Let's Talk Turkey

I need advice. I'm hosting Thanksgiving in a week and I've got about twelve guests coming, two of whom are my parents and it'll be their first Thanksgiving dinner. Believe it or not I'm actually very excited at the prospect, I love Thanksgiving, it's one of my favourite American holidays. Any holiday based entirely around a large meal is alright by me. The problem is Thanksgiving doesn't love me back. Or more specifically, turkeys.

I've hosted Thanksgiving before, and I've cooked turkeys before. I had a dynamite Alton Brown turkey recipe from Bon Appetit magazine that has produced a very tasty turkey twice. I've now lost the recipe and can't seem to find it on the old interweb. I wasn't too phased, after all I've done it before, how hard could it be?

I decided to hedge my bets and cook a practice turkey. It went badly. I cooked another. Even worse. LK has admitted he 'doesn't know if he has another practice turkey in him', so the next turkey I cook will be on Thanksgiving. I'm hoping for third time's the charm, but luck favours the prepared, so here's what I did wrong, and if you have any advice I'm all ears. Specifically, where do you stick the thermometer and at what temperature do you pull the bird out?

Turkey A

Liberally spread with herbed butter both under the skin and above the breast. Blasted with heat for the first 20 minutes, then cooked upside down until the thigh thermometer read 175º.

Problems: The turkey turned out both rubbery/tough yet moist. WTF? As LK said "wow, you sure cooked the hell out of that turkey". Oh, and we also had the minor problem of me cooking the bird with the giblets still inside. In my defence I had taken out the neck thing, done a thorough cavity search (not that thorough it turns out) and concluded like a moron that this particular bird was giblet free. I discovered it wasn't when LK took a scalpel to the bird and produced a plastic bag full of entrails. Yum! I have a feeling that cooked plastic aside, this may have been a good cooking method except that it was a stringy old bird and that's why it was both tough and moist? Am I kidding myself?

Turkey B

After further googling I decided to stick the thermometer in the breast this time and not flip the bird. I even (oh and how stupid was this in hindsight) invited my in-laws over for some practice turkey. I confidently lubed the bird, removed all plastic (genius! this was going to be good!) roasted for 20 minutes, lowered the temperature then removed from the oven when the breast temp said 161º. Of course, this bird's thighs proved to be as red and raw as a North Yorkshire schoolchild forced to do a cross country run in sideways sleet. Now I love my in-laws, and that is why they are still alive. I do not deal well with frustration. *understatement* I was PISSED OFF and my air hostess smile was cracking under the pressure. Of course everyone was lovely, terrified but lovely. Oh my roast potatoes were simply marvelous! The carrots, a revelation! Such a shame we can't stay until the turkey claws its way back to room temperature. So sad to hear about Lucy having salmonella! Must dash!

OK, they weren't that cruel, they manfully ate their way through all the side dishes and then waited a further hour til the turkey re-emerged from the oven. They are family after all, and being family means you have to suffer through your daughter in laws 'cooking'.

Please don't let me kill my guests. In this horrid economy I need all the friends I can get. All I'm asking is for a recipe for the perfect turkey. How hard can it be?

Paradise Lost

This is where I live. It's pretty gorgeous I think you'll admit - particularly if you're knee deep in North American snow or leaf mulch right now. White sandy beaches, palm trees, tropical flowers, hummingbirds, year-round sunshine and margaritas. What's not to love?






















Yesterday a man walked in to my office and noticed my Yorkshire calendar on the wall. A lovely snapshot of Staithes (try finding a Yorkshire calendar without this picture quite frankly).

"Is that where you're from then?" he asked.
"Yes, but I've been here about 15 years"
"How'd you end up here?"
"My husband's from Santa Barbara"
"And what do you think of it?"
"Well, I always say he'd have had to have done a lot more talking to get me to move to Gary, Indiana".

Which is what I always say, even though I've never been to Gary, Indiana and quite frankly after all these years I feel more than a little guilty about using their name in vain like that. It's my way of deflecting the inevitable question, the inevitable 'aren't we lucky to live here?' question.

Which is why what happened next almost made me fall of my chair.

"But what do you really think of the place" he pushed, "I mean, I've lived here all my life and I'm always curious".

At this point I started looking around for the thought police. Never one to start a fight with a patient at work (well, OK, that's a lie), I said diplomatically "oh, it's a beautiful place to live". You could just hear the "aren't we lucky to live here" tag line hanging in the air.

"Really? I've come to think that this is probably one of the worst places in the country for any young couple, particularly if they have children. I'm telling my girls to get the hell out of here".

Gasp.

He went on to say that he'd been a loan officer for over thirty years and that no middle income family could survive the place and stay married. "The pressure's too intense" he said. "You end up mortgage poor, bickering about money all the time, you want kids but you can't afford them, or you have kids but you can't afford to spend any time with them you're working so damn hard, and then the worst case scenario is if one spouse was born here because they'll do anything to hang on here, and the other spouse will be desperate to leave and can't understand why they're making their lives so miserable staying in Santa Barbara. Then it ends up heading towards divorce, except where does that leave you? Two single parents who can't stay in the same town to be with their kids because it costs too much".

I swear to God I almost burst in to tears. Except I didn't, because I was at work, but my stiff upper lip may have trembled a little.

You may be thinking - what the hell was he doing? How about a little light conversation instead of this descent in to inevitable divorce. Not exactly a barrel of laughs mate, but he was actually a really nice bloke chatting about his daughters and their future and reading my chuffing mind.

It's what I think every day. I do love this town and we make the most of living here. My Mum and Dad are flying out in a couple of days and I bet right now they're packing their swimming cozzies and their sun tan lotion thinking 'I can't wait to get to Santa Barbara, seasons of mists and mellow fruitfulness my arse, give me a beer by the pool any day'. To hear someone from SB, a native no less, say so succinctly what I've concluded after fifteen years of living here was gobsmacking. Santa Barbarans never criticize their town. It was literally like he was reading my mind, or my blog (far more likely that he was reading my mind....).

I've become so used to this 'aren't we lucky to live here' mentality that I really have started to doubt myself. It's as if everyone is under a collective delusion that this is a perfect town. A Stepford town. I questioned, was I digging in my heels and criticizing Santa Barbara because I hadn't fully committed to living here? Did I really only have a problem with this place because I hadn't let go of England? I have one friend from Boston who wholeheartedly agrees with me, but we both like cloudy days and a bit of drizzle, so I'd ended up concluding we were both bonkers.

It was so unbelievably refreshing and validating to hear someone come to the same conclusions.. This is a great town, but it's toxic. I half thought his comments were a trap, I half believed I would find my in-laws crouched behind a filing cabinet waiting for me to agree with him so they could leap out and yell "aha! we knew you were planning on stealing our son from us." I also thought, hang on a minute, why's he saying all this to me, why does he know it'll resonate? Do I have the worry-etched face of the negatively amortized? Has he been doing some research - is he going to spring a loan proposal on me? That's how rare it is to hear anyone, anyone say anything critical about this town.

I know that these days people are struggling to live everywhere, but to deliberately set yourself up to fail in a town that's too expensive to live in has always seemed insane to me. I've always felt like saying, it's not that great. Yes it's beautiful, the climate is amazing, and we can swim in the Pacific whenever we want, but is it worth it? Is it worth the sacrifice? I've always felt a little alone in questioning this town's halo. I'm not trying to say we'll be leaving any day now, I do honestly enjoy a lot about this place, I'm just trying to put in words how nice it felt to feel understood by a perfect stranger, to not have to initiate the conversation, to be on the receiving end of someone else's conclusions that echoed mine and made me feel a little less alone and a little less insane.

Somehow Santa Barbara seems a little more beautiful, a little more livable and human now that somebody else has seen its flaws.

Sicko

Moi?












Well that was certainly interesting. It appears the answer was e) none of the above. Lucy had salmonella. There's nothing like getting a phonecall from the Public Health Department to make you feel like parent of the year. They had a huge list of questions, including 'was she born in this country'. Perhaps they suspect that only Americans use chlorox to wipe down their surfaces instead of giving the kitchen counters a good rub-down with an uncooked chicken like the British do. I found the questions about her diet rather ironic, because she only technically eats formula and organic babyfood, but she does put everything else within reach in her mouth too; soil, rocks, her sisters shoes, dogs noses. I have always been of the mindset that 'it takes a lot of dirt before you die', but apparently not, it just takes a quick nibble of a contaminated item, whatever that was.

The good news is that Lucy is now completely fine. Her second round of stool samples (boy was that fun) were given the all clear and nobody else in the K household is sick. This makes me think it's not lax housekeeping on my part, rather lax parenting. I swear to God we went to a party down in Ventura two weeks ago, and such is my life right now, I was assembling hors d'oeuvres in the front seat of the car waiting for my husband to finish work, while both Anna and Lucy played in the carpark. I was spearing a tomato/basil leaf/mozzarella ball and watching Lucy try to teeth on a large pebble when I thought 'God I would never have let Anna do that as a baby, but I've either stopped caring or stopped worrying'. Incidentally, if you read this blog and went to the party, I'm a lot more careful in my front-seat food prep then I am with my carpark parenting.

While these last few posts may seem like I'm up to my ears in catastrophes, I actually feel very lucky. Yes, LK and the girls were in a freeway crash - but no-one was hurt, and yes Lucy was very sick there for a while, but her 9 month old constitution was able to fight the bug. I even lost my wallet in the parking lot at Costco last week and some kind soul handed it in - my six dollars of hard cash still intact.

I will be trusting my judgment in the future regarding when to take my daughters in to the doctors. We made two phonecalls to Lucy's doctor's office regarding her bloody diarrhea. The on-call doctor told us to push fluids, and the nurse a couple of days later tried to convince us that it very rarely is blood that parents notice in a diaper, usually red pepper or tomato skin. Hearing that I was thinking - listen lady, I know my daughter goes around licking the ground you walk on, but I think I would know if she'd suddenly switched to a Mediterrannean diet....When we finally took Lucy in to see the Nurse Practitioner five days after Lucy's diarrhea started she took one look at her diaper and said 'oh yes, that's blood, you should always bring them in the minute you see any bloody stool'. Thanks for that. I could have kicked myself. It's amazing how a brief phonecall with a doctor can take precedence over your concerns that your daughter is a) the colour of wallpaper paste b) has suddenly started taking 6 hour naps and c) is shooting blood out of her arse.

To all those coming to Thanksgiving dinner in three weeks; I will be washing my hands thoroughly. And then drying them on that 3 week old tea towel.

A Plague Upon Your Home

Wow, nothing puts the idea of a third child on hold like the entire family falling ill. We've had runny noses, sore throats, diarrhea, diarrhea with blood, more blood than diarrhea and teething. All of which has meant that neither Anna nor Lucy has been capable of sleeping by themselves for more than an hour at a time in the last few days. I just looked at myself in the mirror and got a mug shot in return. A meth addict mug shot. I look done in.

I'm finally hopeful we're on the mend. Lucy took the brunt, poor thing. She started off with teething - her first top tooth, which meant two days of non stop unexplained mithering. I love her dearly, but the sound of an unhappy baby for days on end can bring you to your knees. It's a cruel fact that when they need you the most, when they're in pain and uncomfortable they are completely useless at communicating their needs. You feel like yelling what? WHAT?, when the Tylenol, the soothing, the back rubs, the bath, everything fails. 48 hours later you feel completely rotten as that tooth appears and their teary face screams "see, see what I was dealing with". Then as if to really rub it in she began sneezing, and shooting out foamy green poop. I really hope you're not eating dinner whilst reading this. Our 'experience' as parents allowed us to take the poop shoot in our stride. That sentence doesn't read right does it? Anyway, we were calm, we increased her fluids, checked her temperature, slapped the butt lotion on and took her to the beach; all the usual things.

All of sudden, what seemed like a run of the mill case of diarrhea (I'll have you know that I've written that word so often lately that for the first time in my life I can write it without having to spell check it first,...) transformed into blood-streaked poop foam and then mostly blood, every ten minutes. Things happen fast with small children, and you don't want to overreact but also you don't want to sleep on the job. We didn't know what to do. We were making dinner, it was cocktail hour.

I decided that unexplained rectal bleeding - try googling that and concluding your child will live - merited an after-hours doctor phone call. He basically said 'there's a lot of it about, slap some cream on her butt and keep her hydrated'. I felt such a fool. To make matters worse, Lucy was fine in between bouts of agonizing foam pooping and I was still reeling from getting 6 out of 10 on this 'when should you take your baby to the doctor quiz'. We concluded she was either:

a) suffering from an irritated bowel/rectum due to fighting a virus
b) had a urinary tract infection
c) had a bowel obstruction and was going to explode in a matter of minutes
d) all of the above

I think it was a). She seems brighter this afternoon. Poop-watch '09 shows a dwindling of foam and less BRIGHT! RED! BLOOD! Plus she's happily chewing on a barbie. This parenting lark is hard work.

I only want to hear comments from people who scored worse than me on the baby to the doctor quiz. Unless you're my childminder of course.

It's Just Rain People

I wanted to add to yesterday's alarmist post, it's just rain people, calm down. Me included. The UK grinds to a halt when it snows and Santa Barbara twitters about the first big Pacific storm of the year as if it's an ice storm, or a hurricane, or a Nor'Easter instead of a couple of days of heavy rain. We have a climate here. We don't have 'weather'. It's a phenomenon and people are completely thrown by it. It was the headline news. Patients canceled appointments, children were sent home with notes from school, people squelched around town in sodden Uggs searching for umbrellas.

Then LK phoned with the words 'everyone's OK but....'. You see, it's not just rain. It's the first big rain of the year, leaching months of oil to the surface of the roads. People don't have the benefit of wet traction tires or the experience of driving in the wet. LK had been south bound on the freeway with both girls in the back of the car when the woman in front of him braked too suddenly, hydroplaned, swerved out of control and starting spinning, pirouetting towards him in terrifying slow motion. Fortunately he is the most level-headed driver I have ever met. Thank God more like. He didn't oversteer and cause our car to slide out or even worse, flip. He gently moved over to the other lane and consequently the out of control car only clipped the back of ours on it's way in to the centre divider. Everyone was fine. Everyone was insured.

We got so lucky. My whole life was in that car. I was at home revelling in the peace and quiet of an empty house. Ironically. When they finally returned and I'd hugged everyone to within an inch of their lives, Anna looked at me with serious four-year old eyes and said 'Dada said FUCK!'.

I'll bet he did.

Here Comes The Rain Again

I didn't make it to every lecture at College. For some reason it was much harder to get up for a 12 noon lecture than a 9am one. I know, it was a tough few years.

My fellow geographers and I would trade notes on any missed lectures, so our studies wouldn't suffer you understand. I recall one frigid East Anglian morning as I dozed at my desk, my toaster at my feet was my only source of heat. In blasts S. brandishing the most outlandish lecture notes I'd ever seen, and trust me, we'd had our fair share of early agricultural maize dispersal maps and post-modern polemics. Apparently S. had sat through an hour about a global climatological phenomenon called an El Nino in which 5O THOUSAND SEABIRDS DIED!! SUN SPOTS?! Her emphasis. As I re-typed the notes in to my trusty Marks and Spencer word processor and pressed save I thought ­thank God I stayed in bed and nursed my hangover on that one. Didn't miss anything there. Goodbye El Nino, won't be seeing you again.

Great decision that. On a par with me deciding not to learn Spanish in the sixth form because 'I couldn't see myself visiting Spain that much in the future'. I'm a right little clairvoyant.

It's just starting to rain as I write this. The beginning of my second El Nino in California. The first was in 1998 when we were first married. It rained so much a mudslide tore through my husband's place of work. He works outside so when it rains he doesn't work. We were newly married though and surviving on love and freeze-dried noodles. We didn't care. Now we have two hungry mouths to feed, two even hungrier mortgages and we have relocated to the bottom of a hill denuded of all vegetation by recent wildfires. This is going to be great.

El Ninos are predictably unpredictable. They happen in cycles of 2-7 years, much like my kitchen floor cleaning. A lot of research is being done in to their causes. SUN SPOTS! Scream S's notes. One sign here in Southern California is warm ocean water. If you've ever watched Baywatch and lived in So Cal you will know that every time David Hasselhof threw himself in to the surf they had to bleep him saying FUCK ME THAT'S COLD. Pamela probably had fake boobs to provide some extra insulation. Our water comes direct from Alaska. Do not pass go. Do not pick up any heat. None. That's why we use wetsuits in August and laugh at the perplexed looks on the faces of the MidWestern tourists. Right now the water is 68º, almost 10º higher than usual. Everyone
is talking about this being the bouncing 12lb newborn El Nino with no epidural.

Now I really miss rain. I miss cloudy days and cuddling up on the sofa watching a good movie. It's so hard to do that here with gorgeous blue skies chastising your idleness. Santa Barbara doesn't do drizzle. The Pacific storms slam in to our mountains and the rain pours in torrents back to the ocean, turning streets in to rivers and burn areas in to mudslides. It's primeval, humbling, and not a little scary when you're responsible for the roof over your head and the heads of several tenants.

A massive storm system is poised off the coast right now, the light rain of five minutes ago has turned in to a downpour. LK is probably looking in to getting expanded cable. I'm going to put the worrying on hold and plan on a luxurious soak in the tub with a glass of whiskey while I listen to the rain cascading down tonight.

First let me turn off the sprinklers....

What Not To Not Wear

On Mondays LK watches both girls. It's his favourite day of the week, however exhausting. Every Monday at noon he picks me up from work and we all go for a quick lunch somewhere. He gets a little help with the kids and I get to flee the Monday madness at work.

Last Monday we headed to our favourite cheap and cheerful café. For once, I was pleasantly surprised by what Anna was wearing. What is it with men dressing their kids? Sometimes the outfits sported by my daughters are so outlandish, so bizarre that it looks like a thrift store has vomited on them. A colour-blind thrift store. It's occurred to me that he may be doing it to wind me up. "That's a pyjama top" I'll hiss, or "For God's sake, those aren't leggings, those are tights, and why is she wearing a swim suit over them?!" Anna will take it one step further so sometimes there will be fairy wings or plastic princess high heels involved too.

Last Monday Anna was wearing a simple flowery dress with a coordinating t-shirt underneath. Her hair looked like she'd been electrocuted but on the whole she was presentable. As she stood by our table, twirling away 'practicing' her ballet with violent arabesques and pirouettes I gave myself a little bit of a talking to. Maybe I was being too 'matchy-matchy' anyway, requiring a coordinating outfit and neatly plaited hair. What did it really matter, she was four for God's sake. As long as she thought she was beautiful (twirl), as long as she was comfortable (grand jeté) as long as she was wearing knickers.......

.....which of course she wasn't.

I've never seen LK move so fast.

The Results Are In...And..

OK, you were right, I wasn't really waiting to add up the 'go for it' messages vs the 'get your tubes tied' comments in order to make our decision. 4 replies say yes, two say no, so get your kit off LK, the internet has spoken.

I do want to say a huge thankyou to everyone for the wonderful and heartfelt input though. I loved everything you had to say. It all made complete sense. Yes, babies bring their own bread - I love that proverb too, but so far they do not appear to be bringing their own plane tickets, which is an issue for us!

I do think my hormones are playing a large part in this incessant broodiness. That coupled with the sadness with which I view Lucy desperate to leave her babyhood. Perhaps when she gets a little older, and stops being so stinking cute I will be able to wean myself from the idea.

















Nothing is as effective as a whining toddler when it comes to contraception after all. Besides as LK pointed out, a tad sarcastically, in order to have a third child we would actually have to do the hibbity-dibbity, and had I really thought this through?

Every silver lining has a cloud....

There is also a mad scientist part of me that just wants to see what my future kids would be like. Anna has my wariness, my bookishness and Lance's, well, hair, whereas Lucy has Lance's athleticism, his daredevil nature, and well, my lady parts. That's it. When you look at the Duggars you see every combination of the two parents, every personality trait, every physiological nuance. Plus I was thinking last night, as you do, that with 18 kids, statistically shouldn't at least one of them be gay, and how on earth's that going to work? I think rather than having 19 kids, it would be easier to just use this website.

I've told myself that we'll leave it for a year to mull over. No rash moves here! I think we both realize that adding a third would likely mean moving away from SB, which would likely mean a change in countries, which would require an economic miracle for us to be able to get out of our money pit. Nothing makes this debate seem minor compared to the discussion of whether to continue living in Santa Barbara or move back to the UK.

In the meantime I'm buying lottery tickets.

Three Is The New Two

We had a garage sale over the weekend and made gajillions of dollars, helped mostly by my inability to speak Spanish.

NESP (Non English Speaking Person): "How much?" pointing at tiny refrigerator dumped by our former tenants.
WASP (Me): Hmm, lets see, it's the end of the morning and I can't be arsed to lift it back in to my car. "Fifteen dollars."
NESP: "Nah. Too much."
WASP: Dude. Less than $15 for a 1 year old fridge. Are you high?
NESP: Returning two minutes later. "Will you take forty dollars."
WASP: "Hmm, OK." OMG she thought I said fifty!!! Stop grinning like an idiot! Stop it! Keep a straight face and take the money, take the money!

Apart from random household electronics, we were mainly selling baby paraphernalia. I can't tell you how many people looked at Lucy and said "I'll give you $10." Oh you slay me.

Emotionally, getting rid of all that infant clothing was very hard to do. I'd put aside some of Anna and Lucy's most special clothes. There are those pieces you just can't part with; first outfit home from the hospital, first party dress, first outfit worn whilst eating solid foods, first outfit worn in a stroller in a light drizzle (OK, I found it hard to let go). Still, we had a lot left over, and I knew by selling them for a $1 each that the clothes would be going to a good home.

I also sold some 'sundry baby crap' items, bouncy chairs, a swing, steam sterilizer, boppy etc. The stuff that makes your living room look like a yard sale in those first few months post-birth. I did not sell my breast pump. You want to know why? Because everything else can be re-bought on Craigslist for cheap. After all, we bought our co-sleeper online for $50 and sold it 6 months later for $50. My breast pump was a shed lot of money and I don't want to have to buy another brand new one, and the idea of a second hand mammary device is a big no. But why would I need to use it again?

Because I'm not certain I'm settled at having just two children, and LK is even less sure.

Pause for the enormity of that statement to sink in.

That's right - you think I blog sporadically now. It wouldn't get any better I assure you.,

When you ask my friends with two children whether they're done, or whether they're still open to negotiation on the subject of more kids they give you a good hard stare, tell you to sit down and then put a cold compress on your forehead. Either that or they'll tell you they took a pair of scissors to their husband and performed a home-vasectomy the minute they got home from the hospital.

They are done.

Quite honestly I can't work out why I don't feel the same way, I never really saw myself as a particularly devoted mother. Until a few years ago I honestly thought I was considering children more out of a sense of conventional obligation rather than anything else. It certainly explained the panic and emotional turmoil I went through when I first found out I was pregnant.

Either the idea has grown on me or I'm too worn down by fatigue and diapers to remember how joyous my old life was.

Do I want to be pregnant again? No! Do I want to go through labour again? Ha! Stupid question. Was I not lucky enough getting two healthy babies after all that nearly went wrong?

The desire to have another child is irrational. When you get right down to it (and I am talking finances here) it's downright irresponsible. Is it my hormones? Is it my subconscious need for a son, for completion? Am I a sucker for punishment? Remember, Lucy was very briefly a twin. Two could become four. Hell, a primary school friend of mine tried for a third and then had triplets.

We have been canvassing our friends with families of more than two. Was it a good idea? Do they regret it? We have had some remarkably candid replies. Some people have told us flat out, don't do it. They love their kids but lost too much of their lives, became too worried about money, about college, felt that their other kids lost out. Other friends have said it's just more people to love (LK's philosophy).

I am asking for your comments - please feel free to be anonymous. Do you wish you'd had more children? When it comes down to brass tacks do you regret that last little bundle of joy? (Mum - my brother may be reading this.......). Did you yearn for another child but when the dust and hormones settled are you now glad you stayed with the number of kids you had?

I do realize that we struggled good and proper to even get pregnant with Lucy, so this may be entirely moot, but my hormones and my rational mind are at war and I need some perspective.

Thanks.

Well That Was Unexpected

Anna's new phrase, uttered a hundred times a day is "well, that was unexpected". Even when it clearly wasn't - case in point Lucy grabbing Anna's bowl of 'Gorilla Munch' cereal and dumping it on the floor. I mutter 'oh bloody hell' trying to blame Anna, but seriously, I put a 4 year old in charge of a 8 month old, who really needs reprimanding? Anna will look cheerfully at the puddle of milk rapidly soaking in the carpet and repeat "well, that was unexpected". Lucy, ecstatically slapping her milky hands on the table in agreement.

You would think that if Anna were going to pick up a phrase from our house to parrot it would be "oh for the love of God, someone get a cloth".

I know that unexpected things are not always a disappointment. I once received a Tiffany diamond necklace in the pocket of a dressing gown after all. My trouble is when I mentally expect something new to be fabulous and then face crushing disappointment.

Well, may be not crushing disappointment, most of the things on the list are food items after all, but you'll get my point.

I grew up watching Paddington Bear and reading Narnia books. I longed for marmalade sandwiches and turkish delight.

Bleurgh. Disaster. Why did Paddington Bear hide marmalade sandwiches under his hat? Cheese and pickle - now there's a snack to squirrel away. As for the White Witch giving Edmund turkish delight - I had visions of the most delicious confection known to man. I've developed a taste for it now, but that first bite of rose-scented gelatinous goop as a child was a devastating blow.

There were equal disappointments when moving to the States and faced with an entirely new culinary world. Twinkies? I think you have to grow up with them to appreciate these bizarre anemic sponge cakes - and I'm not just knocking American junk food, believe me, I could live off Jalapeno Cheetos and I don't think there's a natural ingredient in them.

Root beer? Can you imagine more of a disappointment to a Brit than coming to the US and discovering that root beer is what the British know as mouthwash. Strange but true. Mouthwash in the US is mint flavoured. In the UK it's mouthwash flavour - ie 'root beer' flavoured. It's a bit of a shocker that first time you have a root beer float and discover you're having a big dollop of ice cream in your mug of Plax.

One man's root beer float is another man's mouthwash cocktail.

This same bizarre taste/flavour reversal happened on our recent trip back the UK. When I left England many years ago every high street was awash with the nose-hair strippingly strong scent of Body Shop 'Dewberry'. In the last 10 years Molton Brown have become the new must-have toiletry. On my first visit back I actually thought this was a shop peculiar to Harrogate. Why I thought that when a) it wasn't related to tea, and b) it clearly said 'Molton Brown London' is beyond me. One more visit back home and suddenly every single bathroom sink was sporting a bottle of MB lotion. Not such a shock really after I found out that my Mum had been giving it to every relative for birthdays and Christmas.

The point is, I loved the smell of their Rose Granati, and had already made up my mind to buy a bottle of shower gel while we were back in England. Economic meltdown be damned, I was splashing out.

Well, imagine my disappointment when I found out that they only do Rose Granati in hand soap - not in shower gel. I had to purchase something though, as Little Britain has mentioned before, the US under-performs in the area of shower gel, and I knew if I was going to get some I had to get some in England. LK was already beginning to tire of the Molton Brown shop, the pull of the whiskey in the nearby Oddbins was getting stronger, so I made a snap decision.

Heavenly Gingerlily sounded good to me. I bought it (even in pounds it seemed like a ridiculous amount of money for some smellies). We lugged it back to America and I started using it. After a couple of seconds I thought - hang on, this smells awfully familiar. Why is that? I couldn't quite place it - it was reminding me of something medicinal, but clearly the sweet smell wasn't at all clinical. What could it be?

Nair hair removal cream.

Gutted.

I no longer smelled expensive and exotic, I smelled like cheap supermarket hair remover. Thanks Molton Brown!

There is a happy ending. My Mum - probably thinking that our sink needed a little something - sent me some Rose Granati for my birthday. I am thoroughly enjoying using it. Until I realize it smells like toilet cleaner of course.

If You Did This You Could Make Your Kid Happy

Anna is 80% princess and 20% mad scientist/marine biologist. I think that generally sums up a 4 year old girl. A couple of days ago she came up to me to say "you know what we could do together that would make a kid happy?"

I was guessing the answer would involve ice-cream, TV, dressing up as a princess, or possibly all three combined. I was wrong.

"We could make a wormery". Wasn't expecting that one.

Thanks PBS! As luck would have it, one too many mornings spent watching TV and battling the excesses of the previous evening had made me a bit guilt-ridden about slacker parenting. I was ripe for a project. Plus, I've just celebrated a birthday and one of my gifts was a huge display of truly horrible flowers from my office (orange, brown and yellowy-green with a purple bow). LK took one look at them and said "wow, sorry your husband just died". Anyway, the point about the flowers - their only redeeming feature was a large rectangular vase (I say varze, you can say vace if you prefer). Perfect for a wormery! We were off to a good start. I told Anna that as soon as the flowers died we could begin. That wasn't soon enough apparently. She eyed the florid display and started pulling off petals. Some battles just aren't worth fighting, and faced with a flower massacre, we made several small bouquets out of the huge display and freed up the wormery.

Thunderbirds are go!


Step #1: Make Your Child Eat A Banana

Apparently worms don't just need soil and sand, they need food. This could be accomplished by sticking a few leaves and sundry mulchy items in there - but, what a perfect excuse to get your child to eat an entire fruit. Anna set to work, and was rapidly overwhelmed by the enormity of the task;








































































Step#2: Fill Wormery With Layers of Sand, Dirt, Leaves & Banana Peel
This started off a little too slowly for my liking:
































Her ladyship filled the varze at a glacial pace, but I couldn't really criticize as she was skipping with joy between each teaspoon full of sand. I merely shoveled like hell whenever her back was turned. "Way to go Mom" she cried, "we're such a great team. A girl team! This is going to be the best wormery ever". She was a one woman pep rally, thanks to her endless hours of watching preschooler TV.

Eventually we were done - a worm des res:


























Step #3: Find Some Chuffing Worms

I was more than a little worried about this bit quite frankly. We don't live in rural Shropshire after all. We live in an urban area in Southern California. A very arid area where it hasn't rained since April (except that week when my Aunt and Uncle visited - thanks California!).

We tried our best. We dug hard, in multiple locations. We tried to put ourselves in the mindset of an earthworm. Where would we be most likely to live? Not in your chuffing back garden seemed to be the answer. Anna was crushed:






























Not a sausage. Then, a brainwave! Seeing LK and Lucy watering the garden made me remember the crappy leaky hosepipe which I constantly blame for our astronomical water bills. Eureka! An oasis in a desert of concrete and sand. Worm central! Well, not exactly, we found five, and quite frankly I think it was only five because #4 was chopped in half by some overly enthusiastic troweling.


Step #4: Transfer The Worms To Their New Home And Watch Them 'Thrive'



























Lucy could barely contain her excitement:

Go worms, go!



























Several hours later and I have noticed a couple of worms 'resting' on the top of the wormery, clearly not enamoured with their new home. I may have to make some convincing worm tunnels with a plastic drinking straw, but it won't really matter, because for a few short hours at least I did manage to make my kid really chuffing happy.

When Jekyll Won't Hyde

At my first parent teacher conference when Anna was a whopping two years old, I was told she was a little introverted and that to encourage her integration in to preschool I should try and arrange 'playdates' with her peers.

I think those are the words the teacher used. What I actually heard was 'you thoughtless parent, a school is more than a place to corral your child while you earn money, you must talk to those terrifyingly aloof Bugaboo Moms with their 10 megawatt diamonds who sneer at your unchanging work attire and Pilates-free abs, and attempt to infiltrate their impenetrable clique.' Seriously, that's me in a nutshell. My insecurities raged as I used all my powers of small talk to corner a parent or two at drop-off. Eventually I beat S's Mom in to submission and we had Anna's first ever playdate at the Botanic Garden. S turned out to be Anna's first ever BFF and all was right with the world. I let out a huge sigh of relief and crawled back under my rock.

Playdates waned a little with Lucy's birth - somehow the idea of toting both children to somebody else's house, or round a playground seemed far too overwhelming for the first six months. Besides, Anna was thriving at her new school, her social calendar replete with birthdays and events.

Last Friday one of her many new friends, K, came round for a first playdate at our house. Prior to their arrival my biggest concerns were K's limiting gluten and dairy-free diet - but I had decided that we could pick homegrown tomatoes and the girls could either eat them or starve. I was also worried about our pigsty of a ghetto dwelling, but ha! little did I know that that would pale into insignificance once Dr. Anna Jekyll made her appearance.

I won't go into the full horror of the 90 minutes of hell. I will just leave you with a few choice quotes from my darling daughter:

"You're not pretty in that dress"
"My dress is deeper (read, longer) than yours and I am more beautiful"
"Stop following me"
"You're not allowed to play with that. Mom stop her touching my stuff"
"I want you to go home I don't like you"

Oh it was a joy. Then Lucy choked on her fistfuls of Cheerios and projectile vomited all over the carpet.

K's Mum was of course there throughout, 4 year olds being considered too little to 'fly solo' at a playdate. She was very sweet, and tried her best to be helpful. "This is why we have playdates" she cried cheerily. "It's just their age". I smiled and tried to communicate certain death to Anna by giving her Paddington's hardest stare.

After they left, or rather, fled, I waited the requisite 5 minutes in case they'd forgotten anything then sat Anna down for a serious talk. There were tears of uncomprehending rage. And from Anna too. She couldn't see anything wrong with her behaviour. She clearly felt she was just asserting her rightful ownership. In the end the punishment meted out was no TV for 2 days (I was the real victim with that one) and her Barbies were also confiscated for two days. I know! If only the UN took such a hard line!

We have had one playdate since, with a different friend, on neutral ground (Switzerland). It went well. Still I'm not sure whether I'm ready to replicate Annagate. At least not with friends whose mother's I am not on a drinking-relationship level with.

This parenting caper is far too stressful.

Mourning Has Broken

It's our wedding anniversary today. 12 years ago Princess Diana was laid to rest and Britain observed a national day of mourning. Scene stealer.

I'm sure many of you have woken up on your anniversary to roses, cards, jewelery. Perhaps a fresh cup of coffee.

I woke up this morning to find that Anna's giant metallic Thomas the Tank Engine balloon had migrated up the stairs, along the landing, coming to rest directly above my pillow. His giant moon-face hovering above me at 6am.

That'll wake you up in a hurry.

If You Can't Play Nicely

I hadn't really thought about how long I was going to nurse Lucy. Anna self-weaned at 6 months, and I suppose I was expecting another gradual dwindling of interest. At the very least I thought it would be my decision..........

Lucy has been happily continuing her love affair with the boob, and I had a mental tally of breastfeeding pros and cons, resulting in the following scattered list:

PROS:

• Mother and daughter bonding time.
• It's free!
• Assisted weight loss, or rather, no weight loss but guilt-free eating.
• So much easier - never caught without baby food, and no faffing around with bottles and formula.
• 15 minutes of down-time twice a day at work while I pumped.
• No saggy post-nursing boobs
• Quite possibly our last baby so huge amounts of sentiment involved.

CONS:

• Lugging the breastpump to work and back. That thing weighs a tonne.
• Cleaning and sterilizing the pump bottles and sundry pumpish items. Every. Chuffing. Night.
• Al fresco boobs in the office. Even behind a locked door it made me squeamish.
• Giant boobs - only having two bras that fit.
• Giant boobs - made all t-shirts look like crop tops.
• Giant boobs - having to jog in two sports bras.
• Giant boobs - look but don't touch!

When you look at that list we had an obvious winner. Nursing is free. Formula is expensive. In these fiscally responsible (desperate) times the bottom line is the bottom line. I was game to keep nursing til she went to college. One less kids meal at Macdonalds!

Oh, and I will be honest and admit that it was lovely to hold her and nurse her in to a blissed-out milk coma. I mean really, look at that face! What a little cherub.

























No!

Don't let her deceive you! In fact, keep all hands, feet and loose clothing away from her because that tiny angelic human is a BITER and I am her poor chewed-upon victim.

She only has her lower teeth right now, but let me just say that 'only' was not the word ricocheting round my brain as she clamped down. I squealed and tried to prize away her vice-like jaws and oh how she laughed! How funny! The noises you do make Mummy! Let's do that again!

And because I'm a muppet we did. I gave her the benefit of the doubt, several horrendously painful times. I think I kept trying because I couldn't quite believe it would end like that. I was the lovestruck teenager wailing "It's over? But we were so good together!"

I was deflated, and so were my boobs. Pfffffffttttttttt.

In her defence, she is teething, but this girl is in such a rush to grow up. She is already standing and creeping between pieces of furniture. She started crawling at 5 months. She's already bristling with teeth. Slow down!

I was actually surprised how deeply affected I was by the abrupt end to nursing. Maybe it was compounded by hormonal fluctuations as I went from 60mph to 0mph in 1 day. I felt really flat and depressed. I even googled 'biting babies' and 'breastfeeding a crocodile', and that really cheered me up.. Thanks internet! Because the advice that was given was so asinine, so breast-feeding Nazi-ish that I had to laugh. Seriously:

"Don't flinch or scream when your baby bites as they will enjoy this reaction".

Honestly? You try it. I will punch you repeatedly in the balls or ovaries and watch you try and keep a straight face.

"Stop giving you baby a bottle as chewing on a plastic nipple only encourages this behaviour"

Great so now I have a hungry and pissed off biter. Not such great advice.

In the end we compromised. No more breastfeeding during the day, only a touch of comfort-nursing last thing at night when she seems to sheath her tiny fangs.

I'm not yet sure who needs the comfort most.

Us vs. Them: Elected Officials

Driving to work this other morning, listening to NPR and trying to stave off complete maternal mental atrophy, I happened upon a discussion about Ted Kennedy. No big surprise there. They were outlining who would take over his Senate post, who would have the requisite $3-4 million dollars for a quick campaign (don't get me started on that one) and one of the candidates mentioned was his wife. Completely plausibly.

America - What The Chuff?

There is constant debate over how money may or may not win you a political campaign (common sense would seem to indicate more ad revenue would bring in more votes - but Freakonomics disputes this). Then tell me why our State has twice been run by a movie star? Huh? Huh? But that's an argument for a different day. What nobody ever seems to bat an eyelid at is the number of instances when an elected official dies, and their spouse (most often a wife) runs in his place and is elected. This seems to make a complete mockery of the system.

When Sonny Bono died skiing, his wife was elected to fill the remainder of his Congressional term. When Santa Barbara's Congressman Walter Capps died of a heart attack in 1997 his wife was elected to fill his position, and has since been re-elected four times. Now I'm not knocking our Congresswoman (after all, my Green Card expires in a couple of years), she is very highly educated and used to be a nurse - quite a useful background considering the current healthcare debate, it just seems so odd. I for one will not be leaping into LK's job should the worst ever happen.

I am instantly dubious of anyone who wants to be a career politician - someone who has always been hell-bent on political power and has never held a 'real' job, but equally, someone who takes up the reigns because they happened to be married to a politician. What kind of a qualification is that - how seriously ambivalent are the constituents? (Don't ask me - I can't vote).

As a counterpoint I will agree that the House of Lords is an equally ridiculous institution when it comes to inherited voting rights - but that at least is being addressed and the number of hereditary peers who can vote has dwindled to 92. The number of wives taking their deceased husband's seats in America seems to be increasing. If I was Arnie I would be pretty chuffing worried that my Kennedy wife would bump me off so she could start to run California. After all she would appear to be the more 'qualified' of the two....

Pretty Damn Hard, That's What

To backtrack, we were the ones that had let them have a puppy. They had been our tenants for about three years, and were really nice guys. The puppy though, not so much. They came to us about a year ago and said they would have to move. One of their roommates was moving out, and the girlfriend of an existing tenant was thinking about moving in, but she had a puppy....

We thought about it, I was pregnant with Lucy, the rental market was already starting to look a little dodgy, so we said yes.

Ouch.

So yes. I went upstairs to take a look at the partially vacated apartment and came back to tell Lance, "We're moving to England!" "No need to know why!" "Just pack!"

More medicinal martinis later and he told me we had to be grown-ups, we had to face the destruction of Apt A. He said we couldn't just run away - mostly because there's no suitcase big enough for Anna's collection of princess dresses (true).

The renovations began the minute we got back from the UK. Carpet was installed, paint was applied, surfaces were scoured. A thin trickle of prospective tenants toured. LK was an absolute stud. I can't tell you how much money was saved by him being all manly and scurrying back and forth to the DIY shop. We faced a broken toilet. He figured out it was cheaper to replace the entire toilet than re-order the parts for an old one. So he bought it, and installed it. I know?! How many of you know how to install a toilet? He built drawers after our tenants absconded with a couple from the kitchen. Seriously, what the chuff? Who steals drawers? LK reckons it was easier for them to pack their cutlery that way. That made so much sense I am now suspecting LK to be a drawer-nicker himself.

So yes, there was plastering, and fixing and handiness of all kinds, but it wasn't all sunshine and lollipops for me either. I went to World Market to buy curtains. With a screaming baby. See, I suffered. I bought poo brown curtains to match my mood.

I think the reason I was so disappointed in discovering the state of the place, was not so much the cost (we did have a security deposit), but the time and effort it took to rectify things - you can't after all charge tenants for time wasted in trying to get a place in a decent enough condition to put on the market. Plus I now have tenant-trust issues. Welcome to the real world doe-eyed landlord. I now plan on being a landlord beotch and will scowl if I hear a gnat-fart past 9pm.

We did manage to re-rent the place fairly quickly, but to a less than perfect group of four college lads. And yes, we did get their security deposit and take pictures of the new carpet.

Can't wait to see what they do with the place!

How Hard Can It Be?

I don't post much about being a landlord, because really, all we do is cash the checks each month and then get back to our champagne lifestyle.

Easy.

We own four three-bed two-bath apartments in a liminal area of town. One block up, million dollar condos, two blocks down Chicano gangland. When we bought the place, two weeks before I had Anna *won't be doing that again*, our intention was to go through the immense City process to get the apartment building converted in to condos. One run-down apartment building would become four beautiful, separately saleable condos. The sum of the parts is greater than the whole.

Well, that was the plan. The glacial City process was completed, but took us from May 2005 to May 2008. At which point, it became clear that the final hurdle, a construction loan with which to activate all our lovely new permits, was nowhere to be found. We were months ahead of the game with the global economic meltdown. In a way it was a relief to discover all those loan rejections weren't purely personal.

So, we're left with a run-down, but fully rented apartment block, and we live in one of the apartments. We had not planned on the need to have rents cover our mortgage for years on end, so things are a tad *tight* now that that is how we must survive. As such, when one of our tenants said they were moving out mid-month, coinciding almost cosmically with the day we left for England I literally fell to my knees and tried to remember how to breathe.

I am a rock in times of crisis.

After a very large martini and a stern pep talk from my husband I decided to think positive. We would rent the place before we left on vacation - before the existing tenants had even moved out! They probably knew people, desperate to move in! Who wanted to pay more rent! I had myself thinking 'I'm sure the place just needs a spritz of Febreze and a quick vacuum and we'll have an Open House! This weekend!'

I got slightly anxious when I went to post the ad on Craigslist and saw just. how. many. apartments are available to rent right now in Santa Barbara. For a lot less than in previous years.

Hundreds.

Historically, you could only find a rental in this town through word of mouth. Now people were advertising first month free! Pets OK! All utilities paid!

The playing field had clearly shifted in favour of the tenant.

Then - after having rather too trustingly advertised the Open House on Craigslist (for increased rent - oh how I laugh now....) I popped upstairs to take a quick look at the place. Our best apartment. Our best tenants were leaving this:

















































































To be continued............

Creepy Crawlies

A few days before our trip I took the girls in the stroller up to our local park. It's uphill all the way, and the Phil and Ted's, ergonomic though it may be, when packed with girls and diapers and snacks and drinks is a bit like trying to take a Sherman Tank for a power walk. It was a great workout, and we weren't exactly racing along the streets.

Anna was not asleep, so that means she was talking. And talking. And talking. Like quite a few prolific talkers, she doesn't need much in the way of actual 'conversation' so I usually keep my iPod on low and throw out the occasional 'yes, uh-huh' or 'really' at random, and that seems to sustain her momentum. Halfway to the park she suddenly broke from her monologue and said 'That's Shelly's house'. To which I replied 'yes, uh-huh-, really'. This time she was not to be fobbed off. 'Mom, look that's Shelly's house!'.

In the space of 5 seconds, maybe less, I thought: 'wait, what? Who's Shelly? how come I don't know anything about any Shelly while my daughter has clearly been over to her house? Is this how I find out? LK's been having an affair, taking my daughter over to her house and I've been completely oblivious and this is how I find out?! Oh My God, what am I going to do, what.....'

"Mom, Shelly is a snail form Sunny Patch Friends and that is her house - look!".

We had literally been going at a snail's pace and Anna had been pointing it out. Turns out, the 'other woman' in our relationship wasn't some ho called Shelly, it was TV, and more particularly a TV show.

I stepped back from the precipice.

Because of this one TV show, Anna now calls all snails 'Shelly'. When we went to England she was in hog heaven because my Mum and Dad's gorgeous garden:

















Contains about 10 snails per square foot. It's a veritable Marks and Spencers food court for snails.

Anna set about collecting them all.

My Mum suggested she keep them in an old fishtank (read, snail Auschwitz). Anna thought this was a brilliant idea, completely oblivious that she was hastening their demise. She is absolutely fearless when it comes to all things creepy, crawly and slimy. She had the time of her life with her 'Shelly's'. We counted them, we raced them (riveting), she even found a gorgeous stripy one. I suggested we call her 'Speed Racer' because of her go-faster stripes. "Or..... we could call her Shelly?" suggested Anna.
































England was kind to Anna. Thousands of Shellys, lots of frogs, slugs and wood lice to capture. So imagine my horror yesterday when I saw the biggest black widow spider I ever saw in my life, just taking a gentle stroll around our property.

There was no mistaking her - fiercely black, with a perfectly round body, like a spider wearing a latex fetish suit. About the size of an old 50p, it took half a can of Raid before she finally twitched herself on to her back - displaying that tell-tale red hourglass on her abdomen. I finished the job with the non-so-delicate heel of my English winter boots. No show and tell this time round.

Imagine what could have happened if I hadn't spotted her first? In California, Mother Nature bites back.

I think our little Gerald Durrell needs to take up stamp collecting.

You Can't Fit England In A Suitcase

I love unpacking. I know it sounds crazy. I don't love the piles of dirty clothes, the inevitable exploded shampoo bottle and the fruitless search for that other flip flop, but I do love checking out the loot from my trip. This is particularly the case when we come back from England, and in that respect I am always disappointed.

I spend an average of 18 months between trips home. I tell LK, Christ, even prisoners get better visitation rights than me. He loves to hear that!

This length of time between visits always leads to a mammoth list of things to buy/eat/do, not to mention, people to visit. When we're home for 10 days, it's just not possible. Plus, most of the food I want to consume, the 'delicacies' peculiar to my hometown just can't be eaten back to back without suffering extreme gastric blockage. Obviously I don't spend 18 months longing for a nibble of a red currant or a Bramley apple. I want sausage rolls, curries, pork pies, chocolate, toffee, Fat Rascals, pontefract cakes, fish and chips - the list is endless and a veritable comfort food time bomb. It's just not possible to get to everything on my list without resorting to having pork pie and chocolate for breakfast. OK, I may have done that. Don't judge me!

The same is true for general shopping. I spend a year and a half yearning to go back to White Stuff, Jack Wills, H&M, Zara, Mango, Monsoon for kids, etc and then find I have to cram it all in to a morning in York with my Mum. Whilst also fitting in a cup of coffee at one of the many gorgeous cafes crammed in to a 500 year old building.

This time we managed to hit the White Stuff sale. OMG. I blew 80% of my paltry time and money budget in that one shop - but it was well worth it. Still, no H&M, no Mango, only the briefest of sprints through Jack Wills (which I'm beginning to think is like a UK Abercrombie and Fitch and I sadly may have outgrown it - but oh, I will wear their sweatpants til I die!!).

*Sigh* All of this means that when I gleefully unpack in our sunny bedroom in SB a few days later I'm consistently disappointed at my lack of loot. You can't put a Marks and Spencers minced beef pie in your carry-on if you've got 3 days, 2 trains and 4 flights back to your final destination but you can stuff your luggage with Wheat Crunchies, pick and mix, Thorntons toffee and the like. You can't buy every article of clothing you've yearned for (and I haven't even explained what it's like to be confronted with an entire country's worth of new girls clothes and a pound that has FINALLY weakened against the dollar).

I think in all honesty the disappointment stems from the realization that you can't fit England in to a suitcase. You can take as many photos as possible, visit as many places, have pints with as many friends, gorge on a years worth of British 'cuisine' - even catch a sneaky 'University Challenge' on TV, but you can't do it all. I can't pack that cold, damp air that seems to be so much fresher than the soft California breezes. I can't pack green on green on green. I can take a photo of my Nanna holding her sleeping second great-grandchild but I don't get to keep seeing it.

I don't get to live there.

I was in tears at Manchester airport. As usual. People would look at me in puzzlement and think 'but love, you're leaving Manchester, you're one of the lucky ones....'. Do you know what started me off? Jelly Babies. I saw them in a shop yet I just couldn't fit one more thing in to our over-stuffed hand luggage, and quite frankly I've never been the biggest fan of Jelly Babies, but the idea of Anna being denied them, that despite me telling her I would introduce her to all that was brilliant about English sweets vs. American candy I had failed; well that destroyed me.

Chuffing Jelly Babies. I must be losing my mind.

How To Travel With Small Children

It could have been much worse.

Granted, it didn't start well. On our first leg of a mammoth 8 flights, I was asked to sit with both girls on one side of the plane while LK sat across the aisle a few rows up. It was a smaller plane and apparently only the right hand row of seats had sufficient oxygen masks.

Oh please, statistically - what was the greater danger - emergency loss of cabin pressure or small children-outnumber-parent-time-bomb? I resolved to let Anna play with the overhead lights and 'call steward' button as many times as she wanted. Take that United! LK gave me a supportive but secretly relieved smile, opened his book, ordered a hugely expensive beer and settled in. I set to work getting both girls preoccupied with boobs and/or sticker books.

Fortunately Lucy adores Anna. Even when Anna hits her over the head repeatedly with a pink My Little Pony. You could see Lucy's face going 'I love you! Ow! I love you! Ow!' Eventually, to save Lucy a future of pain = pleasure masochistic personality disorder, I confiscated 'Princess' the pony. There was the briefest of pauses.

Then Anna bawled.

One of Lucy's most endearing characteristics is that she's a sympathetic cryer. Endearing, but not exactly helpful. Anna was crying, Lucy was winding up for that big wail, her face scrunched up in readiness, and LK, several rows away took a hefty sip of beer. 'What can I do?' he seemed to say. 'The seatbelt sign is on! You can't fight the seatbelt sign!'

I went in to emergency placate mode, ie hissing "Anna, shut up! Please, stop crying now, Lucy's crying because you're crying. For the love of God, shut up and I will give. you. candy".

Anna gulped back her sobs, gave me a devilish grin, and the nuclear meltdown Defcom Delta situation diffused.

Unbelievably that was the only issue we had. Well that and a truly massive poop that Lucy dealt us while flying from Frankfurt to Boston - in turbulence. Damn you seatbelt sign! Twenty minutes later I was behind two men also queueing for the only toilet with baby changing facilities on the plane. My happiness at seeing two blokes stepping up to the plate with their progeny instead of sending their wives, was short-lived because they took FOR-EVER. I felt like knocking on the door and asking if I could help. Honestly how long does it take to Hazmat a child and have a quick wee? I was not happy about waiting while they paraded their incompetence. Two minutes into our session I had Lucy scrubbed clean and returned to her usual pink and peachy self, despite a poop with the consistency and staying power of molasses. How she does that to my breastmilk is beyond me.

The more astute of you are probably thinking - wait, 8 flights? Where did you go Kamchatka? But no, not Kamchatka, the north of England, which is close but with fewer bears and more Jaffa cakes. We took 8 flights because we used air miles and stopped off in Boston to visit LK's family in Maine. If my camera battery charger wasn't still lying on my parents' kitchen worktop in England I would now post bucolic pictures of lakes and canoes and cherry red lobsters (OK so perhaps bucolic was the wrong word).

Anyhoo, the travel. It was smooth. When possible we checked in online, paid for our bags online (saving $4 by doing so was a poor anesthetic for having to pay to check chuffing bags. Seeth) and we always seemed to arrive about an hour before our flight left, which was perfection. Long enough for LK to have a beer and me not to twist a gut with anxiety. Plus, traveling with the midgets is a joy when it comes to the security checkpoint as they whisk you straight through. A little too hastily as it happens, because twice we found large quantities of liquids stowed in our hand luggage that had already cleared security. A bottle of 'Revive' (ha!) Vitamin Water tucked in to a stroller and a large bottle of Daisy perfume that I had forgotten to put in the suitcases. Perhaps we just don't look that menacing.

Another great thing about traveling with tiny ones is that you get to board first, which technically means you get to spend even more time on the plane, but does give you the opportunity to have first pick of the magazines and newspapers in the gangway. We picked Elle and Vogue, only to realize they were in German. Scheiße! Then LK said - on second thoughts - European nudity!! Only to discover it was male nudity! Doppelte Scheiße! In the end Lucy grabbed them both and pronounced them very tasty. Especially the naked male flanks.

Both girls slept very well on most of the flights. A sleeping child on a plane is your ideal (although I've never resorted to Benadryl just in case they go bonkers). However, it's pretty hard to do anything other than sit while you're pinned under a leggy 4 year old. Anything other than drink of course. They also slept all the way to Maine, where we arrived at 4am. Many thanks to LK's sister who picked us up in Boston at 2:15am. What a trooper. The girls were oblivious to our journey so when Anna woke up bright and early the next morning, she cast her eyes around LK's sister's bedroom and said "Why did you guys think you should redecorate?".

So in conclusion, the trick to traveling with small children is: portable DVD player, a New Native sling for the infant (I could have sold mine 50 times over in each airport we passed through), sticker books, baby toys that entertain quietly and lots of booze. And yes, that means if you've paid for that 3rd plane ticket for your 4 year old then she will be having the Cabernet with her meal thank you very much. Don't look at me like that Fraulein, just keep pouring.

Please Mind The Gap

I'm so sorry. I'm not dead. Although after 8 flights, 4 trains, two continents, a teething infant and a puking 4 year old there were times when I thought I was close.

We've just this second (such is my loyalty to you) walked in the door after three weeks showing Lucy off to every known blood relation in the Western world. We had such a brilliant time. I almost can't put it down in words right now without thinking what the chuff am I doing here in this self-imposed exile. I have so many wonderful photos to share - not all of them including sheep. I had meant to let you know I'd be gone for a while, but before we left the pantomime that is my life unfolded in such disastrous ways (tenants moving out leaving utter squalor, vacation coverage at work falling through, LK job carnage) that I literally just fled the country.

Now I'm back and I'm not happy about it - but at least the girls are sleeping!

The Eye of the Beholder

Me: That's it. I'm sick of big boobs. I want my body back. I'm tired of trying on clothes and either looking like a hooker or a matron.

LK: Go for hooker!

The Tailings

Lucy is approaching 6 months old and I am a husk.

The other day LK described it perfectly. He said 'you've been strip-mined'. I've got a beast of a beautiful blonde, rosy-cheeked daughter and I've been left with the tailings. I'm not really complaining, although quite frankly no-one really prepares you for the post-partum period. How many people prior to having children know about your hair falling out a few months after delivery? I have long hair and *oh Lord* our shower is starting to look like a College dorm room. The hair! It's taking over the house. Gossamer strands glinting accusingly from every surface. I am not looking forward to returning to my pre-pregnancy eight strands of limp blonde hair. It has been quite refreshing to have a ponytail wider than my middle finger. Then there's that awful growing back in stage where you have spiky re-growth protruding from your temples like antannae. Good times.

I'm still nursing the beast. I've no idea how she has managed to attain such a size (97th percentile for height) while I'm still exclusively nursing yet still managing to carry around some pregnancy bulge. Looking at the size of her you'd think I'd be down to 100lbs by now. Except while I'm obviously losing weight by breast-feeding I seem to be more than making up for it with my voracious appetite. Lucy woke me up at 5am to feed and for the last hour all I've been thinking about is a full English breakfast. Cereal be damned. I'm talking bacon, sausages, eggs cooked in bacon fat, fried tomatoes and mushrooms, baked beans and fried eggy bread on the side. Hmm. No wonder Lucy looks like she's just eaten all the other babies in the nursery.

We are flying back home for a visit in a couple of weeks and I am not looking forward to presenting my work-in-progress physique. I shall just have to wear a selection of outlandish scarves that draw the eye away from the post-partum carnage. Not sure if that'll be quite so effective in the swimming pool but we shall see. I will admit that I went to the Old Navy $5 swim sale yesterday in an attempt to find a bikini to winch in these giant mammaries. That 10 minutes with two small children, a brightly lit changing room and cheap garish fabrics will require a lifetime of therapy. Damn you self-esteem. Honestly though, what was I thinking? Must have been a low blood-sugar moment, or subconcious self-hatred. Needless to say I did not buy anything - and the moment when Anna announced to the entire fitting room that 'your boobies are too squashed Mommy' was a particular favourite.

Must go. Lucy has just been sick on my hair.

My life is great.

I Made My Bed

My oldest friend V. is getting married today. On Concord, which has to be one of the coolest things ever, unless you are her exceptionally tall husband-to-be who will not doubt spend the entire ceremony with knees bent and a slight stoop. Something he will be more than happy to do to marry V. I'm sure.

Once again I can't be there. We have been friends for over 30 years:











I haven't lost that constipated expression either - that's V. and I in the foreground. I'm the one making an albino look tanned.

It goes without saying that one of the most difficult things about living thousands of miles away from home is having to pick and choose what you go back for. I have missed weddings, funerals, and all-important Saturday morning shopping with my Mum. I suppose ideally I would be living the American Dream, earning enough money to jet back and forth as and when I choose. It hasn't quite panned out that way. I missed V's first wedding because of immigration issues. Now I'm missing this one because we are skint, - busy financing our money pit and two small, incredibly expensive children. As I said, I made my bed.

I can't complain too much, thanks to air-miles we are all flying back in a month for my cousin's wedding and for my parents 40th wedding anniversary. That'll be the last trip home for a while though unless I can persuade LK to part with a kidney. Still, V. came up with a genius plan. She had S. will renew their vows for their 10th anniversary, like we did, in Vegas, and we'll join them then. Please click on the ads on the right had side of this blog to make sure I can finance that trip. I figure $10 a year in ad revenue over the next 10 years could buy us a room off-strip somewhere!!

and finally, on a lighter note, I bring you:

Blue Steel:

Four!

I'm starting to appreciate why this is yelled as a warning in golf.

I'd heard of the terrible twos, Anna sailed right through those. No tantrums, no frustration, the toughest part was separation anxiety. Then people told me that 'three was the new two' and yes, burgeoning self-awareness did bring on more attitude, and that coupled with my pregnancy made for a wearying combination.

Four though. Oy.

I'm not sure how much of this is coloured by the addition of a new sibling, but this new found independence has brought with it a real personality change. I'm all for self-confidence, but I will draw the line at being called a 'brat' by my own spawn when I shut her down on three bedtime stories. "Mumma, you're a brat". No 'Goodnight Moon' for you young lady!

Granted, her outbursts are still heavily influenced by her excellent school - there's no "I hate you" (not yet); thwarted requests for a chocolate milk are often met with an achingly childlike "then I will not be your friend". But please, chocolate milk at 9pm, what kind of a hold-out demand is that? Who are you? France?

There is nascent moodiness and petulance where there was none before. We have foot stamping, arm folding and inanimate object kicking. It's hard not to laugh at the depth of her displeasure. She's like a tiny Queen Victoria, only a mini-monarch that says 'hey guys this is not cool' instead of 'we are not amused'. I appreciate she's just testing her boundaries, but how long is it going to take her to realize there are no boundaries, no ever-changing front line, just a firmly entrenched wall of 'what we say goes young lady'. Until she starts paying rent of course.

Is this just a precursor for pre-teen hormones? Is she learning this from other kids or is it part of being four? It's not a big concern. It just feels like the sunshine has disappeared for a bit. When I mentioned it to her teacher she said, at least she feels confident enough these days to voice her opinions, even if it is displeasure. I hadn't thought of it that way, but I'm still British enough to think, bring back 'meek' - all is forgiven.

Knowledge is a Dangerous Thing

Anna is getting proficient at the computer. That's right, she's just turned four and in China that means she is about four years behind with her technology skills, so we thought what the hey. Actually, 'we' (me) thought Mummy needs five minutes peace and quiet because she has all the thankyou notes of the world to write and is beginning to forget if the talking Sleeping Beauty was from Braden, Jayden or Hayden.

We chose Noggin.com, heavily supervised. It has lovely little games that teach basic mouse skills like planting seeds in a virtual garden and HRH perches her tiny little bottom on our computer chair and concentrates with heart-warming intensity. I say heavily supervised, but you and I live in the real world right? At first we sit there through all the games. The mind-numbing 'build your own flower' the high-pitched Dora voice penetrating your skull until after a while you can't take the electronic accolades of 'good job!' or 'you're doing great' or 'what a team' any more and you skulk off for a cup of tea.

That's where it gets a little dodgy.

She is not exactly slow on the uptake, so pretty soon she learned to type in www.noggin.com and has even learned to enter the word in google. I am happy for her to be plugging away at age-appropriate preschooler computer games; saving baby eagles, planting gardens and building robots. I am even happy that her burgeoning knowledge might help me in the near future, I can see myself asking her whether I should upgrade to Leopard and what's the best way to compact my AVI files, BUT, check out this conversation and see why I'm going to be putting some protection software on our computer interfrastically:

Anna: I love noggin.com. You would probably love www.flowers.com and Dada would probably love www.lakers.com

Me: That's right, well done! (foolish! didn't see this one coming!)

Anna: I think Lucy would probably like www.boobs.com

Me: Bye-bye computer.


I'm pretty sure her father already has it bookmarked....

The Looper

Last week Lucy started sleeping through the night.

By which I mean she would sleep until about 4:30am, which is a stretch of nearly eight and half hours and any mother of an infant will gladly call that sleeping through. I of course have now been programmed to wake up at 2am for the last five months, so for the entire week I was waking up between 2am and 3am thinking 'any minute now, any minute now'. Still, she was sleeping well and my heart was happy; angels sang and I started to plan my future sans sleep deprivation.

That was last week.

This week she has inexplicably reverted to her old, trusty sleep schedule of waking at 12am, 2:30am and 5am. I feel like I've discovered the formula for cold fusion and now can't remember where I wrote it down.

I know babies are capricious little F@c!%s, but how? why? I can't stop wondering what was working and now isn't. Was it the perfect combination of humidifier, fleecy sleep-suit and and old pheromoney t-shirt of mine? Or 8pm bottle of breastmilk, fleecy sleep-suit, and fresh air during the day? Gah! After trying a bajillion combinations of the above for the last 5 months I can safely say I have no idea what works and what doesn't, and I was happily ready to believe she had just outgrown the need for boobing in the wee hours. I am beyond disappointed. I know that at some point before college she is probably going to start sleeping all night but I was rather hopeful it would be before I had died of exhaustion....

On a more cheerful note, the reason I haven't left her in a Moses basket down by the river is a) this is Southern California and we don't got none and b) 5 months despite the lack of sleep is such a perfect baby age. They are beautiful and constantly delighted to see you. They smell good, and are small and lovable without the old-man scrawniness of a newborn. Perfect baby-trap age. I'm thinking of having at least a dozen more. *Wow* I really need some sleep.

And finally, The Looper. I've written about nicknames before and it appears we have finally found one that has stuck for Lucy. My second daughter is clearly an athlete like her father. She just turned 5 months old and she is practically crawling. She throws herself around a room with such determination that if you turn your back for 5 seconds (OK, maybe twenty minutes, I never said I was a good parent...) she has maneouvered herself into the fireplace and is chewing on an ornamental log. She is already able to scooch both legs underneath her in a pre-crawl motion and then propel herself violently forward in pursuit of that elusive Barbie shoe of chokeable death. So why Looper? Fans of Caddyshack may have already picked this up, but there is a scene where Bill Murray is terrorizing a young caddy with a pitchfork while regaling him with a story of when he caddied for the Dalai Lama. He jabs the pitchfork at the caddy's neck and says "I was a Looper, you know, a caddy, a jock". OK, I'll admit it's a little obscure but it fits her to perfection. That girl is a jock. Watch out world.

















Don't be fooled by the apparent sleep-pose. That eye is half-open. She's watching and waiting....

Camping

This weekend a bunch of LK's high school friends (who all seem to live within a 1 mile radius of their former high school - God this town is weird) organized a mass camping trip. I of course declined their generous offer of a night under canvas in a rattlesnake infested camp ground with a 3 year old and an infant - because I am not insane.

Lucy and I deigned to visit for an hour or two and had a wonderful time watching the kids swimming in the river fishing for crawdads, while the adults sipped a margarita.

Now that, is camping.








































I left just as the reality of nothing but hotdogs for dinner was really starting to hit, and I headed back to civilization almost giddy with the idea of an evening alone with the remote control. How hard up do you have to be to consider an night with an infant a vacation?

Meanwhile LK and Anna braved a night in a borrowed tent with a blow-up mattress missing its plug.




That Garnet Hill duvet just screams 'roughing it in the wild' doesn't it?













Santa Barbara is a peculiar bubble. You only have to drive 30 miles north to be in complete wilderness. Full on camping territory, including a Ranger Station which always makes me think of pic-a-nic baskets. LK's friends more or less had the campsite to themselves, except for a couple of well-meaning I'm sure, 7th Day Adventists who distributed literature on the first night no doubt alarmed at the sheer quantity of tequila being unpacked from the assembled Winnebagos.

Poor old LK did not get to experience the campfire drunkenness. Apparently Anna, exhausted by an afternoon of 'swimming' in a knee-deep California 'river' pitched an exhausted tantrum, screamed for Mumma and demanded they both bed down for the night at 9pm. I feel a tad sorry for him, but not too much considering I know full well that if I had stayed the night, I would have been tent-bound by 8:30pm with two children while LK whooped it up with his cronies. Plus Lucy is not sleeping through the night, and I didn't fancy trying to boob her in the pitch black night while venomous things slithered and crawled around us.

I am not an experienced camper. As a child, the one and only time I spent a night in a tent was in the Guides, resulting in an anxiety attack and my thoroughly cross Mum having to come and collect me from a muddy field outside Ripon.

Camping in England means everything suffused in drizzle, firewood too soggy to light and cows tripping over your tent ropes at 5am. Camping in California is the polar opposite. It means punishing heat and dust, poisonous creatures, large wild animals with pointy teeth, grass too dessicated and prickly to sit on and campfires in designated fire pits only. Aren't I making it sound fun? I think it's a vacation if you're a child and you don't have to worry where the next hotdog is coming from, whether you remembered to pack the toilet roll, and you don't care that you've swum in, slept in and lived in the same pair of knickers for the last 48 hours. To me it seems like an awful lot of packing, cooking and washing.

Camping seems to be ingrained in the American psyche much more so than in England. Probably because there is genuine 'wild' here and not just that bit by the river off the A64 near Knaresborough. As far as I can tell, people take a lot of pleasure in moving the entire contents of their house in a massive camper van to somewhere with a nice view and then sitting in a deck chair by that vehicle for the weekend. British people will happily hike 15 to 20 miles in one day but have a desperate need to return to their couch for a cup of tea by nightfall. We are strange races.

It was beautiful to be able to drive across the mountains and see a side of California far removed from the manicured environs of Santa Barbara. It was wonderful to see all the kids splashing it up with their friends. Mrs S. as usual had the forethought to bring inflatables, glow-in-the-dark bracelets and alcohol. The real camping essentials. Our kettle corn was a pale rejoinder.



















I don't think the idea of doing it next year with an 18 month old is any more appealing somehow, but I know I would enjoy waking up to this view through the top of my tent:

One Small Step for Mankind, One Giant Leap for Anna

Anna is starting to show a real interest in learning to read. Helped by her new preschool she is constantly thinking about words, and in particular asking what letters they start with. Examples are, Luh, Luh, leave Mummy alone and O, O, Oh My God stop talking.

To encourage this, and to try and make up for a woeful lack of hands-on parenting in the last few months (thanks Lucy!) I have started doing treasure hunts around the house. Each clue is a piece of paper with a word on it, usually something simple that she can sound out phonetically, such as BALL (oh come on, who doesn't have a giant Pilates ball in their living room?!). This has proved to be so much more successful than just sitting together and helping her read a book. A treasure hunt has purpose, and more importantly, a reward of a few jelly beans at the end.

Ah, bribery, teacher of many a child.

After one of the hundred million treasure hunts I have been asked to devise over the last, morning (you think I jest), I told Anna it was quiet time, and that Mummy needed a rest (read: cocktail). Not realizing I had left her alone in our bed with a pen.

This could have been disastrous, not least for my lovely embroidered Pottery Barn duvet cover - one of the last vestiges of wealthier times. But no, another triumph for absentee parenting! While left to her own devices, Anna had decided to construct her own treasure hunting.

Reading to writing in one fell swoop. I bring you:









"BATH"















The slightly more obscure "BANANA" (great drawing)



































and my personal favourite "HORSE", a clue found on her My Little Pony, and not (if you follow my twisted mind, on LK's stack of Playboys....

OK, maybe it's too early to call Cambridge, but Oxford surely?!

I Maddonari at the Santa Barbara Mission

Our traditional "May Grey" couldn't dampen the vibrancy of these street paintings at the Santa Barbara Mission over the weekend. It even inspired Anna to get a little creative.

Spot which one's hers.....














































































































I'm glad it's a self-portrait and not a drawing of Mummy, otherwise I would have to seriously reconsider my choice of lipstick.

Cross Dressing is the New Black

Me, standing in front of the mirror before work this morning, assessing the impact a few early morning runs, power-walks, an ocean swim, and most importantly a sleek all-black outfit have done for my post-baby body.

LK, drawling - "Hi, I'm Johnny Cash".