NYC bound

Him indoors has left for NYC amidst predictions of an "historic storm" due to hit this evening. 2 feet of snow expected.  I'll be happy as long as my flight on Friday gets there. (Please, please, please.)

It's taking a relay team of four to get me on my way so it had better happen!

It's not often we get to go away sans 'attachments' so it's a hotly anticipated treat - and the north east city was where we honeymooned so it'll be 'moon mark II... If the weather plays fair. 

Beautiful boy - throwback to 2014

Just unearthed this picture from my old forgotten camera from August 2014. Love. This. Boy.

No one is listening to me

Poor neglected child. 

Written without my knowledge after I'd taken the other child up for a bath. 

Is it worse that the poor neglected child didn't point out his unnoticed chalk scrawling for 24 hours?

It's discovery prompted mixed feelings in me: humour, pride, disbelief and guilt. 

Still smiling. 

Illness

Things I have heard from my sick boy today...

"My mouth went all wobbly and then the illness came out of my mouth."

"I told you I was feeling sick" - he did, at 4 in the morning, half an hour before he was actually throwing up.

"I love my sister. Just a little bit because she is quite bossy."

This is, to be fair, the first time in oh about 3 years that we've had actual vomiting. Which wasn't Irish ferry related. Of course it had to be on the first day of school which I was *quite* looking forward to (mainly getting stuff done without the distraction of 2 small children demanding things every 7 minutes).

Hey ho, back to the demands of a sick boy. Who is surely less stoic than his sick sister was 5 days ago. Man sickness is always of a more virulent type.

Christmas 2014

3 Christmas dinners

2 turtle doves &

A partridge in a pear tree. 

That was Christmas 2014. 

First off we had my sister & family, Bob & Philippa to our house for Christmas Day lunch. 

Next up was Boxing Day lunch with the in-laws at our house. 

For the third Christmas lunch we shipped out to my dad's in Dorset. Chef Ade catered for all three. Thank god. I couldn't. 

If the price for all that good food is keeping the kids out of the kitchen and washing up I'm happy with my end of the deal.

2014 was the year of Homeland, The Fall and Breaking Bad on the box, Electra, Visitors and Secret Theatre on the stage and Rembrandt at the National Gallery. A year when the children turned 4 and started school, I finally earned some money & got some free time, largely wasted but joyously so. 

One of the better uses of my time was a girls' weekend in Dublin where I read a book - 'We Are Completely Beside Ourselves' - sent from a kind & thoughtful friend in Singapore. All about a chimp girl & sibling love / rivalry. 

As we say "hello" to 2015, welcomed in with the World's Worst Hangover, it's good to reflect on a year of growth, drama & kid related highs & lows... and Oscar's origami... Happy 2015.