Kid Quotes of the Year

 What an absolutely ridiculous year 2020 has been, it's like 2020 looked at 2016 (the year all the celebrities died) and thought "I can do better". For the past few years I've been tweeting funny stuff my kids say and at the end of the year doing a round up of my favourite ones. This year more than any, we need a bit of humour. So here it is my 2020 kids quotes of the year, in chronological order:

Percy age 5-6

1) "Eric is too confident" - yes thats a 5 year old talking about a 2 year old.

(Photo by Lindy Rogers Photography)

2) "Mummy you have lines on your head just like Mr. Worry."

3) "Mummy I NEED to watch fireman sam so I can learn about fire safety."

4) "While you're running the bath it might be a good idea to tidy the landing" - he's referring to his mess I asked him to tidy 4 hours earlier.

5) "Mummy I don't really think I'm an omnivore because you force me to eat veg." - I'm sure the Triceratops feels the same.

6) "Mummy I love you from the ground to space, Daddy I love you from the ground to the top of a giraffe" - very sweet, but I did the maths on this and it turns out he loves me 20 thousand more times than he loves Daddy.

7) "Can Ice creams put out fire?" - I put this question on facebook and the general consensus was that if you had enough ice cream and could drop it on a fire it would help. My favourite ice cream question from Percy a few years ago was "Do ice creams don't like snow?"

8) "How big are God's ears? I think 11 houses long."

9) Me: It's 31 degrees out there that's mental.

Percy: Is it more mental than an egg that doesn't split properly?

Me: ?? (remembering back to a conversation weeks ago) Oh you mean a conjoined twin...er I guess 31 degrees is more common than conjoined twins.

10) Playing firemen:

"I put out a fire that was 100 meters big, it weighed 20 tonnes and it took all the water from the Atlantic and Pacific ocean to put it out."

11) Me: GO... TO... BED  

Percy: Mummy you're talking like a robot

12) "Did Adam and Eve have belly buttons?"

13) "If Adam and Eve were white why isn't everyone white?" 

14) "What does F...U curly C kicking K spell?" - it spells we're never taking you to this skate park again.

Percy's learnt to read and write this year. check out this short story he wrote this week:

Translation: Once upon a time there was a little boy who wanted to be a magician. He had practised and practised, he was getting better. Till one day something happy happened he was part of the magic circle. The end.

Eric age 2-3

1) "Mummy there's a fire in the lounge." - I went to look, it turns out he meant a fire place.

2) "I have 19 fingers" - he might need to work on his counting a bit.

3) Eric: "Its my baby's birthday" 

Me: "How old are they?" 

Eric: "40"

4) A game of Simon says with Eric:

"Simon says jump like a camel" 

"Simon says cuddle your hair."

5)"What is your nose stuck on with?"

6) "When I'm 91 I think I'll be grown up"

7) "Everyone in the world is my best friend"

This year I have to include a special category for Dan this year:

1) "Could a hamster use a tiny grain of rice as a tampon?"

2) Han: I'm so happy I've finished cleaning out the rabbit. (It was cold and wet outside.)

Dan: Well if I knew thats what made you happy I wouldn't have bothered learning where the clitoris was.

Merry Christmas.

P.s If you enjoyed this you can follow me on twitter where I tweet this stuff as it happens.

Or you can read the best quotes from previous years

2019

2018

2017

My Well 'Ard sister.

I have two sisters Jo and Sarah. This year Sarah got married in lockdown and got on TV and Jo had her first baby. I'm in serious danger of not making it on to my family's Christmas letter, it's a very really threat. A few years ago Jo didn't make it on because she'd just had an ordinary year doing her job as a doctor, saving lives... but that's not good enough. You need to get married, have a baby, move countries or get on TV to be sure to get on. I once had cancer and that didn't even make it on.

But back to Jo. Back in week 1 of lockdown, while everyone was making banana bread, they were making a baby. The 3 sisters had a WhatsApp call together and we all chatted for ages about how we were doing in lockdown before Jo shared the news... We were both very excited! I already have an adorable niece and nephew on Dan's side, but this is my first on this side and I know they've been thinking about it for a while, so I was very happy for her and her husband Elisha. It also brings me one step closer to my dream of being a smug parent of older children. Theres been a few family holidays when I've been up all night breastfeeding and they rock out of bed at 11am and say "lets got to the beach now" and they're ready in 5 mins but I have to pack snacks and water bottles and nappies and swim nappies, and a spare set of clothes and a bucket and a spade and armbands and then suntan lotion 2 squirming little people. And then my kid is at the beach just eating sand while Jo and Elisha are trying out surfing. I can't wait to go on a beach trip where we just shout "boys get your beach stuff!" Does that ever happen?

We had a nice online baby shower where we did a few games and a quiz about babies. Did you know the most babies born to one woman is 69? Yeah, 69 a position they should have tried. I also learnt only 5% of babies were born on their due date. Jo's baby was in that special 5%. She ended up getting induced last Saturday in the late morning and we were all taking bets on the time of arrival. Percy was the official winner with a guess of 5am but the baby didn't come out till a bit later than that at 8:35. I was up at 5:30 with the news she was fully dilated, we had a bit of WhatsApp chat.

 

Then she went for an instrumental delivery which sounded scary. I was a bit worried and praying everything would be ok. Thankfully it was all ok, he came out and is beautiful. Zachariah Edward Hastings welcome to the world.

Jo lost a lot of blood. 2.6 litres that's A LOT! Like way more than you can mop up with a tea towel. That's like a life time of periods in one go. They gave her a blood transfusion 12 hours later after she'd been fainting everywhere. I was there to support her every step of the way through her blood transfusion, by sending empathetic photos, like this one:

She had a terrible nights sleep that night, about an hour, ( and that was the second night of just an hours sleep) that is not ok! I recently talked about this on my podcast, but I become EVIL on less than 4 hours sleep. 

Because of Covid Elisha was only allowed in the the hospital for an hour a day, so she desperately needed some help and some sleep, but they wouldn't let her go because she needed either blood or what they were actually planning was an iron transfusion, but getting her more blood was not on the top of their to-do list. It was getting late and she was facing another terrible night (she'd already waited 36 hours since first loosing the blood) so decided to do a brave thing and discharge herself. She felt fine blood-wise, but knew she needed more sleep and help so she had to sign a thing to say she was leaving against medical advice even though she is an actual doctor.

Elisha was there ready to take on the role of Dad to a newborn, which is wearing the baby in a sling all night while playing computer games. I remember Dan doing a lot of that in the first few weeks. 

It's wasn't till week two when there was a time when the three of us were all asleep at the same time for an hour or 2. Sleep deprivation is the worst and probably the main reason we have decided against having another one.

Our family is now overrun with boys. I grew up in a household of 4 females to 1 male, I also had 5 female cousins and only one male, and both my parents only have sisters. But now our extended family on my side is 4 female to 7 male. I'm hoping for a granddaughter one day.

I can't wait to meet my new nephew. It's such a shame I cant just go round, my parents are going to go but we are Christmas bubbling with Dan's side this year. The last time I saw them in person was when I was doing a comedy gig in a pub in Leeds, just before they went into tier 3, and on the way back I thought "I recognise this road" and then I was less than a minute from her house so I knocked on for a doorstep chat which was a super lovely surprise.

Congratulations Family Hastings, I hope to cuddle you all again one day xx

Inside the Royal Mail

Hey. I got some lovely feedback about my last blog, which included some stuff about my new job as a Christmas temp at the Royal Mail, so I thought I'd share some more things I've discovered from inside of the Royal Mail, as if I was an undercover journalist.

I've done a few different jobs there now. I most often do tracked local parcels, but I have done letters which is easy- just sorting between first and second class, and the worst job which is the conveyor belt: someone empties out a bag of completely unsorted mail onto a conveyor belt and you have to sort it before it falls off the end into the letters trolley. It would be easy enough if it was just first and second class parcels but its not just that, it's also air mail, franked mail, A4 letters, first class tracked, second class tracked, first and second class bigger than a shoe box, and tracked bigger than a shoe box. It's so hard work and the guy putting stuff on is just going at the speed he can empty bags at, which is a pretty easy job. Here's some things I've discovered since starting this job:

1) They have a train that has a Christmas bow. I talked to the guy who drives it, he says after a couple of hours its an incredibly boring job because you don't get to talk to anyone. Yesterday as I was leaving the train (which apparently I shouldn't call a train because it's not) was going the same way as me and I really wanted to jump on.

2) The funniest things I or a colleague have seen in the post so far are: a curry, a house ridding saddle, a hula hoop, a stool sample, a box of chickens feet, a vibrating box, a real Christmas tree in a pot and fresh flowers that said return to sender. I really want to know what that guy did to deserve that!

3) Someone lost a diamond from their ring on my first day. Imagine doing 5 weeks of being a Christmas temp and all the money you earned only paid for the diamond you lost on day 1. Typical 2020 luck.

4) If you try and sit down and rest in an empty york you are heavier than a parcel and your bum will fall in and your legs will stick out and your colleague will wheel you round laughing.

5) Some people are more likely than others to have post go missing. The way they sort the local mail is into different yorks (which are like big trollies) WA8 - Widnes for example has its own York, most postcodes do, but if you live in WA3 which is somewhere in Warrington you are the most likely not to get your post. Thats because WA3 (1-3) has a joint york with WA12 and WA3 (4-9) has it's own york and the Christmas casuals are not all told about this so most will sort some WA3s in the wrong place at some point.

6) The gap in the postcode matters. When sorting mail you don't normally look at the whole address, just the first part of the postcode, so if someone with a WA1 postcode doesn't leave a gap it might go into the WA12 york by accident.

7) I mentioned this on the first blog, but fragile post is treated no differently. If you wouldn't be comfortable dropping your post from a height of 2 meters don't post it. At some stages it has to be thrown and if it's thrown into an empty york it will fall 2 meters. Putting "this way up" is completely pointless.

8) Yorks are made to be exactly the right hight for an average man. Most men (and tall women) can easily push them around and see where they are going. Most women however have to pull them backwards while looking over their shoulder or push them sidewise, which takes twice as long and probably makes men think that women are just stupid. I've had a few men tell me I'm not pushing it right, I made one bend down to my eye line and try and push it themselves.

9) If you put random stamps on your mail it will probably go first class. When I post a parcel I go to the post office and they tell me how much to pay and print the sticker. When my parents used to post things when I was a kid they'd weigh their post and had a poster that told them how much the postage was and then they'd work out what stamps they needed. The truth is the people sorting don't weigh it and they don't know if you intended first or second class so they'll always give you the benefit of the doubt. Someone told me yesterday if it's got more than 1 stamp send it first class. Disclaimer - there may be another bit of sorting where someone works it out and charges you if you're wrong I don't know, all I know is in the initial sort it will go first class.

10) All mail to Santa goes first class even if it doesn't have a stamp. The official address is Santa's Grotto, Reindeerland, XM4 5HQ. But this is actually code for some place in Edinburgh. Sorry to ruin the dream. I worked on letters last week and I found one letter not in an envelope that said "dear Santa, I want snow and barbies"

11) So far I've not seen any post for me, but I have seen 2 for my street, and 2 for Hannah Joneses that aren't me. Even if I did see some for me and had ID on me to prove it I'm still not allowed to take it home.

12) Warrington Mail Centre plays 90s radio the whole time, and the great thing about having to wear a mask is that you can secretly sing along

13) On the last day, Christmas eve, all the Christmas temps get to come in fancy dress and we make all the yorks into a massive maze. At the centre of the maze is a massive pile of parcels. When you reach the centre you get to pick a parcel that you like the look of and open it, like a big secret Santa. I wish.

One thing I would like to know is: what happens to the post that is for the mail centre itself? Does that leave the mail centre in a van and go to the sorting office only to be brought back by a postman? That would be madness.

If you're waiting for some post all I can say is I wish you luck.