eyes wide shut

Well, it’s been a long couple of weeks of things happening and I haven’t had much focus or will or anything but here we are in the middle of the cliché that life goes on… and here it is, going on. We’ve actually had some wonderful days here at the end of the summer, with the Spud and friends. We visited the Wetlands Centre in Barnes where the Spud tried to climb dutifully backwards down the slope and into a pond and where he followed the older boys around adoringly and then when he couldn’t keep up, painfully sweetly he played by himself until there were other children to follow. We’ve played in the park, in the garden, in the nursery, in the studio, at other people’s houses, we’re professional players now. We play with blocks and cars and things that go ‘beep’ and things that go ‘bang’ and things that go ‘jangle’ and I’m not just talking about Mummy’s nerves here, although mainly, I suppose, I might be.

I don’t know how all you other Mums out there cope. Really I don’t. Stay At Home Dad once posted that he’d looked longingly at a beer at the Numberjacks hour and I can confirm that not only is that really rather early, it’s also the time at which my vodka receptors tend to have a little twinkle themselves. Not, you understand, that I am making the Spud’s lunch while face-down in the sauce, just that sometimes, on some days, it seems like a tempting choice. I think, if I had even the smallest moment of my own that I might not be so resistant to the attractions of the potato's purest moment however it is astonishing just how much time a good play can take out of the day. I mean, really, by the time we’ve emptied the brick box and knocked down a few towers the morning has disappeared and suddenly there I am in the middle of sandwiches and apple juice and then it’s off to the swings and suddenly it’s time for In the Night Garden and Somebody’s not in bed! Who’s not in bed?

On the days that I work I beetle away down there in my cellar until I happen to glance at the clock and have to lurch up into the light blinking damply to pick up the spud from his Dad after lunch. If I’m very lucky I can sneak in a trip to the shops, or, god forbid, a load of laundry before the afternoon turns into one of those cartoon cyclones with bits of stuff poking out from them – a toy here, a nappy there, an unpaid bill, a dozen grabby fingers and three flailing baby feet, only one of them with a shoe on it. I find myself sitting limply on the sofa at around 9pm having magically scoffed a plate of food that I barely remember because, not having eaten all day, my body has absorbed it before it hit my belly and trying to find something to say to the Frog – who, if he has had child duties that day, is equally washed out.

I was speaking to another Mum today about this and we agree that it’s not actually Motherhood that’s tiring – at least, not with just little spudlet. It’s the rest of life that is tiring. Looking after a child all day is a hoot – wandering around parks and historic buildings, playing with bricks and going on the see-saw. It’s all the other stuff that suddenly seems impossible. Doing any work. Taking the laundry off the line. Paying the bills. Cleaning under the armchairs. Give me a pile of wooden bricks and I’ll amuse myself the spud all day. Give me a pile of laundry and suddenly, I’m exhausted.

Tomorrow I do a few hours work and then it's just me and the Spud with an entire afternoon to waste. Unfortunately we are going to have to waste some of it playing with the vacuum cleaner and so I think I need to get in some extra sleep in preparation. Who's not in bed? I'm not in bed.

All my old ladies

I was in the process of writing yet another post based on my boobs when I got a call that my cousin had succumbed to pneumonia this afternoon. She turned 89 a few weeks ago and she was a good friend of mine. I don’t buy the ‘she had a good innings’ line although it has an element of truth and I used it myself a few weeks ago when we nearly lost her the first time. She may have been old but she was still a girl inside, still capable of laughing at fart jokes and swearing at her doctor and having conversations that rambled everywhere because there are so many things of interest to talk about. She was a proper intellectual and the sort of botanist who would climb Snowdon in the rain to see a rare grass. She constantly surprised me, was endlessly good company and was never shy of dismissing something as rubbish if it patently was. I’m going to miss her a lot.

My Gran is 99 and hoping to make her 100th birthday in February and two days ago she fell and broke her hip. She’s recovering in hospital now but she’s in pain and I guess nothing is certain when you’re 99. She’s one wonderful woman, I get my picky fingers and love of textiles from her. She taught me to weave and when her shoulder finally gave out, gave me her loom on which I am a faltering learner. She also taught me how to play cards but didn’t pass one enough of her skill to make me rich at poker, unfortunately, however she did pass on her prodigious ability to absorb gin, not to mention her boobs which, when she saw them sprouting on my 15-year-old-frame she immediately recommended I reduce via surgery. It was she who taught me about structural architecture as it relates to the female form, not least by displaying some of the most unbelievable pieces of 1950s engineering nestled in her top drawer which I would give my eye-teeth to own these days. When she was 76 I stayed with her for a week and we stayed up late playing cards and drinking and skinny-dipping at midnight. I’d like to see her but for now I have to wait to see if she’s going to hold up.

I once had a vision of myself at 80, living happily somewhere wild and vaguely cut off. It’s stayed with me and maybe that’s why I get along so well with women who've got a few decades on me, I guess I’ve always assumed I’m going to be one, one day. I’m lucky, I know a few and I’ve known them well and I get to spend good time with them, if not always enough of it. I’ve picked up some pretty good tips and I’ve been able to introduce the spud to them all so that one day when the time comes he'll know enough to be nice to his own old lady.

Here’s to Liz, I’m glad I got to tell her I love her, I’m proud to have known her. She’s leaving a big hole. Here’s to all our elders and betters, let’s hope we can live up to them.

Nice matters?

I’ve been very kindly given another award, the ‘nice matters’ award, from Laurie over at Just One Sheep. She outed herself in my comments as otherwise she’s known by the very scary moniker ‘Threat Assessment and Response Canada’ which is a Toronto crime blog that I wish existed here in my area. It’s quite un-nerving reading but also riveting, even for an ex-Torontonian like myself.

Nice does matter, of course however I do worry that this is never going to sink into the small hard ball of matter that is the Spud’s head. He greeted our friends’ nine-month-old girl with several large taps to her head and followed up by a serial stealing of her toys yesterday; and, while he appears to realise that ‘no’ means Mummy is upset (but heck, who only knows why?), for the most part he is yet to connect the word and gesture with the concept ‘oops, better stop fiddling with the cat food’. Hence, he is still menacing the cat, the cat’s food and any electronic item unfortunate enough to exist within the same square mile. This, despite copious uses of the word ‘no’, the gesture for ‘no’ and all sorts of other new-parenting-type alternatives such as exclaiming ‘but Sammy will go hungry. Why don’t you play with this?' {moves Spud to other room, offers wholesome wooden toy, is spurned and spends rest of afternoon fishing Spud’s fingers out of the cat’s bowl}.

It’s a worry. One spends one’s time trying to be a reasonably decent human being despite one’s rampaging inner urges and finally, having made it through cough cough forty cough odd cough years one pushes out a new human who has NO idea what it can possibly mean to be polite or nice or to share his toys. Back when I were a young ‘un (any sentence referring to one’s youth has to be said in a Northern accent… blame Monty Python) society as a whole was fairly polite and after some serious mind washing instruction from my parents it was easy to play along as there were examples of good manners all around. Now, however, it seems as though it will be impossible to teach the spud any sort of manners when there are grown adults in the playground (as there were yesterday) who themselves are sitting on the playthings and not getting off even when a circle of babies has formed around them crying and reaching out their arms. OK, so I exaggerate but I don’t see how that Mum yesterday could have sat for so long on the motorbike rocking toy with all those little boys around her watching hopefully while her own daughter ran up the slide pushing other kids out of her way and kicking them on her way down. I’m sorry but some people are appalling and, with those sorts of examples, it’s no wonder the spud can’t understand why manners are so important. Oh, that and he’s er, only one year old… but you get my drift.

It’s quite a wake-up call watching the behaviour of some people in the playground. While most parents smile at each other and at least give the pretence that they are teaching their children sharing and caring, there are some who are actively in there encouraging their little ones to be first, to be fastest, to stay on longest. These children then spend their time wrecking the park for all the other children, who then have to act in the same dreadful way just to get a trip down the slide. They then go on to menace others - and so on and so on until 20 years later they're pushing each other to get on the tube first and everyone's miserable.

Nice should matter to everyone, I guess. Another martini, bartender - and one for yourself.

in the sand pit

We have a massive sand pit in the park next to our house. It's like the king of sand pits, it's about twenty feet square, is sunk 2 feet into the ground and has a slide and climbing frame in the middle of it. I've always held off from taking the spud in there for obvious reasons. You know, sandy fingers, sandy knees, sandy nappies, sandy buggy, sand in the house... oh, and sand on my boobs.

So, today, after running into a friend in the park who was taking her daughter to the sand pit, I took the spud down and let him loose. It's kinda good, the sand pit. It has walls and no stairs so he can't get out; there's lots of kids playing in the sand for him to pal around with and, apart from hitting his head on the bottom of the slide, nowhere for him to hurt himself. In fact, it's kinda great in the sand pit. I mean, even nearly brilliant.

What has become clear however is that my dear little spud is in no way as socialised as I would like to believe. He really doesn't understand that just because he wants to play with something it doesn't mean that he has any right to it for any length of time. As I wasn't expecting the sand pit, I didn't bring any sand-pit toys. Other Mums however have already had their moment of sand-pit satori and come to the park specifically to let dear diddums get sand in its ears. They therefore carried buckets and spades and rakes and cars with big wheels, all of which was like catnip for the spud. He would crawl up to a group of children, insert himself cunningly into the middle and wait for someone to lose interest in a toy, then grab it up and start energetically imitating whatever it was the other child had been doing.

This was all very cute until Mums started leaving and taking diddums with them - and, crucially, diddums' toys. I was forced to sit cringing in a corner while the spud refused to give up the rake and then do that apologetic, hunched walk of shame that one does in front of other Mums as I rushed to swoop him up. He sat with his arms out, shaking and going bright red with rage and disappointment, his little face crumpled and wet, doing the very long, very silent in-breath that babies do right before they let loose with a war cry. Poor little spud, he just doesn't understand why he can't have the things he wants. After two episodes of this, guiltily I took him out of the pit and rushed him to the toy shop however failed to buy him a bucket and rake because I would have had to also buy the spade, a watering can and several nasty looking plastic things covered in cartoons, all handily wrapped in a net bag and for the sort of money I would expect to pay for a real, life-sized bucket, spade and rake. And a martini to go in the glasses. Or two.

I will however have to buy him something for the pit because despite my sandy decolletage, acquired when swooping my tearsome lovely to my breast, the sand pit is a big winner and the real reason is nothing to do with the spud, sadly, it's to do with me.

While he was off exploring other children's toy collections, I kicked off my sandals, sat next to my friend and buried my feet in the sand and you know what? It feels GREAT to bury ones feet in cool sand on a warm day. I was in heaven. I wriggled my feet so much that they are smooth as the spud's butt at the moment, completely exfoliated. In fact, I think I'm going to have to force the spud into the sand pit on a regular basis.

For his own good, you understand...

Happy Birthday, baby!

I just want to say Happy Birthday to my son, today. OK, so I already have, like about 1000 times but this one is in writing so it's different. I think. I waltzed him around the garden this morning singing the Altered Image song 'Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday' but since I can only remember the chorus I just sang it over and over and over again until the neighbours undoubtedly put their heads under the covers (it was 9am) and prayed for silence. He bobbled around on my hip with a big grin on his face because we were outside and dancing and Mummy was being silly, presumably.

One set of his grandparents gave him money for a winter coat. The other set gave him a toy drum complete with sticks, a tambourine, maraca, xylophone and jingle-bells, ie, a head-ache-in-a-box. Guess which was the gift from MY parents????!! He loved loved loved the drum however and so I can hardly hold it against them... although I will try to do so in a creative way when it comes to their up-coming birthdays...

We had a picnic for a few of his friends in the park this afternoon and he spent all day eating organic baby snacks and being very happy hanging with a big group of people outside on a nice day. I guess it's sort of the way we as humans would naturally have lived in the past, great hairless groups of us lazing about under trees with our offspring. Not sure about the place of Pringles and fairy cakes in this historical view of mankind mind you but there you go.

Anyway, on to say Happy Birthday to my lovely son, who, having crawled and rough-housed all afternoon is now sleeping the careless sleep of the tired infant, both arms flung out and breathing the sort of deep, quiet breaths that make a parent dash frantically over to listen at his nostrils.

We sat, the three of us, before the arrival of our friends, we sat on the grass and felt like a family. Or at least, the Frog and I sat on the grass, the spud tore off as fast as his knees could carry him into the great green yonder. We sat and sort of smiled in wonder that an entire year could have passed so quickly, without us really noticing. They tell you that this is going to happen, they, the books, Those Who Have Gone Before, they say 'It'll just fly past, you won't believe it' and it does, and we don't. A whole year. Gone.

I know why though, it's because before one is a parent, one has many, many things to focus on. Work, friends, family, life, the changing of the seasons, shoe sales. One notices time going past because one is waiting for various things to happen, one sits at a desk looking at a calendar, reads newspapers, takes holidays, buys shoes. Time does pass more quickly as one ages but it doesn't disappear. Not completely. Once one is a parent however, things are crammed into the moments around the edge of one's offspring and one only takes quick bites at the life one once consumed completely. Time passes un-noticed except for the daily changes and developments. Moving, grabbing, holding, picking up, rolling, crawling, teething, standing, units of time measured by growth and development, not by the ticking of a clock or the turning of a calendar.

A year. A year of the spud. A year ago today, right here in this living room, he pushed out into the warm waters of the birth pool and bubbled up to the surface. I remember being surprised at how solid he was when the midwife lifted him out of the water and put him on my chest, as if babies should be soft and floppy and unresisting. He was a bit blue and grey at the edges and had a dreadful cone head. Once the cord was cut he was dried off and put against his father's chest to warm up and go pink while I was diverted into the mopping up part of childbirth, the bit they never show in movies, the bit where you push out the placenta and get dropped into a bath to clean up.

After my bath the midwife put him on a boob... and he's pretty much stayed there for an entire year. He could hold his head up from the moment he came out of the womb, his little conical grey noggin was questing around for the remote controls before his cord was even cut or his eyes could focus. He cried a little bit and I, who would probably have imagined that my first words to my son would be something deeply profound to put him on track for the rest of his life could only say 'and who are you? who are you?' to him as if he could possibly answer. The answer, of course, was that he was my dearest darling spud and the light of my life, but I could only guess at that back then.

A year ago he lay in the moses basket by our bed making little creaking noises and looking like an alien. We stayed up all night listening to him breathe and taking off and putting on various items of his clothing as we tried to guess whether or not he was too hot or too cold. Back then we had no idea what to expect from him and now, a year later, he lies in his big cot in his own room and we still have no idea what to expect from him, most of the time at least.

It's been an amazing year, a wonderful year and I can only hope that this next year will be the same.

Happy Birthday, Charlie, Happy 1st birthday. I love you, spudlet.


Thanks for coming by, everyone, it's been great to have the word, wit and wisdom of others in this time.

The penultimate...

This time last year, I was entertaining old friends. They were here on a visit and I hadn't seen them for a long time. I was pregnant. Very pregnant. The frog was working and I laid on a very simple brunch - if I recall, I opened a few packets and patted my belly apologetically. That, after all, is what it was there for, no? My big 'get out of jail free' belly?

I didn't much use pregnancy as a reason to stuff myself, I can stuff myself without any reason, thank you very much. I didn't use it as an excuse not to exercise, I worked out up to 6 months. I did however use it as a fine excuse to wear a bikini without shame, to let the Frog carry the groceries and to feel cheated if I didn't get a seat on the tube. Wouldn't you?

On this particular day however, I was trying not to focus on the fact that I was due to have a baby. Today. As it were. My due date. The midwife had informed me that I wasn't ready, I'd refused an appointment to book an induction on the following Monday and was girding my loins to tough out a few more weeks in the sweltering heat.

Partway through brunch, which we ate outside in the garden, I stood up to get something and I, er, wet myself. Or something. But then, there was nothing there. The next time I stood up, same thing. And again. And again. I recall being very cool about it. I remember sitting down after yet another trip to the loo, announcing that I thought my waters had broken and starting in on another biscuit. Why not?

Over the course of the day I saw a midwife, had a few pains and some wild energy and, eventually, settled in for a long night, at the end of which was a complete unknown.

There are all these occasions in one's life when one steps out from an established comfort zone into a totally unknown experience for the first time, knowing that things will never be the same again. Going to school. Having one's first kiss. Moving out of one's parents house. Losing one's virginity. Getting one's first job. Oh, and HAVING A BABY.

I had no idea what was waiting for me at the end of the night, or in the middle of it, or at the end of the next day - no idea what it would be like, when it would be coming or how I was going to handle it. I pfaffed around organising things, the house, the cat, the frog. I patted my bump obsessively. I made a few phone calls and settled in for a long, painful wait.

This time a year ago the livingroom had the birth pool set up in it and I was on my way to meet the spud for the first time. This year I'm off to bed and in the morning, I'll meet the spud once more, this time for his first ever birthday.

Mother's little helper

There is much to be said for Calpol and other baby painkillers, provided one is talking solely about the happiness of ones baby and not the condition of one’s house. The Spud has been teething again and after the last terrible episode I’m determined not to let him suffer. So, on the advice of the doctor who has said there are no side effects from baby pain medications and to feel free give them within reason whenever needed, at the first sign of discomfort we are dosing him up. The result is that we have a very happy baby on our hands at the moment. A happy baby means an active baby and an active baby means an Interesting Life.

Perhaps a short tour of our apartment might enlighten you. As one comes in through the front door, one finds oneself in a small, square entrance hall with a dark wood cabinet featuring two drawers and two doors, the contents of which are scattered all over the rug. The doors lol open apologetically while the drawers lie upside down on the floor, waving their little handles about like panicky beetles.

Straight ahead is the living room. On first glance it looks vaguely tidy however a closer glance reveals a litter of CDs and DVDs clustered together in a dark corner. There is a lot of electrical kit in this room but oddly, no remote controls, and the telephone cradle is empty and dusty, as if no phone has lived there for a Long Time.

The living-room adjoins the kitchen which also looks vaguely tidy. The cat’s bowls are empty but the food is handily beside them on the floor. The washing machine door is swinging drunkenly and the machine is empty except for a telephone. The bin is open. It is full of remote controls.

Back into the hall and straight on to the nursery. It is impossible to open the door as there is a pile of books behind it accompanied by the sound of a rampaging animal grunting and turning a lot of electronic toys on and off over and over again. This is an appropriate moment to swear.

Back into the hall and turn right into the main bedroom. As you walk in there is an open bookshelf with books on both sides, but curiously only from the third shelf up. The bottom two shelves are empty. Walk around to the other side of this shelf and one can see many piles of books on the floor, almost as if someone has pushed them right through the bookshelf. Who would do a thing like that, one asks?

The bed has clearly never been made as the cover is hanging off one side onto the floor. The clock radio is on but tuned to a station which strangely only broadcasts white noise. There is a large wardrobe with drawers in it. All the drawers are open and one suddenly realises that the room is not carpeted but that one is in fact walking on stray knickers and socks. At the back of the room is the door into the bathroom and next to that a changing table with a big shelf. On the shelf are a few stray items of nappy changing gear, the rest of which is carefully stowed in a pile underneath.

As one walks through the flat one treads constantly on little rubber things which on close inspection are corner-shaped. All the sharp corners in the flat are exposed except for a thin veneer of glue, almost as if something has been ripped off them. Something rubber, perhaps.

One is now at the end of one’s tether and so one grits ones teeth, strides back into the hallway and forces open the nursery door. Inside, amidst the drift of toys, clothes, bedding and ripped up paper is a small, squealing potato intent on some object currently under de-construction. Just as one is considering one’s options, it looks up, beams, opens it’s arms to be picked up and then lands a big, wet kiss on ones face. Suddenly, the mess doesn’t matter much at all.

Bring on the Calpol. Make mine a double.

standing in the rain

I know I said I wouldn't be posting every day however we had such a lovely day today that I felt marginally inspired this afternoon. I thought that I’d sit down to my laptop and the words that had gone through my head would magically come flowing back to me however because I have Mother-brain and can’t remember anything that happened more than 10 minutes ago I am now sitting here with the vague memory of standing in the rain in Trafalgar Square with one of my best mates watching our boys battle it out from the damp confines of their buggies and thinking ‘so THIS is what it’s all about… must blog about it later’.

I always thought that one day I may have a baby. I never particularly wanted one more than I didn’t want one. I was sort of ambivalent. One of the clichés I had always bought into about having a baby is, well really it’s a handful of clichés. ‘Having a child lets you relive your childhood’ (but hopefully without the painful embarrassment and bullying); ‘You get to see the world through new eyes’ (which is good because my eyesight sort of peters out after 3 inches and everything gets blurry); and the old chestnut ‘They keep you young’ which is odd because I swear I have aged 10 years in the last 12 months. Taken together these are three seriously seductive concepts. Just think... all the best bits of childhood – toys you always wanted but never got, games you loved but never play anymore, that old jaded world stripped bare of rubbish and cigarette butts and suddenly revealing it’s secrets – and all that with a free face and body lift. Doesn't it sound ridiculously good?

Babies, however, don’t really give one the opportunity to experience all that doe-eyed loveliness. They can’t play games, you can’t put them on a rollercoaster or any other fun ride and besides watching them discover their own hands, which is, surprisingly, amazing, they don’t see enough of the world for it to look particularly new and unvarnished to their parents. And, crucially, they don’t let one sleep at all and make one worry oneself into the fast-track at the local Botox parlour.

What I’m getting at, I guess, is that up until now, while the spud has turned me from ambivalent female to gushing mother in a single bound, we’ve kind of just been taking it day by day and it’s been a fairly navel-gazing experience, not including the actual navel gazing done while we waited for his to shrivel up and fall off. Recently, however, he’s taken his gaze outwards and is noticing and, in his own way, commenting on the world around him. He’s starting to play and to interact with the world and it’s, well, sorta kinda maybe a bit cool.

Today, therefore, we ventured out in the hope of sun to see my good friend and her highly entertaining 2 year old for a day trip into the heart of London. Predictably, it rained, the sort of hazy, light rain that gets everywhere but doesn’t really get you wet. Starting in Green Park we strolled through to St. James’ park, ate in the restaurant and meandered our way via puddles and ducks through Horse Guards Parade and up Whitehall to Trafalgar Square, just like in Monopoly. Mr. Highly Entertaining was brilliant. He hollowed out his bun and parked his car in it. He stood in EVERY puddle and gazed transfixedly at the horse guards. I was vaguely wondering what it will be like when the spud is able to do all those things when I noticed that he was staring in wonder at one of the big, bronze statues that litter London and was really interested. He was interested in the ducks, the pigeons, the squirrels, interested in Mr. Entertaining standing in a puddle, in the horses, the guards… I held him up to one of the lions in the square and he laughed and suddenly the air cleared slightly and it was like being on a school trip (or perhaps good drugs... but I digress...) and seeing it all for the first time… the double decker buses, the taxis, the fountains… my friend and I kept saying to each other ‘This is great! Why have we forgotten about all this stuff that London does?’ and grinning like idiots in the rain. Suddenly, London is new again, fresh. It’s no longer about nightclubs and work and taking the tube in rush hour but about all this great stuff I can show to the spud.

Roll on those clichés, I guess I’m ready now.

...rest of the schmoozers

I give up, I am clearly incapable of posting every day and so I will stop pretending that that’s what I’m doing. I would love to post every day but at the moment what I really need to do is to sleep every day... so, here goes...

I still have two more ‘Power of Schmooze’ awards to give away… from what I can gather, once one has the award one is supposed to pick three bloggers. The thing is that the most schmoozy of my fellow-bloggers already have this award and so this post started out being very difficult, then er, very long...

Lady MacLeod, for example, posts copiously every day on her own blog Braveheart Does the Mahgreb, writes articles and various complex and vaguely scientific-sounding pieces for what I can only assume are people brighter than I am – AND comments vibrantly on pretty much every blog I visit. Prime candidate for the schmooze award BUT she already has one on display already and possibly more stashed under her djebella. So SHE’s out of the question.

Then there’s Jenny, possibly the only person I know (albeit only online) who is deafer than my cat. Jenny is enormously amusing in her blog ‘Mountain Mama’ as well as often very touching. She posts regularly and is frequently one of my only readers. She’s also very prolific with her comments on other blogs and schmoozes alongside the best of them. But, she also already has the award. Onwards

Then, there’s DJ. A fellow Canadian, this is a woman with 3 sons, one of whom is a tad challenging, who has time to post on THREE of her own blogs, one a wonderfully written autobiography, one a novel and the other, er, her ‘blog’ blog, write erotica professionally, comment voraciously on everyone else’s blogs and never drops a stitch. Her schmooze power is incontestable and therefore, predictably, she already has the award.

Elsie Button, amusing Mummy blogger and fellow UK habitant – frequent commenter and major schmoozer. Got the award. Now, there are also Stay at Home Dad and Darth Sardonic who are really funny, touching, wonderful bloggers and commenters and neither are showing this award. Darth is currently in a funk waiting for his wife to come back from service in Iraq and isn’t really in schmooze mode at the moment (go on, go over and cheer him up) and Stay at Home Dad hasn’t posted in a while and I can’t choose between them really.

So. Bossy. Blogger of brilliance who doesn’t DISPLAY the award but doesn’t display any awards. Bossy has been kindly commenting on my site (and being a lot funnier than I am while at it) for a while and has one of the funniest blogs I read. She also goes to blogging conferences and bowling with bloggers and, well, basically is the schmooziest of the schmoozers. I suspect she’s too cool to put awards up, unlike me who was so damn thrilled that I’d have posted them on the wall of my house if the frog would let me That’s ok though,, I’m giving her this one anyway. Just in case

So, now I'd like to introduce you, if you don't know her already, to Bel who has been dropping in all over the place. Her blog is reasonably new but she’s commenting all over the place these days and I think she just edges in with being Ms. Schmooze so, Bel, great to see you around, great blog, post the award on your site and enjoy! Thanks for coming by as always, lady schmooze.

Me, I’m off to bed. Now that the spud is sleeping through, that old bear insomnia has woken up and attacked me and life is pretty tough at the moment.

Wibble Wibble

OK, I can't be bothered to do a daily post today. This is what my son REALLY thinks of me...