"Come sleep with me"

R. is blossoming from a introverted, observant toddler into a gregarious, funny, willful toddler. At 8.00pm tonight we stopped our movie "Beginners" because of this:
"Mummmy, mmmmuuunmmy, mummmyy"

Up the stairs I go.

"Mummy, get in bed"
"You want me to lie with you"
"Yes, get in bed"
I lie on top of her bed.
"No, under the blanket"
"I'm not going to get under the blanket, I'll lie here and we can read a book"
"OK"

I love that I can have a conversation with my little girl, a conversation that she has initiated, a conversation in which she is rying to manipulate me slightly.

T. meanwhile, is still not quite understanding the concept of sustained sleep. Last night he was up every hour. It can only get better.

4.37 on a Wednesday

Adele in my ears, mocha on my lips and some space around me. An afternoon with just me. I'm perched on a backless stool in a local coffeeshop. A stool that demands good posture. Too loud shop music interrupts my mellow choice of music, my labour playlist no less. Outside the window commuters are starting to trickle home, crisscrossing the complex junction in an ugly mechanical dance. People bundled in knitted hats bow their heads in brutal blasts of winter wind. Two men stand in the road peering westward for the next trolley.
A church tower watches over it all, the setting sun casting yellow sunshine onto its upper tiers. Naked tree branches reach over the road, stark like frail pointing fingers, accusing. Plate clang in the kitchen and the staff talk about shifts. Half eaten cakes line the shelf of a bright fridge, looking drab after hours on show. A crammed notice board screams with the goings on of a neighborhood, "Share yoga love with someone you love!" "Philly Youth Radio Got something to say? Want to be heard? Celebrate Charles Dickens on his 200th birthday" (I may actually do that one).
M thoughts jump from home (Is being home with the kids right for me? Do I have the patience? When will I get a full night's sleep again) to work (I need to earn money, how? when?) Just a few hours away is amazing for perspective. Last night I went to bed at 10.00 after a drink with Ellen, I was woken at 11.40, 2.00, 4.00, 5.00 and we got up at 7.00.

A Saturday at Home

A jetlag fuelled 6.00am wake up by both kids starting the day. Feeling amazingly energized after a night of only three feeds and numerous shushings, I began a pliates class courtesy of Netflix. The 36 minute video lasted about an hour as T. needed rocking, cooing and pacifying, while R. insisted on lying on my legs during the "pilates leg circle" exercises. I did, however, thoroughly enjoy the sweat inducing video and learned that I am unable to complete one push up, my shoulders feel like they will implode.
Our day turned into "operation declutter". A day of cleaning with kids, meaning not a lot gets done, but the bath has been scrubbed and some laundry has made it to the washing machine. Regardless of the lack of productivity, a day at home with the family cannot be beaten. Rose runs around with her constant wants, "Mummy, I want peanut butter, Mummy I want up, Mummy I want to hold baby Tom, Mummy I need water, Mummy I want to go outside, Mummy, I don;t want to go on the GUs walk." How can you not love that! Tom is an absolute delight. He happily stare at his homemade mobile, while we bustle about around him. He smiles and coos when you talk to him. His fluffy hair seems to be red in the sunlight.
Now, at 6.45pm, both bairns are in bed and we have an evening of football, reading, knitting, beer ahead of us. How can you not love this day?

Back home (?) again

Granted I have just returned from a delightful three week visit and the painful parting is still a vivid memory, but I want to be in England again.. Rose and Tom are here and priorities have changed. Pre-babies life in a big American city was exciting, challenging. Now, I want my children to grow up with grandparents, great-grandparents. My true home is with my husband and my babies, but I'm becoming convinced if that home should be in Philadelphia.

Top eleven memories from Christmas 2011 (in no particular order)

1. Seeing Rose and Tom interact with family
2. Swimming with Rose at Parkside Pool
3. Visiting the Pike and Eel (an emotional journey down memory lane)
4. Playing Balderdash with Joyce ("buggery instead of surgery")
5. Tom peeing on numerous carpets, trousers, and scarves.
6. My afternoon and evening in London with Harriet.
7. Dinner with David and Emma - the first time my brother has paid for dinner
8. Celebrating Mum's fifty five birthday at Jamies with cheesecake afterwards.
9. The Christingle service at Girton Church on Christmas Eve
10. the new catchphrase "oooo a cup of tea"
11. trip to oxford with Joyce and Peter

all children need hugs

As Frederick Douglass noted, “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”

happy belated new year

aah, a new beginning. Thoughts turn to resolutions and I have many changes I want to make, however I'm always confused as to why january first has to be the day of resolutions and not, say, 12th June or October 6th or even better any day in Febuary as it is such a cruddy month (and valentines day is just pants). So, this year my resolutions are 100% selfish: firstly, complete two races (a 5k, early in the year and a 10k later in the year), secondly, draw something every day, and thirdly read Dickens.

Having a splendid, long trip to Cambridge. Currently seated on a sqidgy poof, toes warm in threadbare green socks and back warm against wahing drying on the radiator. Holby City drones on unwatched as Mum sits cross-legged knitting on a black leather sofa. Tom sleeps swaddled in his car seat, tiny shroaded feet poking out of the end. The pages of the Guardian rustle as Howard browses the daily articles. A mini-Magnum quickly disappearing as he reads. Brent enters "something's not quite right, a few too many trips to the bathroom."