Aimee bashes out a Christmas classic! If you can see this, then you might need a Flash Player upgrade or you need to install Flash Player if it’s missing. Get Flash Player from Adobe.
“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) 35th President of the United States I know, I know. It’s been ages. I’ve broken promises and resolutions, hearts and heads, but the blog is back again. For a [...]
I know, I know, I know. I’m as disappointed in myself as you all must be. What a bastard, not updating the blog for a whole week.
Well, that’s well and truly broken the New Year’s resolution. Damnit.
As it happens, the last week has been very busy, and has had some ups as well as downs. There was a ‘shock’ announcement at work, David came to visit us, and Aimee learned how to point to the various parts of ones body in the “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” song! Such a busy life!
Anyhow, David came to visit and stay for the weekend, which was great. We’re doing some preliminary investigations into how feasible it might be for us to ‘tank’ out our cellar, and make it a livable room. Presently, the floor is laid with bricks – David dug some up and discovered that there’s just bare soil underneath – so it might be possible for us to rip the bricks out and get a proper floor laid.
In other news – last week, my employers decided to announce the closure of the office I work from, and relocate all staff to their head office some 45 miles away. This is somewhat surprising and certainly disappointing news, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t totally unexpected.
Took Aimee to see the “Baaa-baa’s” and “Moo-moo’s” at Heeley City Farm today. I’d never been before, and the south of the city is largely a big grey area in the road atlas in my head, so we relied on a Navigo to get us there – and it did, which was nice.
The farm is certainly what it says on the tin – a city farm. It’s literally right in the middle of some rows of pre-war workers terraces. It almost looks like the land the farm is sited on previously contained housing, which has been demolished to make way for the farm. Certainly, it’s quite odd to see 3 residential streets bisect the farm itself.
Once you step off the streets, and into the farm, it’s like being on a real farm – complete with the sights and smells(!). I think it’s great – some city kids won’t get to see a farm, and having this on their doorstep is excellent.
All of the staff are volunteers, and I must make a special mention to the young girl who showed us round the ‘small animals’ section, who described the animals in intimate detail and even encouraged Aimee to stroke and touch the animals themselves. Really, really encouraging to see this lass, who must’ve been about 12-13 really taking an interest in the welfare of the animals and not hanging around outside the local shops.
Aimee slept in this morning and wasn’t awake when I left for work. This is depressing for me. When Emma took her off to her folks last Friday, it meant that I’d now not seen her for four days (I got home late last night). I resolve to get home from work on time so I can at least spend some time with her when I get in.
Thankfully, my working day presented me with a long afternoon meeting, which once I’d finished with, I tied up my loose ends for the day and headed back down the M18. They appear to be nearing the completion of the J6-J7 roadworks, which is good, because the 50mph restriction there gets right on my tits – the M18 is bad enough as it is with lorries overtaking one another – one in the inside lane doing 56mph, the overtaker doing 57mph. Grrrrr.
When I got home, I was greeted with a “DADA!” exclamation from Aimee, and she attempted to rush over and greet me. This was a little inopportune as Emma was in the middle of changing her nappy – ooops!
She’s only been away a few days, but she changes so quickly. She’s also very quickly turning into her mother – yatter-yatter-yatter-yatter. She never shuts up! Burbling away to us, and herself, in mad babyspeak punctuated with the odd English word here and there. Mebo-waba boo ba Mama, mebo-maba ro-ro Hiya – etc.
The speed with which Aimee is picking up things these days is frankly quite scary. It seems that she’s doing something new virtually everyday. I first noticed it a week or so ago, when she suddenly started saying “Bye-bye” to me and blowing me a kiss when I left for work in the morning.
This morning, whilst she was drinking her morning milk (not formula milk, normal milk) she picked up Emma’s mobile. As she always does, she puts it to the side of her face and starts saying “Hiya! Hiya!” into the phone – this isn’t new – what was, was her looking and pointing at the display (the phone wallpaper is, of course, a photo of her) and saying, with some surprise in her voice – “Baba!”. She’s self-aware, and recognizes herself.
It carries on too – with her pointing at me and saying “Dada” and at Emma and saying “Mama”. When I got home from work, she was still up – and did some amazing – at least in my very rose-tinted ‘Daddy’ glasses – things.
Aimee loves CBeebies’ ‘In The Night Garden’, along with most of the rest of the UK under 4 population, and she has some Night Garden toys. I asked her to fetch me Igglepiggle, and she went straight across the room, picked up her Igglepiggle doll and brought him straight to me. She repeated this with her Makka-Pakka and Upsy-Daisy dolls, and her teddy bear. She recognizes the names and has associated them with the dolls!
Woke early, for a Sunday, at around 8.30ish. We’re off swimming together this morning – the first time I’ve been swimming with Aimee since the holiday. Emma figured that the earlier we got there, the quieter it’d be, so we aimed to get there for half 9.
Got to the leisure centre and was confronted with a worrying sight – a full carpark. Had to park all the way round the back. This didn’t bode well for the ‘busyness’ of the pool – and, indeed, it was pretty packed inside – even at half 9! Nevertheless, Aimee thoroughly enjoyed it – especially the underwater jacuzzi-style jets and the slide in the baby pool! She wasn’t at all impressed when it was time to go home.
Like yesterday, today has been a fairly warm, mild day – it feels like Spring a couple of months early. With this in mind, I stopped off at Halfords on the way home to get a wash mitt to wash the car with. Aimee was fairly zonked by the time we’d got home, so whilst she slept, and while Emma knocked up a lunchtime fry-up I gave the car its first wash of 2008. Sparkling clean!
Gave the leather cleaner and feed stuff a go too, we’ll see how well, or not, it works in the coming days. Car looks great when cleaned up, and I use it as an opportunity to have a quick spin for 20 minutes. It’s days like today when I remember why I bought the car. Great. Now, if only there wasn’t that pissing dent…