One missing

Ruby went to stay the night at grandmas last night (eight doors down the road)! The first time shes been away on her own. It was fine, but it was weird how it felt like there was one missing at bed time and bath time (I think Coralie liked it). Ruby certainly did she got well pampered with a comic and her pj's warmed on the radiator. When I dropped her off she just said 'now go away mummy!' I try not to feel rejected, but see the potential benefits of this arrangement. Grandma seemed to survive more or less intact too. A successful experiment.

Time to stop feeling guilty

The decision is made, for me in some ways, by the sudden rise in workplace nursery prices. I can't say I feel sad about it though. This is after all what We believe is best for the girls, even if it is a little stressful economically, we are rich in may ways and very happy. I am not particularly going to miss my work when i do my last day some time early next year. As I have said before, in many ways it is an opportunity. So, the question is, why do I still feel so guilty about being a full time mother (do not use the term house wife, I am not one of those, I don't spend that much time in the house and am certainly not married to it) and not being economically active in society?

What is it about our society that tells me I am only valuable if I am contributing in the workplace? That makes me feel foolish if I think I will be able to get back into work if I take a break while the girls are very young. Why do I feel so irresponsible? Why, even though I know why I am not frantically looking for new work and am convinced this is the best thing for the girls, do I still feel guilty? Why do I feel like people think I am taking the easy option, when actually it is not that easy? I do go nuts sometimes. It is an active decision not a passive one. So many questions.

Someone once asked me if I felt undervalued as a nurse. My reply was 'no not really, but I do feel undervalued as a mother.' (not by Brian I hasten to add).

I really need to stop worrying about what other people think, and feeling this guilt. How do I do that? Pants to all societies dumb values, I'm going to do what I want to do. Whoever you are out there creating this dumb and upside down feeling that pervades around, stop it, now.

Sea Monsters

We love aquariums. Bri and I went to one in Boston and one in Cape Town years ago before the girls came along. Well this was the first time we had taken the girls to one, I was hoping they would share my enthusiasm and excitement and if it wasn't naturally forthcoming to cultivate it by early exposure.

Ruby enjoyed it but not without the odd whimper of horror as a big fish approached and looked her squarely in the eye. Given the choice of making a shark badge or a seaweed badge she quickly chose the latter, she obviously hasn't realised just how scary seaweed can be when it wraps itself around your legs. Coralie seemed quite content.

probably the only reason I can think of for Enough babble here are some of the best pics. It was great fun and well worth a visit.







a video of a cow fish

a video of some jellies

Lullabies

Christmas carols make great lullabies. But tonight I think I have exhausted all I know (isn't it annoying how you can only remember the first verse or two).

I also like, kum by ah, Molly Malone, swing low sweet chariot, lavenders blue. Currently I feel in need of a bit more variety in my repertoire (as I am undertaking sleep training with Coralie an putting my poor voice through quite a lot). I Invite you to tell me your favorite soothing song.

I will also share with you one we sing in our Wednesday morning music sessions with Martin, the most amazing, music man. Once he has whipped the littles up into a friendzy with his singing and instrument banging he often ends with this song. Sung softly to his guitar and the effect is incredible, they all lie on the floor and shut their eyes, at 9.45 am, its like hypnosis honestly..........Sadly I cant use this at home because I can't pronounce the words (or magically play the guitar) but give it a go.

aah ooh ay
nya ra ra mura na
kana watch ay ma
oh nya ra ra

I have no idea what it means!

Crusty

mmmm we have on loan a bread maker from Brian's dad. Received it yesterday with thanks. This is a picture of the first loaf, its a bit of an odd shape but it tasted nice. Not sure how long all this will last, I guess it will depend how easy it turns out to be when i progress to wholemeal.
Took the girls swimming today, they loved it, Coralie was off all on her own hanging onto the edge of the pool and onto Rubys armbands, plopping in off the edge all on her own. The main argumenent I can see for not getting rid of the car is that is would make getting to swimming next to impossible.

Strictly come wiggling

Lets wiggle

Ruby is cool! Here she is dancing to the wiggles, we have a one minuite clip of them as a tailer on a free dvd and she took and instant, well, wiggle to them. We now have to play the clip over and over again to entertain her. I can see us invesing in there full version for chrismas. For the uninitiated the wiggles are a bunch of seriously bizarre australian boys who are great at entertaining young kids, even if I find them a bit cringy I have to admit they are fantastic.

We have a great video of Ruby wiggling, but we don't know how to post it. If you can help, please leave a comment telling us how to do it.

We have also sorted out the techincal problems with the photos of the two previous posts, but we have lost Chris' comment, sorry.

legumes 2

While on the bean theme, one of those odd things I have always wondered is what lentils look like when they are growing, they just seem as though they should be different form beans. Inspired by borlotti's I looked it up and will share a lentil plant picture with you now so that your curiosity too can be satisfied.

here is a link to another photo of a lentil plant
and if you think it reminds you of wild vetch, because that is what it reminded me of its ok because they are related.

And by the way what Brian means is not 'they are a very attractive looking food', but 'they are really beautiful' and he brings them home as proud as punch with a 'look what I found' hunter gatherer sort of pleasure when he comes back from Beanies. He loves them....man show some emotion. Honestly that is what its really like.

Legumes 1

I have been reminded over the past couple of days why this the address for this blog is called nagging wife. I have been well and truly nagged into posting a blog.

Thought that I would share two pictures of the borlotti beans that I bought this week, as I think they are a very attractive looking food. I find them a bit deceptive as they look so good, but never quite taste a good as you think.


Also, here is a photo of me with my two beautiful daughters.

Hopefully this will keep the nagging wife off my back a day or two!

Help.....oh what a situation, I am torn between a strong desire for sticky toffee pudding and not wanting to brave the cold wet squally monster who is sat outside my back door, who i need to brave in order to get it. What shall I do, I have 15 mins to decide because then strictly come dancing comes on and it will be too late. Hang on ....... I am back now, there, desire won and having defeated the monster I now feel I deserve the pud,great, you will have to give me a while now..........Well the pud was worth it (Ray and Camilla got voted off, I love all the dresses I want to be on the show).

Yesterday I went for a treat to the spa 1887 in town. Brian had the girls all day it was amazing. Everyone should go at least three times a year.

Coralie has turned into a sleep demon after lovely day yesterday both girls were up till after midnight, today, currently Coralie is still up screaming and writhing having woken up twice since she first went to bed, its only 10.00 I don't know what to do with her. I just know in a few weeks or months it will be different/hopefully better and nothing stays the same, phew. I have put spiders to the back of my mind and thoughts of long term what to do, will come back to that another day. I have also been thinking about home education again, it seems so far away and unachievable without going nuts, but more and more what I would like to do. Another conundrum, I am sure I will just tow the party line again.

Will find some nice photos of the girls for next time.

Spiders again

The spider never finished the lacewing. I found the body lying on the floor, still the spider was looking nice and plump. Did you know spiders are amazing (Hannah take note), they can go for up to a year without a meal and when they do eat they can consume the equivalent of their own body weight in grub. However spiders have to digest their food outside their body by secreting enzymes and juices into their prey, then sucking it up it already digested, this is called external digestion. It is not unusual for spiders to eat spiders, even there own brothers and sisters. Spiders are not generally fussy about what they eat but can taste their food and will reject it if it doesn't like the flavour. Spiders catch their prey in a variety of different ways. We all know the beautiful webs that are one method. Research by NASA on orb web spiders investigated the effect of giving various drugs on their ability to create beautiful webs. Drugs administered included cannabis, caffeine, speed to name but a few. The way spiders spun their webs varied wildly depending on the drug they were given. Have a look at some of the webs, the one below is from a spider on caffeine and the one below that is by a spider on LSD.

Caffeine

LSD

It may be helpful for some of us to note that spiders given caffeine produced the most useless webs of all the spiders in the test. And to think we drink this stuff all the time and then try and drive cars or work, help.

Anyway you probably knew all this anyway I have enjoyed reminding myself how amazing spiders are. I shall look at them differently now, until the next time I am clearing up cobwebs that is.

A mouse in my house........and more

well I got a bit of a surprise today when I went to sweep my floor and found a Vole (i think, definitely not a mouse actually) snoozing in my dustpan. Must have been brought in as a trophy buy the amazing fat Mr Fred! He never kills them they always get away, he is a hopeless mouser. Well good for the vole he was well fed himself must have been snaking on the cat food he was quite plump himself. Managed to catch a quick picture as i released him. Good luck Mr vole run away, run far far away, i do have a soft spot for small fury animals.



Another natural wonder i discovered today was a spider with a body the size of a pin feasting on a large lacewing, yum yum. It has been munching for hours and seeming to make no progress. Why rush a good meal eh. I don't know how he caught it there was no web, would love to have seen. This was the best picture I could get. I do wish lacewings ate spiders though and not the other way round.

Aside from creature watching. I have been investigating illustrating a children's book as a possible option and have found loads of stuff that tells you how, including a really interesting distance learning course. It would be a bit of a gamble though as I have no artistic experience, hum. I have also applied for information on a distance learning course on how to become a bookkeeper and be self employed. I am excited about the options. Goodbye nursing, pants to the nhs and hello possibilities. Any suggestions please let me know. However in the mean time it is fantastic to be with the girls all the time and a real privilege. I suppose the situation with the nursery is really a blessing in disguise.

Well, I know halloween was about a week ago but I realy wanted to put up this photo as it made me laugh so hard when I saw it, so here it is in a sort of who needs pumpkins sort of way. Hope you enjoy it.



On the festive note, I went to the library with the girls today and as it was bonfire night yesterday the story and craft was about rockets. But it seems that there is a serious deficit in the childrens book market for books actually based on bonfire night they could not find one at any of the childrens libraries! There perhaps that could be a project for me, a bonfire book.

A photo or two of the passengers, just to introduce you.

From the top, Brian, Ruby, Coralie and Chloe. The Nobles.

Welcome to our new blog.
Come join us on our voyage!