Percy's New Tricks

I've not blogged in over a month, a lot's been happening, I've been mosaicing...

....and then re-mosaicing because I made a spelling mistake :(

so I thought I'd try my hand at a little sewing project, at least I can spell the name of my own child.

but then that gold ribbon for hanging really confused me. Obviously you sew it inside out so you can't see what it will be like till you make it the right way out, but you should be able to work it out really. Except I can't work things like that out, my brain doesn't work like that, so first the ribbon came out on the wrong side facing inwards and then on the right side facing outwards but angled downwards before I finally got it right.

That's enough about my craft failings time to talk about my favourite tiny person. He's 14 months tomorrow and he has changed a lot recently. Here's how...

Words
By his first birthday in October he could say 3 words. His first word was "quack" followed by "bath" followed by "lola" (the name of our rabbit). He calls all rabbits Lola and when we went to the museum and saw a polar bear he also called that Lola.

Anyway now he attempts many words his favourite is "more" which he says all the time but doesn't fully understand it's meaning. Like we'll just be playing and he'll say "more" and I'll carry him round the room until he points at something, usually the ipod dock, and then he will demand music by just saying "more" he loves to dance all the time.



Cooking
He loves to play cooking with pots and pans. Sometimes I give him uncooked pasta or coloured rice to play with. (I can't take the credit for that idea though my friend Hannah thought of that.)

Teeth
For some reason he loves to brush his teeth (or chew his tooth brush to be precise) he can say "eeth" and every time we go to the bathroom he wants to do it.

Bananas

A couple of weeks ago he became addicted to bananas, which he calls "lalas". He was demanding them in the middle of the night. We had to limit him to 2 a day max, but then suddenly he became not bothered about them again.

Cuddles

He's just started giving cuddly toys a hug and he sleeps with a bear now even if he does sleep a weird way round.

Climbing and Hiding
He still can't really walk but he can climb up the stairs super fast and he has discovered that you can get inside cupboards which he loves.

Walking
He walks very well if he is holding onto something and he can almost run with a walker and just this week he has taken a few unaided steps. So today we went into town to get his first pair of real shoes. I quite resented giving money to Clarks - the company that ruined my teenage years with their reliable but not cool shoes. Luckily I got him these in the half price sale, but the woman suggested I come back in 3 weeks to get his feet measured again. Jog on love.

After getting the shoes I met Dan who had just finished his early shift and we saw a few christmassy things. Getting really excited now. Can't wait to see all our family xx

My Big Confession

I didn't think this was that big a deal, but half way through telling a few people over a meal the reaction was of shock and horror, "I feel like you're coming out" was one comment. So brace yourself for this big news: I have a smartphone.

I know, I know, I've got no principles and I'm going back on everything I've ever believed in. If you weren't aware of my feelings toward smartphones you can reed this quite recent blog. Or listen to my comedy where I rant that it's ridiculous that it's 2015 and the hover-board still hasn't been invented because inventors are too busy inventing stupid apps. And then I play a game called "my phone verses iphone" where Siri goes head to head with an audience member phoning my mum.

Sorry. Don't blame me though I'd be happy with my little flip phone forever, it's everyone else in the world that is the problem, those people who change their meeting up plans last minute on facebook not realising that I can't see facebook while leaving the house. It's the people who send me picture messages while I'm on holiday that appear as links that I can't look at till I get home from holiday. It's those times when you need to show a foreigner a map, and when you want to take a photo of your baby in a ball pool but bringing your massive camera is somehow not acceptable. It's for the time you shop in Matalan and a sales assistant says "scan this with your phone and you'll get a special offer" and it's for those times your friend Anya texts you and always puts two squares at the end and you would really like to know what they were meant to be. Maybe that's what it all comes down to, I'm just desperate to know what the squares are meant to be. I hope it's something lovely like a smiley face.

I've always been a bit of a technophobe. Or maybe I'm just happy with what already exists, there's no need to keep inventing new things, (apart from a hover board please someone hurry up and invent that! ) I didn't have an email address till I was 18, I didn't have a laptop till I was 24 and I completed a whole year of my art foundation course without once logging on to the uni computer system. I passed with a merit as well which just goes to show that they can't have emailed me anything important.

I really don't want to be one of those people who is always on their smartphone instead of engaging with real life people, so if you ever catch me doing that tell me off. I also have a new anti technology idea that I'd like other people to get involved with if they want. Its called "Amish Tuesdays" where every Tuesday people are invited to ours, no phones allowed and we will do something low tech by candlelight like read a book out loud to each other, learn a craft or play a board game. I would love to start this as soon as possible but unfortunately Percy's sleeping is horrendous at the moment so we have no social life at all, not even an Amish one. He's still ill bless him. Luckily the laptop I am writing this on survived being puked on by him this week. On that note, good night.

Percy's week in hospital

It's been a crazy week of highs and lows as last saturday we were in hospital holding our screaming baby hoping it wasn't meningitis (spoiler alert) he got better and this Saturday we were celebrating the first birthday of our adorable happy boy.

It all began last friday when I took Percy to the walk-in centre and they told me he had a chest infection and sent us back with antibiotics. The next day he had been sick about 5 times so we took him back and this time they were worried about his temperature and a few spots he had, there was a potential for it to be a really nasty illness like meningitis. So Percy had his first ride in an ambulance to the brand new Alder Hey hospital, which is beautiful by the way.

I'm gonna go sledging on that roof when it snows

Poor Percy had to have a million tests to find out what was wrong with him we were moved around several different rooms and endured many questions followed by Percy being poked a lot and then more waiting.  One of the questions I was asked was "is there anyone you don't want to visit the hospital?" the first two people who came into my head were Hitler followed by my PE teacher from secondary school Mrs Lumley- I really dislike that woman. Luckily I realised that this is not the kind of thing that they were actually asking and so I was able to give a normal answer. Later when Dan had gone home to get pyjamas they asked me "who's at home?" I though me and Percy were obvious so I said "my husband" The doctor said "Is he your first?" to which I replied "yes he's my first husband"

We were super impressed with the NHS the staff were almost all lovely apart from the nurse that came in at 1am and told us that two parents aren't allowed to stay overnight, she saw Dan sleeping on the sofa and didn't tell us that it pulls out into a bed. Thanks to the cleaners for that helpful bit of information they shared in the morning.

That morning we had the difficult task of getting a urine sample, which involved holding Percy completely naked for hours with a wee catching scoop close to hand for when the time came. Well done to Dan for being the wee catcher.

An x-ray revealed that Percy had a bad viral chest infection and as Percy had perked up a bit we were given medication and sent home. Hooray!

Two days later Percy was no better so I took him back to the walk in centre. This time his breathing was really bad and some ambulance men came to check him out, they said we need to go back to Alder Hey. I asked if I could go to the loo first and they said it was ok, then we got in the ambulance and they put the Nee narhs on. If I'd have known they were going to do that I wouldn't have gone to the loo! Good job I did though because it was hours before there would have been an appropriate time to go.

This time they said it was pneumonia which is a kind of chest infection. They were worried about his oxygen levels, he was working super hard to breathe, the problem was he hated having the oxygen mask anywhere near his face. They made four attempts to get the IV in. 12 months old is the worst age, very strong very able to fight, but too young to understand that the doctors are trying to help and too young for bribery. He is also really chubby so it's hard to get to his veins.

The nights were tough, Percy decided he only wanted to sleep on top of us which meant we had to take shifts so for example on the last night I slept at home from 8pm till 1pm and then drove back to the hospital then swapped with Dan and was a human mattress from 1am till 7am. Our friends and family were amazing throughout all. Our Christian friends and a muslim friend were praying for us, we had visitors, people bringing us food, people feeding our rabbit and a lot of texts. It's like actually a full time job to communicate with everyone when your child is in hospital. So we would love to say a massive thank you to all our wonderful friends. xx

Percy spent the morning of his first birthday in hospital, luckily by this time he was fairly happy and almost ready to go home, so he was crawling about charming all the nurses. He's such a flirt.

He didn't have a great birthday evening, he came home, we gave him his medicine and he was massively sick all over me and 10 minutes later all over Dan, but thankfully he was feeling much better by the weekend for his birthday party. Which I might write about in another blog.

Welcome home PJ we love you so much xx

Student days

My sister who is 9 years younger than me has just written a blog about moving into her second year house (read it here) and it's got me reminiscing about my student days again. I am very blessed to have a wonderful husband and an adorable son, and a job that is fairly fun.... but it's been a long time since I've done studenty things like tried to see how many pegs I could get on my face.

Although I bet I could get more on now that my skin is old and wrinkly.  Being a student is all about experimenting. I wasn't that bothered by the normal things students experiment with, so I tried a few other things out. So here are some ideas of things you could do this year Sarah and chums:

1) Wrap yourself up in cling film or paper

2) Make your banister into an extra housemate 

3) Have a chalk fight

4) be a hippy for a day, it involves having green hair, playing instruments in a park and smoking parsley.

4) make a cup of tea with your future husband while on stilts.

5) Do balloon modelling with a condom

...Because there's no other time in life where you can get away with stuff like this so make the most of it Sarah. xx

10 years ago

It's ten years since I moved to Liverpool as a student to study "Fine Art". 10 years! It was my second choice uni option, I really wanted to go to Manchester, but I sort of messed up that interview...they asked what option I would like to do; painting, sculpture or printmaking... I kind of wanted to do all of them but in the interview I said "probably painting" which was the wrong answer seeing as you actually had to decide before you started and only stick to one discipline and really know everything you were going to do before you start. The fact that I said "probably" kind of implied that I didn't know that or really anything about the course.

Then I went to my Liverpool interview and they were a lot friendlier and seemed to be genuinely interested in some artwork in my portfolio that I had done about Israel and Palestine. (I spent a few months of 2005 there.) Then he asked "who would you naturally side with" and I thought "this is make or break whether I get into the course" if he sides with the same as me I'll get on it if not I won't. So I very hesitantly said ...."the palestinians"*, and he seemed happy and I got on the course. If he'd have been a strong Israeli supporter my life might have turned out completely differently.
*Just so you know I don't hate Israelis or support suicide bombings, I just really like Palestinians.

I have been reminiscing about how I've changed in these 10 years. Here are some of the ways:

Stinginess
I was properly stingy in 2005, I'm not really sure why. I mean I was poor but I could have chilled out a bit. I think I have a much better balance now. I'm still quite thrifty but also I can relax a bit. Some thing are worth spending extra money on, like Ben and Jerry's and buying 1 decent bike instead of 5 rubbish ones, and hoovers that don't have flames inside them when you turn them on (I know you shouldn't expect much from a Tesco value hoover but "no flames" is kind of one of my essentials on my hoover tick list).

Craziness
People who've only met me in the last couple of years probably think I'm pretty crazy, but really I'm very responsible now. Not compared to the average parent but compared to 2005 me. I'm not sure you can get away with riding in a shopping trolley from Asda to Greenbank park to do some fire spinning at 4am as a mum.

Welcoming in 2007 just before the police came for a chat with us.

Technology
I sort of half hate technology. I think the internet is, at best, as good as it is bad. I don't have a T.V. or a smart phone. But in 2005 I didn't have anything, everyone else in my halls house of 5 people had a T.V and laptop, I didn't have either, I didn't even have a desktop computer, I had only just a month or 2 earlier got an email address. I had a green and black screen nokia phone, and digital camera but I didn't know how to get the photos off it, not that I had anything to put them on. I didn't have any digital music or a usb pen. This is why I have virtually no photos to share from this era. So this is the nearest thing I have: a piece of art from first year. I could write some rubbish about what it means and say words like "identity" and "consumerism" but I basically just cut up Boots magazine, it's what they let kids do in nursery but done better.

Confidence
On my first day at uni we all had to talk about our work in front of about 60 people and for some reason I had to go first and I hated it. I said one tiny sentence and then answered with just yes or no to every question. In general I wasn't really sure on my opinion on things, I was quite easily swayed by people and never confronted anyone about anything. Whereas now if I don't agree with something I'll tell you.

Family
I'm going to put an actual serious point here which I virtually never do on my blog. In 2005 I could not wait to leave home! I was well ready in 2004 when everyone else in my year left home, but the problem was I wanted to do art, and for that you normally need an art foundation course which is a free course but you can't get a student loan to cover living costs. So, I had the dilemma of doing art but staying another year living in a boring village near Coventry while all my friends went away and had exciting lives, or doing a course I didn't massively want to do just so I could leave. So I stayed in my boring village where I kept failing driving tests and therefore never had any independence.

But anyway I digress, the point is I couldn't wait to leave and have fun in a big city where buses were more frequent than every 2 hours and crime was more serious than someone stealing someone else's wellies from their shed (yep that actually happened I read it in the neighbourhood watch magazine).
My mum cried when she dropped me off, but I was so ready to live in a new place and never go back. Which is sort of what I did, for at least 3 years I went back the minimum amount and even stayed in Liverpool in the summers. I did that slightly annoying early 20's "I'm so grown up that I don't need you anymore thing". Sorry family. But now that I am the grand old age of 29 and I actually have grown up, I realise that I do have a good family and I enjoy their company and I even enjoy going back to my old village. I had this revelation after living in a quite high crime area for ages that actually- LOW CRIME RATES ARE A GOOD THING! Who would have thought it?!

Next blog I want to write about the very special people I met in my first weeks in Liverpool.

My Life In Cartoon

I've not blogged for a while, I've started a cartoon paper diary so now I'm doing the laziest blog post ever, pictures from my paper diary. They're not great pictures coz I just do it in 1 minute before I sleep and I don't do it in pencil first or anything, like I would if I was trying harder, but here are a few snap shots from my life.

So here is the diary it's a really nice mini one from paperchase.

 I wanted one without lines, ruled paper stifles creativity with its unnatural imposing structure that makes everyone conform to a boring way of life. It makes me angry. and for some reason this book looked too beautiful to be lined. But when I got home and took the plastic wrapping off..............Arghhhhhhhh!!!

But I got over it and started my diary.

Some interactive comedy I preformed proving that my 6 year old £10 phone was better than the iphone. Thanks Oli and Gemma.
See it here

Percy had an outdoor bath and leant to splash

Some more comedy. I made people dance the YMCA in arabic again (sorry Zac)

When your baby is wearing just a nappy and is coved in food and you think "I know I'll just rip the nappy off and put them straight in the bath" but then *SURPRISE* there's a cheeky poo.

We got Katie and Mike to babysit and went out for a date and then they invited people over and we came back for a mini party.

Dan's sister Lydia came back from 3 months in New York wearing a pineapple t-shirt which later inspired some pineapple art.

We had Joe Munrow round for a meal, and for some reason I asked what picture comes into your head when you think of a year and it was very interesting. Maybe it's one of those things where you had to be there.

If dressage is horses walking sideways then crab dressage would be crabs walking forwards. Just one of the many things we chat about in bed. In case you haven't guessed that's a crab with a plait.

I started my pineapple art.

I saw a bit too much of Alastair Clark at his comedy gig.

I had my wisdom tooth removed and got sedated which I sort of looked forward to as Percy has been getting up at 5am every day and an afternoon nap was lovely.

I went to Centre Parcs, Dan got me a nose clip for going down the rapids. I got half way down and lost it. It was a bit my fault as there was a big sign saying don't go head first. But when I see signs like that I take them as a challenge.

Some kids at Centre Parcs did not understand physics.

I took Percy to Keshia's and he got licked by a dog.

Percy learnt to wave and waved at Dan as he got home from work. He waves in the style of a Chinese good luck cat thing.


And that is 3 months of my life except for the more personal and possibly interesting bits that I left out. Thanks for reading.

Hanging with the Hawks

This blog is mainly about one of our favourite families the Hawkridges. We have to say "one of" because yesterday Dan was telling his mum how we sort of look up to them as a family and they were his favourite family and then he quickly backtracked to say how great his own upbringing was.

They live in Morocco "which is safer to read about than go to" according to my Grandads very old, slightly racist book about the world. Most places are safer to read about than go to though aren't they? Reading is a very safe activity, unless you combine it with driving or something.

They have 3 kids probably ages 7, 5 and 2ish. Their kids are amazing, the oldest told me on Saturday that we should have 7 children: 3 boys, 3 girls and one boy/girl and we should all become dog walkers. The Hawkridges have the highest level of stress tolerance I know. Before they had kids they bought a pub and made it into an art commune. When they moved to Morocco they bought a van and drove there from Liverpool with a baby (it was their baby they didn't steal a random baby). They don't have regular boring old jobs they are artists with unsecure work. They own a tiny little shop/studio space thing, they buy reptiles to live in their garden and they're considering sending their kids to a hippy farm school in Morocco.  They go on a family trip to the ice cream shop every Friday, that is definitely something that we should make a family tradition.

Sean and Eleanor

Den building with the kids

I like to think me and Dan are fun and interesting. The day we met we were in a 4 tier human pyramid, we celebrate the new tax year, we've twinned our arm chair with an armchair half a mile away, I once dressed as a pond as part of my comedy act and we cycled to Kuwait once for lols. But now we have a baby and are looking at buying a 3 bed Semi I'm worried we might start turning into "those people" people who try and live near good schools and have life insurance and listen to radio 4, and recycle and read parenting books. Snore.... Although I'm not really against this per se, I really am against those things taking up so much time that we forget to celebrate the new tax year with some wacky tax themed games.

That's why I'm happy to have the Hawkridges influence in our lives. While they were over we made a cup of tea while I was on Dan's shoulders and I tried something I'd been wanting to try for ages. Unicycle pram pushing... it's amazing! It's faster than walking with the pram and more stable than just unicycling.