developed. It involves stunningly good, fast front-crawl, in which I slice through the water in a very straight line, but also necessitates doing the entire length on one breath, because I can’t for the life of me re-capture that ‘turning your head to the side’ breathing thing. So my fitness level (poor) means that I can only do a few of these each session.

I did a few casual stretches, put on my goggles, and off I went. Slice! Slice! Slice! (Thirty-nine slices is what it takes) and then I was there. Yes! I knew that had looked bloody good. The trick at this point is not to reveal that your lungs are about to burst. I flicked off my goggles, did a few quick pretend-stretches, grabbed a float and then headed back up the pool, kicking like mad to disguise the heavy breathing. I could feel this guy’s eyes upon me, and imagined him saying to me at the bar later on (although of course we never would meet at the bar later on) something like, ‘Viola, you were mesmerising in the pool tonight. Truly captivating.’

At this point I should have left the pool. Cut my losses while the odds were high, or whatever the expression is. But my shark-side needed nurturing, and I couldn’t resist the temptation to unleash it a second time. Even as I pulled my goggles over my eyes I knew it was a mistake, but before I knew it I was taking a deep breath and had lurched into the water. Slice! Slice! Slice! Uh-oh! I was losing speed – too many strokes in, and I’d only got as far as the club logo, located on the floor of the pool at the half-way mark. Several more strokes, and I knew I wasn’t going to make it to the end. Several more, and my shark was lost to a jellyfish. I slooped towards the surface, desperate for breath, and took a deep intake of air…just before I reached it.

Bugger! The coughing fit that followed had all three men staring at me in concern. And through streaming eyes I observed that Hairy Man had been joined by a gorgeous, slim blonde. One of the other two (skinny, ugly, prawn-to-my-dolphin) left the jacuzzi and ran around the pool towards me.
‘Are you alright?’ he asked.
I nodded, choking and spluttering.
‘Are you sure?’ he said, jumping in beside me.
I nodded, still coughing. He passed me a float and stood there until I’d caught my breath. About seven minutes.‘You had us worried,’ he added.
‘Sorry,’ I muttered. And swam carefully to the corner of the pool furthest from the changing rooms, and climbed the stairs slowly on purpose, as penance, and to remind myself not to play silly games.

Does everyone, I wonder, have an over-active imagination, like me? Should I be analysing the shark/dolphin imagery? Be deleting all this and researching world development issues? I wish it was Friday tomorrow and that it could be the weekend for ever. I need time for relaxation and recuperation.

Two more eventful things

As this blog entry suggests, two more things of note have happened. Gosh. It all makes my life appear rather exciting.

The first was yesterday, and involved Babe’s first real bolt for freedom. It was my turn to cook – hang on a minute, who am I trying to kid that we take turns? – and, would you believe, I was doing aubergine again. Honestly, I was. But I’d forgotten to remove the grill pan from the oven and it didn’t take long for the burning remnants of fish-finger coating to fill our kitchen and small house with a burning smell.

Other Half was in the sitting room with Babe, watching more Euro 2008 football. SIGH.
‘I’m opening the front door for five minutes,’ I said. ‘Because I’ve burnt something and the house smells.’ You may remember from a previous blog entry that Other Half has almost no sense of smell. Which is his excuse, by the way, for rarely realising that Babe’s nappy is pooey.

Other Half looked at me and then carried on watching TV. Babe looked up from his train set and then carried on playing. I went back into the kitchen and carried on reading my book and sipping wine. Oops! Slaving over a hot stove, I mean.

Ten minutes later, Other Half storms in, shouting.
‘Why have you left the front door open? Look where he is! Are you mad?’
I look past him, down the corridor, towards the front door. Babe is on the second step, a mere toddle or two from the pavement and the World At Large. He looks at me in the same knowing way he had when he looked up from his trainset, and I realise that he had listened and understood where his father had not.

I feel shocked but decide not to over-react.
‘You'd better fetch him in then,’ I say mildly.
‘What were you thinking, you *** *****?’ he responds angrily.

‘Look!’ I reply. ‘I told you I was opening the door. All you had to do was watch him and keep him safe for five minutes.’

‘I didn’t know you were leaving it open!’ he replies. ‘You should never leave the doors open when Babe is in the house!’

‘But, you ***** ********,’ I say, losing my rag, ‘I told you I was opening it.’
‘But I didn’t know what you meant. And I didn’t hear you,’ he shouts.

‘That is total crap!’ I retort. ‘This is yet another instance of you ignoring what I say, so that I feel forced to repeat myself incessantly, so that you can then accuse me of nagging and blathering on, so that you can then justify only listening when you want to. It’s sexist effing crap and I’ve had enough of it.’

I slam the kitchen door and gather the aubergine into a bowl. For thirty seconds I intend to slop it down the toilet.

‘And your bloody aubergine is going down the toilet,’ I yell through the kitchen window into the garden, where he and Babe are now playing football.

‘You should not leave doors open,’ he yells back.

‘Communist demon-blockhead!’ I scream.

I return to the bowl and consider launching it into the garden and onto his head. But instead I spoon it back into the pan and then add some extra coriander on top. I feel sorry that all he’s had to eat for the last two days has been ‘rabbit food’ and fish fingers and wish that, despite my desire to be a career woman, I could feed my family well. I feel that perhaps I don’t do anything very well. But more of that another time.

***

The other thing that happened was actually probably not exciting enough to detail here. It involved Other Half leaving a sleeping Babe in the car in Tesco’s car park while he came to help me carry back the shopping. I thought this rash and a bit rich after the door episode. But have expressed my feelings on the matter several times now and am pretty sure Other Half has heard and realises it was a mistake.
‘You should not leave doors open,’ he repeats in a muted monotone response. Which I think is man-talk for, ‘You’re right.’

Two significant things happen

Two things of particular significance happened last week. So I'm combining them into one big entry in place of the two I should have added then. Hope that's ok?

One was Babe’s first assassination attempt. And I was the assassinee. Does that word exist, I wonder? There is nothing like speaking baby talk and pigeon English at home to make one’s linguistic abilities disintegrate.

Anyway, it followed Other Half cooking our evening meal for the first time this year. It wasn’t fish, or ‘lamb in the oven’ (as opposed to on a piece of fence railing in the back garden - more of that another time), it was what I like to call his ‘omelette surprise’. And yes, not a very witty joke to crack, but the surprise is just how disgusting it is, even with practice.

Other Half’s favourite food, by the way, after fish and lamb, is aubergine cooked by his mother. Which is frankly a pain in the arse. In part, because clearly I am not his mother and therefore severely disadvantaged before I even step into the kitchen, but also because there is only so much you can do with an aubergine, and I know, because I’ve tried. But I digress.

So, on Wednesday last week, it was omelette surprise, cooked by Other Half while he watched the Croatia V Austria match. And given that the TV is not in the kitchen you can imagine what a catastrophe it was. To save himself time, he chopped the veg in front of the TV, then filled a pan with oil on the hob, and forgot to wait for it to heat before dropping in the mushrooms etc. It was a dripping oily sludge and didn’t go down well.

In an attempt to veil its revolting taste, he added extra salt. And trust me, you don’t want someone from where he is from ever adding ‘extra’ salt to your meal. Which is why I woke in the early hours, for once not because Babe was wailing, with a terrible thirst.

I reached for the glass of water on my bedside table and gulped thirstily before something caught in my throat, causing my eyeballs to nearly burst from my head and a jet-stream of water to crash up my nasal cavities. Other Half was, of course sleeping in the spare room and not there to assist me in my hour of need.

Winded and terrified, I threw open the bedroom door, staggered across the landing and into his room. By now I was about to expire. I threw myself onto him, fists pummelling his prostrate body, and he sat up in bed, reaching for the large kitchen knife he insists on keeping on the bedside table during the night in case we are attacked by vagabonds. Luckily, he sleeps with the blinds open, to make the most of daylight hours (it’s hot and sunny where he’s from) and quickly realised it was me. I saw a flicker of ‘What the f*ck does she want now?’ cross his face before it dawned on him that I was in serious trouble. Whining like a horse caught in a trap – I assume that someone, somewhere does trap horses – I tried, frantically, to slap myself on the back, indicating what I needed him to do.

Thank God he had been forced through years of military school under a communist regime. Grabbing me from behind, round the waist, he began to crush my ribs. On the third attempt, something small and soft that I spat straight onto the floor dislodged from my throat. What blissful relief! Fresh clean air coursed through my being and we collapsed, gasping, onto the bed. (Yes, I know what you’re thinking, it has been a while since we did that.)

Some time later, I started whimpering helplessly and Other Half held me in his arms. (This happens quite a lot, usually around the middle of each month.) Later still, I decided to look and see what had nearly taken my life prematurely. It was foam, conical in shape, and orange. An earplug. And must have been left, discarded, under my bed many months ago until Babe found it earlier today, while I was scrabbling around looking for his ball. And dropped neatly into the glass by my bed, for once without knocking its contents onto the floor. Little bugger. Just wait until I put woodlice in his bottle…

***

The other thing of significance that happened, was us realising that Babe has started producing words in Other Half's second language, that he and I often communicate in. Other Half speaks to Babe in his mother tongue – which I can only produce the most basic of sentences in – as often as he can remember to, which isn’t that often. And he gabbles it really fast, giving him b-all chance, in my humble opinion, of picking up so much as a word. But Babe has, as I’ve said, started producing some words of our other shared language, in a whiny and irritated voice:

‘Come on, X’ (‘X’ represents Other Half’s name), and ‘Don’t!’.

Obviously, it is not me he has learnt these utterances from me; they reveal nothing of the dynamic of my realtionship with Other Half and I do not need to reflect on them or consider possible learning outcomes. Good night and sleep well.

Highs and Lows, and ferries

I don't know what to write about today. I'm very tired and not feeling very funny but am committed to updating this blog twice-weekly. Perhaps I'll share the highest and lowest points of the last 24 hours.

As predicted, Babe did not sleep well last night. In fact, he woke every twenty minutes or so between midnight and 3.30am, which was much worse than usual, and he was up by half past six this morning, despite our disrupted night. Other Half and I had agreed to be firm with him, and make him go back to sleep in his own bed, but this weighty resolve had not been tested by the three previous nights of sleeping through, so it was last night that I had to be tough. And Babe didn't like it at all, yelling angrily when I insisted repeatedly on putting him back into his cot.

At 2am, Other Half threw back the duvet and stormed around the bed, shouting that Babe was 'traumatic'. For a minute I wondered if he was being sympathetic, and taking his turn at the being tough. Unfortunately it was simply a linguistic error and what he actually meant was that he thought Babe was 'traumatised', and wanted to bring him into bed with us to calm him down. (Yes, 'us' - we are trying to return to sharing a bed but this will not be a go-er if Babe is hell-bent on sharing it with us.) The ensuing argument, in the corridor outside Babe's bedroom, resulted in Other Half storming into the spare room, as I didn't want to undo the hard work of the last couple of hours.

But by 3am my resolve collapsed and Babe was in with me, snuggling against my back and tucking his feet into my pajama bottoms. It took me another half an hour to drop off myself, and I laid in bed, tears welling up behind my eyelids. Angry with Babe, angry with Other Half, angry with myself for not knowing what to do and for being fat. I woke up thinking I would just have to take the day off work, and then realised I couldn't as I had a meeting to attend. That was a low, low point, what with Babe being tired and grumpy still, and an hour and a half left to kill before dropping him at nursery. I don't know how I survived the morning at work, trying but failing to complete simple tasks in logical order.

I am struck by what a creature of habit Babe is. With some obvious exceptions in the sleep department of course. He loves to have his feet massaged while having his morning and evening milk. He starts to take his shoes off while we're waiting for my friends to open their front doors. He likes to wear a hat.

We have come into the habit of snuggling up on the sofa at lunch-time, when I've picked him up after work. I put CBeebies on and close my eyes, while he watches for twenty minutes or so. If I forget to wrap a blanket around us he goes off to get it and pulls it over both of us.

Today, after the traumas of last night, he wanted to be especially close to me. (Other Half helpfully pointed out that this probably means I did traumatise him.) We were leaning against one another, my arm overlapping one of his, and he was sharing my crisps and sandwich. I sat up to reach my drink and he sat up a bit too, and then waited for me before snuggling back down and shuffling so that I rested my arm back in the position it had been in. This isn't an obvious high point of the day, is it? But it made me feel so tickley-fluttery tickety-boo happy. Just being quietly, acceptingly, comfortingly beautifully in-company with my son. Similar in feeling, for me, to lying with the sun on your face on a ferry crossing the oiled-calm surface of the Aegean. Spray in the breeze and a beer on the bench. Rare moments when, for a second or two, your brain stops whirring and the intrinsic beauty of life takes hold of you. Long may such precious moments last.

Pants on fire...

Babe has slept through the last three nights. Clearly this was because Granny came to stay, and he wanted to expose the lying, half-crazed banshee whose mission in life is to moan and grumble unremittingly that he knows his mother to be.