Nicknames

Nicknames are terms of endearment and whilst some nicknames may not be affectionate, most are.

Pretty much everyone in my family has a nickname. My sister was known for years as Snarfy much to her dismay. My dad is still to this day called Smitty by all of his friends and acquaintances. He even introduces himself as Smitty. My brother George was called Yorty Chong. No one is really very certain about the origins of these names. They just seem to have always been. My grandfather, Pop, was a big fan of nicknames and seemed to give one to everyone. I have a cousin who we called Buddy and I think I was in my 20s before I realised this wasn't his real name. He was actually named Glen. My cousin, Chris, is still referred to as Earl. My father and his brothers call each other Poop. This can get a bit confusing at family gatherings but they always seem to know who is speaking to whom.

My father still calls me Plum. He has since I was a wee little girl. He used to address my mail to Plum Smith, even mail that went to my office, which was a source of endless colleague teasing until I changed jobs and went elsewhere. My cards come addressed to Plum. I have some family members who are not quite sure what my real name is and at my family reunions nobody knows who LaDawn is. It used to bother me but now I quite like it. Last night my husband called me Plum.

My daughter, Abigail, seems to have developed the same affinity for nicknames. She started calling Sebastian Shake about a year ago. The name has stuck and I find myself yelling through the house "Shaaaaaaaaake!" Even the children at his school have started calling him Shake. Abigail also named her Uncle Matthew Mouse which just seems to fit. They've had a special bond since she was a baby. I hope he doesn't mind (I think he quite likes it). She calls her godfather, Simon, Shisam which is very odd indeed. Not entirely sure where she got this but Simon must sound something like Shisam in her head. Odd thing is even though her speech is improving as she gets older, the nicknames remain. She must be consciously carrying on a tradition handed down from her grandfather and great-grandfather. Good girl!

What are your nicknames?

A Tribute

A great woman once told me "Behind every working mother is a very fragile set of circumstances". This women went on to be my childminder, a very prestigious position which carries grave responsibilities. I knew from the moment she said this that this was the person to whom I should be entrusting the care of my children.

Jacqui Barrett is our amazing childminder and, in short, our lives just wouldn't work without her. She copes with our ever changing schedules. Nothing is ever too much trouble. She picks Abigail up at pre-school in the middle of the day. She takes Abigail to ballet classes. She throws Christmas parties at her home. She gives great birthday presents. She drops Abigail off at our house. She looks after Sebastian during school holidays. She kisses cuts and bruises. She gives encouragement. She has been a partner in the job of raising our children respecting our parental requests and style. She makes a wicked cup of tea when I've come round after a long, hard day at the office. She makes me laugh.

But first and foremost, she loves my children the same way I love them.

I don't think I say thank you enough. So, Jacqui, if your reading this, "THANK YOU!".

If you have someone helping you raise your children say thank you. Their responsibility is as great as yours and they deserve our gratitude.

Another Spelling Victory

I forgot to tell everyone about Seb's latest spelling success. He got another 10 out of 10. He will tell you that this means he "didn't miss any....didn't make a single mistake." This afternoon he asked me if I had blogged about it and I had to confess that I hadn't. The look on his face broke my heart. So now I have.

Mother Fuel

This morning I discovered an alternative fuel source: kisses and cuddles. Some may doubt the validity of this as a source of energy. I know it works for this mother. This morning, my son crawled into bed with me and announced he was glad I was still in bed. When I asked why did it matter, he replied, very matter-of-fact, that it meant he would have a great day. I expressed my surprise at this lofty proclamation. But he assured me that on days when he got lots of kisses and cuddles from me he always had a great day and had loads of energy.

I took this under advisement and decided to conduct my own experiment. I bounced out of bed, took my bath and proceeded to have a great day. I had boundless energy on the way to work and despite nearly being driven off the road by a rush hour road rally, I kept my calm and just laughed at the idiots. In the office, much to my team's amusement (and dismay) similar energy continued to display itself. No matter what happened during the day I drew on my memory of those amazing K&Cs and I felt renewed again. Before my husband arrived home this evening, I had moved laundry about, made dinner, tidied up the compost pile, taken out the rubbish, unloaded the dishwasher, folded and put away 2 loads of clothes and was still going like a speed demon. I hadn't accomplished this much in the entire preceding week.

I encourage all to draw on this source of energy. Kisses and cuddles: the energy of the future!

Action Packed

Yesterday was an action packed day. We all walked Sebastian up to the island to resume his riding lessons. A man, a boy and their dog. Abigail wanted to ride her scooter up but after, oh about 1 minute, she decided this was far too much like hard work and Mummy ended up carrying the thing up and back.



The riding lessons are held at a horse rescue centre and his new riding instructor is named, Helen. It was a bit difficult because Caron, the owner of the stable had to go into hospital the night before and Helen had never taught Seb before but once we got the tack sorted, Sebastian got up on Mani like he hadn't missed a whole 6 weeks of riding and off he went. I've never seen such a natural and confident rider in a boy his age. He's got a very special relationship with Mani. He just loves it, and even Abigail, who is normally a little scardy cat around the ponies, decided Penny deserved some fresh hay. Look at the smile on that face. We really enjoyed meeting the infamous Lottie, the pony in the last photo. It is suspected that Lottie is over 40 years old. When she came to the rescue centre she was little more than skin and bones. And she's just about as friendly as a little puppy.





On the walk back home, I was struck by what a beautiful morning it was and how lucky I am . That's our house on the left and the view of Windsor Castle from our house below. We are having unseasonably warm weather and we saw daffodils in bloom as we drove to Coral Reef, the water park in Bracknell.

That's right. After riding we had some lunch of fresh baked bread (which Marc had started when we got up) with some cheese and ham. Then we went off to the water park. Abigail takes her ballet lessons at the Leisure Centre in Windsor and after each lesson she begs to go swimming. She holds her breath like a blow fish and swings her arms about out in front of her like she knows she destined to be an Olympic breast stroke champion. Seb still can't swim without his armbands, despite having swimming lessons every week at school for 1/2 hour. He is scared to death to jump from a standing position into the pool. Abigail on the other hand has absolutely no fear and quite happily jumps regardless of anyone being available to catch her. We had a blast!

I had planned on making my grandmother's famous fried chicken for dinner but by this time we were a bit pressed for time. We ended up doing tacos.....well, not exactly. I left the taco shells warming up in the oven too long and burned them. This was a bit of karma for me because the last time we had tacos Marc did the same thing and I gave him a really hard time about it. Being the wonderful husband that he is, he didn't say a thing. We just used flour tortillas, so sort of tacuritos (1/2 taco, 1/2 burrito).

Nice Things

I don't have nice things. Not like I used to. I don't wear nice clothes anymore. I don't travel to exotic locations 3 times a year anymore. I don't have expensive makeup or beauty products. My home is furnished with washable, stain proof fabrics. My BMW has been traded in for a Renault Megane.

No, I have a husband, 2 children, a cat and a dog all of which are capable of leaving a trail of destruction longer and wider than an Oklahoma tornado. My sofa has been peed on, pooped on, drawn on, spilt on, vomited on and generally destroyed. My clothes have suffered a similar fate. My husband (with all the best intentions in the world) has washed my cashmere and wool sweaters on hot. Then tumble dried them. My dog has eaten all of the wood trim and cupboards in the kitchen. My carpets need to be fumigated. My cat has scratched and pulled at the edges. My son ran a key down the side of my car over and over before we caught him "drawing a picture". My daughter has decorated the walls with the marking of crayons and markers, using only the non-water soluble ones. I have just let all of this wash over me. But I just about burst this morning.

I am on occasion given nice things. One thing in particular was a gift from my brother-in-law, Matthew for Christmas 2005. It was the Nigel Slater Kitchen Diaries. This is a beautiful cookbook. Beautiful to touch, beautiful to look at, beautiful to cook from. It is organised by day, month, season using ingredients that are fresh at that time of year and whatever is in the cupboard. It doesn't have a lot of fancy recipes that you struggle to find the ingredients for. I usually have what I need in the pantry. The recipes are easy, don't take long and taste scrumptious! I've yet to make one I didn't just love. And that goes for the children as well - not an easy audience.

This one last bastion of "nice thing" was destroyed this morning by my dog. Now you might think, "Don't get so upset, just go get yourself another book". But a cookbook that has lived with you collects that living. Like my grandmother, I make notes and notations about the recipes right on the pages: what worked, what didn't alterations to the measurements, who loved it, who came to dinner and ate it. It collects stains. There is one recipe for Pommes Dauphinoise (in another cookbook, thank God!) that has been made over and over and over and over. The page shows this: the plops of butter, the spills of cream, the stains of potatoes. The dog ate the book!

Grrrrrrrr!

I remember visiting my sister and her family once. Her dogs destroyed one pair of my shoes and ate the top layer of my wedding cake. I had convinced myself that my dog wouldn't do this. Who was I kidding?

New York Times ONLINE

One of my favourite things to do used to be to pick up the NY Times at the Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver, CO USA on a Sunday morning, get my weekly workout carrying it home and spend the next week catching up on all the news in all the world (and dream of the day when I could live in NYC and the lifestyle I would have). The website for the bookstore is not as appealing as the store with its big overstuffed chairs and more books than the public library. This bookstore was the model on which all the new Barnes & Noble were designed and they still fell short. It felt like your own living room only bigger. I would curl up in chair, take off my shoes, and browse the books I'd collected.

But one of the things I missed most when I moved to the UK wasn't the bookstore. It was the NY Times. I couldn't quite get to grips with the newspapers in the UK and there was very little news about the USA unless it was presidential news. I tried to get it delivered to my home but gave up once I found out it wouldn't be delivered until Monday and it was going to cost me an arm and a leg. In the aftermath of 9/11, the NY Times was offered online at a subscription fee. But the technology let me down and neither my dial up connection or the subscription software worked reliably and I struggled to read the paper more than once/month.

Imagine my excitement when I found out that you can now get the paper on line NYTimes. OK, this isn't the same as hefting the huge paper, sifting through all the inserts, lounging about on the sofa, getting black ink on your fingers but I can dismiss almost all of those objections with the justification that it is certainly better for the environment. And I can afford it! And I can read it every day! If I can find the time......

Famous for my Disease

The symptoms have spiralled out of control and I'm now afraid of losing consciousness. My blog has been quoted in a blog "expert" area (of sorts), Blog Herald

The post it refers to is Blog Disease.

I started seeing dots. I was starving myself of oxygen. I was yelling at my husband, "I'm famous! I'm famous!" I'm now trying to figure out how to get more advertisers on my site so I can retire. My husband is seriously concerned. I just told the whole blorld (blog world) about the holes in his socks! That's his problem.....they got my name wrong! My name is LaDawn! My last name is Clare-Panton!

Holes in Socks

My husband wears socks with holes in them. We can afford to buy new socks but he has his "comfy" socks and refuses to stop wearing them just because they have a few holes in them. The holes aren't just in the toes. Holes appear in the heel and across the top but he persists. He insists that he can't buy his favourite socks in the UK so we must go to the USA which makes the socks a bit more expensive than if he would just go to M&S (Marks & Spencer). I can't seem to get him to see that surely socks with no holes would be more comfortable (and warmer) than socks with holes no matter where he purchases them. He disagrees.

Now you might think this doesn't matter. I might be the only one in the whole wide world who sees his socks but this just isn't true. Inevitably, we go round to people's homes and when we arrive we remove our shoes. And, taaadaaa! There are Marc's toes. I find this embarrassing. He doesn't. Of course, he is an adult and I should let his toes speak for themselves. But somehow this makes me feel like I'm not a very good wife and I'm not taking care of my husband making sure he has whole socks rather than holey socks. I've tried throwing the socks out. He gets them out of the rubbish. One Christmas he received 16 pairs of socks. He was not happy. So now I leave the sock buying to him. Which simply means it doesn't happen! Grrrrrrrrrr!

I wish I had the technical ability and tools to set up an online survey. I would ask:

1) Does your husband wear socks with holes?

2) Do you care?

Snow

Be careful what you wish for....my sister is in Denver which is buried under 4 feet of snow, literally! Her blog has pictures to prove it. I commented on her blog that I would trade my rain for her snow. The next morning (yesterday) we had snow! OK, so it was less 1/4 inch of snow. Ask and ye shall receive! Gosh, I wonder if this works with money?

Everything looked so beautiful. Abigail thought it was Christmas! Sebastian was major bummed when he came home from school to find the snow had melted as he had quite high hopes of building a snowman. The forecast was for more snow overnight so I assured him there would be other opportunities. BIG MISTAKE!

The forecast snow never materialised. Now Abby and Seb want to just hop on a plane and go to Colorado. The practicalities (and financing) of this escape my 5 1/2 and 3 year old! Maybe I could hire a snow machine.....ah, the things mothers do!

The Accidental

Let me introduce you to my book group. Some of them don't think this whole blogging thing is such a good idea and would prefer to remain anonymous. To respect this I will use only their initials and not reveal any personal details (although apologies if what I think is personal differs from what you think is personal).

My book group is a group of mums having diverse opinions about what makes good reading and willing to stretch their boundaries to include what others find interesting. In other words, we'll have a go at just about anything. Although, we did once let one of the husbands select our book. He chose The Fight by Norman Mailer. We don't let our husbands choose any of our books anymore.

This month we read The Accidental by Ali Smith. The novel won the Man Booker Prize in 2005 and the praise on the book jacket was impressive.

Hmmmmm, then I started to get a bit worried. I went off and googled a reading group guide. This always helps us talk about the book. Well, you see we are female and we all have children and lots of challenges every single day so we could quite easily spend the 2-3 hours meant to be discussing the book talking about everything else. We have done this on a couple of occasions and then had to rush the book in the last 15 minutes just so we could justify our time out to our husbands. I even tried emailing Meg Critch at Boston College who said they were having a discussion about the book but in the tradition of learned literary academia didn't need to use reading guides. Boy, did I feel dim?

Premise of the book centre's around the Smart family's lacklustre holiday in Norwich which is turned upside down when a beguiling stranger called Amber appears, bringing with her love, joy, pain and upheaval. The Smarts try to make sense of their bewildering emotions as Amber tramples over family boundaries and forces them to think about their world and themselves in an entirely new way.

It was a divided night. KH & B really enjoyed the book. SS & I found it a bit more heavy going. KR & M were a bit more down the middle. I thought the book got a good discussion despite not having any questions. We explored all of the characters and tried to understand why they did what they did. We definitely had differing opinions about the literary merits of the work.

What I say (since it is my blog): The first 70 pages or so were excruciatingly painful. The remaining 230 (or so) were only slightly less so. I don't recommend reading it and doubt I would have forced myself to finish it if I didn't feel the responsibility to the book group. I found the whole plot implausible and maybe that is my problem. I struggle to enjoy books which I just can't believe in. That's why sci-fi or fantasy literature rarely hits by reading list (one exception being anything by Margaret Atwood). The good news is through the discussion with the group I gained an insight and an appreciation I didn't have prior to the discussion. And that's what it is all about!

Next month's selection is My Name is Red by Ohran Pamuk. Have had a quick look round for a reading group guide. Oh, noooooo.....there isn't one!

I Hate Tuesdays

Up at 6:30 am. Children ready with ballet kit (both of them have ballet on Tuesdays). Off to work by 7:30. Go to a whole bunch of meetings. Feel like I've accomplished nothing. Pick up Abigail. Change her into her ballet costume (which is not as easy as it would seem) given that she is practicing dancing as I'm changing her. Drop her off. Wait for 1/2 hour. Take her home. Marc picks up Seb at same time. Get home. Make dinner. Do homework with Seb. Light fire in fireplace as it is below freezing and the house of freezing. Get ready for book group. Go to book group. Come home. go to sleep to start all over again. Oooops, forgot to breathe (and pee)!

A step too far?

I subscribe to a newsletter called Executive Momorandum from www.executivemoms.com. It based in New York and therefore has limited relevance to me but I love reading about what they are getting up to across the pond and it gives me loads of ideas for balancing the demands of working and being a mother. I wish somebody would start one over here in the UK based in London. I suspect though that the Brits would not see the advantage in the networking and support opportunities. (tell me if I am wrong about this and I will go and start one up right now!) I had a hard enough time keeping a mom's support group going at my workplace.

Recently I got an email advertising a service for helping mothers: www.momcierge.com.

Let me get this straight: we all are working very hard to make more money to pay people to do things for us which we don't have time to do because we are all working so hard to make more money to pay other people to do things for us......vicious circle!

But is this a step too far? I can see the value in the "phone book", ie the contacts and numbers of all the people and places (check out the services page) but I just don't get the end-to-end service (check out the prices page). I would really miss out if I didn't arrange my daughter's birthday party or plan our own holidays. Isn't this absconding all parenting responsibilities?

Although $150 for a yearly rate, they do everything for you......hmmmmm, the temptation! Right now this is only available for New Yorkers. If anyone thinks there is a market for this in the UK (London area), let me know. Another smashing business idea although not sure how profitable this would be! I feel a business plan coming on.

Quickly, yesterday went just as planned: R & R. I even took a nap! I added loads of information to my family tree on www.geni.com and still have loads of info pouring in to add. Let's hope they get some of the bugs worked out and improve the performance. Right now I'm spending lots of time waiting for the tree to come back to me!

Saturday DIY

The list of things for my husband to do around the house had grown to a nearly unmanageable size and the urgency of some items on the list meant that he could no longer put anything at a higher priority. This was the upside of the wind damage done last week. The trellis simply had to be fixed otherwise we (or any visitors to our home) could not get up the path to our door. Other items on the list included

1. The seat on the loo downstairs had come loose. Every time someone sat down the seat slid to the right and the was a very real possibility you could fall off the toilet. Not good.
2. The flush on the loo upstairs didn't work unless you had a wiggle on the handle which is not good since this is the loo the children use and children are not so good at handle jiggling.
3. There is a telephone cord that goes up the stairs (legacy from the days before wireless phones) and the children had pulled it loose during their "timeouts" on the stairs. this presented a real hazard to anyone going up or down the stairs that they would catch their feet in the cord and fall.
4. Abigail got a cool disco ball for Christmas that didn't even last the full day of Christmas as it got tripped over and feel.
5. Aforementioned trellis fallen over blocking path to house and threatening car damage as well as annihilation of honeysuckle.
6. Kitchen cupboard under sink had fallen off hinges providing access to household poisons and ample unsavoury chewing opportunities to dog.

To fix all of this required (except the disco ball which was the one casualty) only 2 trips to the hardware store. Disco Ball had to be thrown away. but in my humble opinion that's a pretty good list of DONES!

I managed to find Sebastian a new riding instructor because, Lucy, his previous instructor, completely flaked on us. She stopped showing up for lessons and wouldn't return any phone or text messages. I rang the horse rescue centre and they have a new instructor which will start with Sebastian next week. He's very excited!

I finally finished the thank you cards for Christmas after a small mix up about who got what from whom. I had obviously left the room for a moment (probably to fall off the loose loo seat), and the unwrapping had not stopped. This meant I didn't get a chance to write down some gifts! Auntie Mary was able to help me fill in the blanks and the cards got finished. I've still a couple to write from Abigail's birthday party but should get to that today.

Last night we went over to the Cook's home. We have been researching various options for going to Lapland before Christmas 2007. We've gathered a couple brochures and thought we would let the children play, put the children to bed, get a curry in and make a decision on where we would go. What happened was that we are more confused now that we were when we started. The web provided us with no guidance and actually only served to confuse us further. One brochure looked really good but we need to find out if we can do only 4 days and not 10. One seemed OK but we had heard mixed reviews. If anyone reading this has any suggestions for a magical trip to Lapland, please comment on this blog and give us a hand!

Last night the wind kicked up again and we lost a big branch off one of the trees in our lane but it was quickly and easily moved this morning. Today looks like a day to relax....

Spelling Test Excellence

Yesterday was Sebastian's first spelling test at school. As you can see, he scored a perfect 10 our of 10. He was so proud of himself!

Thursday his mate Ben came round to play and Abigail thought he was her friend. The 3 of them are trying to master the Nintendo here. Ben ate 2 huge helpings of my spag bol! We loved having him round and hope he will come round again soon! Next time he will have to bring his sister, Grace (who will be in Abigail's Nursery class in September 2007).

Yesterday after school, Sebastian had a birthday party to go to (Ben & Mattie's) and Abigail was fairly upset that she didn't get to go. So she got to go to her favourite restaurant (McDonald's) with Daddy and spend some quality bonding time! Everyone was fed except me. I ate crackers for dinner. Boo hoo, poor me!

Family Tree Builder

I have found a new job. OK, not exactly. I mean I don't get paid for it so I won't be leaving my other job any time soon but I found this web site www.geni.com. This is a super cool website for building family trees. I've been told the guy who runs it is trying to build a family tree of the entire world. Uh, good luck since most of the world doesn't have access to computers. Anyway my sister and I were on Skype having a chat and I started building our family tree and invited her to join in. So here we both were adding names and details and photos and all of a sudden the whole site crashes. Oops, the sister beta test team strikes! Does this mean that the site can't support 2 people on opposite sides of the world updating the same tree at the same time? Uh, isn't that the point? They need to sort this one out if it is going to work!

Blog Disease

I have crossed that invisible line into blogtal illness (or maybe not so invisible depending on your physical proximity to me). This disease is caused by the descent into madness caused by blogging. The symptoms of this disease should be monitored closely and are as follows:

1. You are excited when anyone visits your blog.
2. You visit random blogs hoping to get tips on how to make the blog more interesting to just about anyone.
3. You are excited when your blog visits enter double digits/day.
4. You are excited when people you don't know visit your blog.
5. You are excited when your monthly traffic hits triple digits after only 2 months and grows each month.
6. You are excited when someone leaves a comment on your blog.
7. You are sooooo excited you giggle when someone else's blog (my sister) links to your blog. Stephanie
8. You are soooooooo excited you dance around the kitchen when someone else's blog (that you don't even know) links to your blog in their text and even thanks you for leaving a comment. Barry

Anyone who knows me will tell you I can talk for days. I don't care if anyone is listening. I'm quite happy talking to walls and could keep myself entertained in a cardboard box with conversation alone. One of my best friends, Kerry, and I met on a flight from London (Heathrow) to Melbourne (Australia). We didn't stop talking for the entire 12 hour flight and at one point the flight attendant had to ask us to move as we were keeping other passengers awake. We've been friends for over 7 years and haven't stopped talking.

So basically, I would have been happy just throwing the words out. God knows, I've got a lot of words to throw. Now I'm even happier to know someone is reading them!

Pictures of Damage

More wind damage in the Queen's Home Park (near Windsor Castle). Marc came across this fallen tree whilst taking Bailey for a walk. That's Bailey surveying the damage.

Good news is the crew from the sinking ship have all been safely rescued and returned to shore.

More pictures of the weather chaos.....BBC Pictures

Wind Damage - so far

Wind like I've never seen

The wind is blowing.....and I mean howling blowing!. It is scaring the daylights out of me. On the lane to our home, tress have fallen and are partially blocking he orad. My thanks goes out to whoever had taken it upon themselves to chop the trees in half and move them to the side of the road making a small path through so that I could get home with the children. Our trellis with my beloved honeysuckle is over resting on the upturned rubbish bin and composting bin and god only knows where the recycling bins have ended up. I spoke to the local policeman (bobby on the beat) who was bravely walking his bicycle down the road. He said Old Windsor is doing ok with no power cuts or gas leaks or flooding. The power is out in parts of Maidenhead.....oh my god, the lights are flickering.

According to the BBC, a ship is sinking some 40 miles off the Lizard coast in Cornwall with 26 people on board. The rescue operation is under way this afternoon, which strong winds will hamper. A woman has also been killed by a falling wall in Berkshire (which is where we live). Flights in and out of Heathrow have been suspended.

My house is over 110 years old. It stands in a terrace with 3 others. It is strong and feels strudy. The wind is howling through the house. It has now started to rain. What I wouldn't give for a little light snow about now!