A friend and I went to the cinema on Tuesday night. Hadn't seen her for a while so it was an evening out to catch up on gossip. Obviously the cinema is not the 'ideal' place to do this but being Brits we're too polite to ruin a movie for anyone. Honest.
We arrived at an early show (6.40pm) of the movie we wanted to see, Freedomland. When we got into the theatre it was more or less empty apart from maybe 3 other people. We sat in the middle of the back row and as the trailers and commercials were on we had a bit of a natter (as everyone does).
There was a woman sitting on the end of the row infront. Alone. Wearing a large furry hat. She turned around and started shouting at us to shut up. We were quite taken aback as it was only the ads but we quietened down.
The film came on.... it was a 6th sense style 'what's going to be the plot twist?' movie, and at one point roughly 10 mins in, my friend leaned over and whispered a question to me. I whispered back and immediately, the woman in the large furry hat got out of her seat and came and sat directly infront of us. Her large furry hat was then blocking our view of the screen. We were a bit confused by this so we decided to get up and move ourselves, and moved over to the side of the row. The woman then got up and moved infront of us again!
Lisa and I were cracking up at this point so we leaned over and asked the woman if we should call the management or would she leave us alone. She started shouting in a loud voice that she had decided not to watch the film anymore as we'd ruined it for her and that she was going to continue sitting infront of us. Obviously there was no reasoning with her so we got up and moved back to the middle of the row and put our feet on the chairs infront to stop her coming and sitting there and thankfully she quietened down, but not before placing a scarf and a hood on top of her large furry hat!
Happy 19 months little man.
My little Harry you continue to amaze me every day. This last month I've sensed a real change in you as you become more independent. You like to do things your way, you have started to hilariously 'stomp off' if you don't like something, and you're always very busy playing with certain toys, certain games, certain foods and showing strong preferences in many areas of your little life.
You really love little trains and cars..... they're your absolute favourite thing to play with. Give you a small wooden train and you'll push it around saying 'choo choo' for hours. You'll carry it with you to the car if we go out or to the table for dinner.... anywhere and everywhere if you're enjoying it. Same with little cars..... so much fun driving them. When we go to the supermarket you now demand to go in a trolley with a car attachment on it so that you can 'drive'. Should there not be one available or should I make the fatal error of not immediately heading for one then you make your feelings extremely clear on the matter!
You're a bit less cuddly than you used to be (sob!), and it's hard to get you to sit on my knee for any length of time. You won't sleep without your 'baby' though..... a green frog / blanket that you've had since birth and which you snuggle down with every night / nap time. When you wake up it has to come out of bed with you and you'll carry it around until something else catches your eye.
You rarely seem to go into a stroller these days. When we go out we're usually driving (hills!) and then walking short distances which you love to do.... usually meaning I have to chase you to retrieve you as you decide to walk off in a different direction from the rest of the family! You do walk very far for a little guy though, I swear you walked miles at Disneyland last weekend, and you love it... you seem to sense the promise, the freedom, of being allowed to take those precious steps outside and want to explore your environment as much as possible.
I've made a promise to myself to try to interest you in more books over the coming weeks. We always read to Dylan, every night at your age, and with a 2nd child we've found it's easy to be in too much of a rush or to get so engrossed in snuggling with you and your 'baby' that books are passed over at bed time. You do love being read to though. One of your favourites is a Maisy book which used to belong to Dylan. It's a lift -the-flap book during which we look for Maisy in various places. 'Is Maisy in the tree?'. 'No, not in there!'. As you turn each page you immediately say NO! before I can ask the question.... so sweet.
You call me 'Mum' now in exactly the same tone and voice as Dylan does... it's uncanny but you're obviously copying him and every time you say it I almost double take trying to reconcile the fact that this is my little baby.
You're still bogged down with endless colds and coughs. I sincerely hope that you are building up a strong immune system little man because I have never known anything like it. It must be hard for you too, feeling under the weather all the time. In typical Jones (children) stoic fashion you weather these virii without much complaint.
You're not talking too much yet. I have no recollection of Dylans vocabulary at this age. I know by the age of 2.5 when we moved to Canada he surprised everyone he met by talking fluently and seriously about a wide range of serious adult subjects in a perfect little English accent, but I suspect at 19 months he wasn't saying too much. You definitely understand alot. I'll ask you questions and you'll nod or say yes / no. You'll respond to direction and with excitement at certain proposals so it's clear to me that comprehension is there. I have read that younger siblings often develop vocally later than 1st chilren as the older child will often speak for the younger one thus making you lazy, why talk if you have to! And Dylan definitely does this - the two of you are completely inseperable at times! I'm trying to work on getting you to talk, I'm not too worried about it...I know boys generally speak later than girls do and I think at this age Dylan was limited to a similar range of words.
The best sound that fills this house is the sound of you and your brother laughing and giggling together. Last night you bathed together and were splashing each other and dumping buckets of water over each other, hysterical with laughter. I was busy in the bedroom sorting out some clothes for you and listening to these joyous sounds coming from the bathroom, wondrous at the connection between you, the love and the laughter, the happiness at being brothers , together. It was so overwhelming I can't even begin to describe how happy it made me.
You grow so fast, you and Dylan both. In many ways I find myself almost grieving for what you were, what you are no longer, and how if I'm lucky I'll only have you for such a short period of time before you move out into the big world. But any pain is insignificant compared to the joy that you, and he, bring me every single day.
'Mum'
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I apologise for the tedium of the household related entries but anyone with a bit of taste out there, I need your advice.
This place has approximately 38 feet of west facing windows in the living room / dining room. It also has 2 skylights in the ceiling. There's a nice view out of the windows down the valley (and if you crane your neck you can see the tips of the Olympic mountains) but obviously it gets the full brunt of the sun pretty much all day long. And the roof, being without any kind of loft as it slopes up to the top, is not well insulated. This means it can get pretty bloody hot.
Last week we had clear skies, sunshine, and temperatures somewhere between 0-6 celcius. In otherwords, not very warm outside. Despite this, I had 3 lots of curtains closed all day because of the heat / glare, the patio door OPEN, the kitchen window OPEN, and the heating off, and the house still managed to heat up something crazy.
I've got curtains with sheer panels under them on 3 of the windows and nothing on the patio door as yet (desperately need something) and nothing on the skylights (also desperately need something) to reduce the heat / glare. The curtains basically look scruffy and the sheer panels do nothing to keep the heat out, I have to close the whole lot entirely and then it's gloomy not being able to see outside.
I went down to a window-treatment store last week and asked for some advice and the woman told me that the best thing would be 'cellular shades' as they block out significant heat. I could also raise them up OR down, depending where the sun was, to allow some light in, during the day. They're relatively inexpensive. I have small kids who are going to put their fingers on them and get them skanky. You can also put them on the skylights with huge success (think Velux blinds, Brits) and she says you can put them on the patio doors too. It would solve heat / glare problems. But I am concerned about lack of light problems a little......
Mum suggested Vertical Blinds on the doors to allow more light in but decent non-office-reminding-type-ones are expensive and the kids will trash them. These ones are quite nice though.
Any thoughts? Any alternatives that someone can offer me for ideas? Tedious stuff I know but sitting here sweltering mid February when it's cold outside is beyond a joke and the summer is going to be even more unbearable (although I do intend to get some kind of air conditioning installed before then!).
More progress made downstairs this weekend. G has been manically ripping off Drywall in the bathroom and replacing it with some sort of waterproof material followed by concrete board which you can then tile. Next he'll fit a shower basin thing and start the tiling work. We are trying very hard to get it done before Dad visits in March.
While he was doing that I managed to de-junk the Library and make it habitable. I threw out tons of junk, evacuated piles of stuff to their proper homes, the books are neatly on the shelves, the large volume of dust vacuumed and removed, and the futon covers washed. It looks alright! There's not alot else needs doing in there other than trim replacing / adding and a few bits of wiring. So that leaves 3 rooms down there still full of boxes and dust to contend with. We're getting there - slowly but surely. Can't say this home renovation stuff is fun but it is beginning to feel like home and the promise that we originally saw in the place is beginning to shine through.
We are back from Disney, infact we've been back for a few days but I just haven't had time to write this since!
The weekend started off with a nice easy flight into Orange County airport. We were afforded an absolutely spectacular view of Mt Rainier after taking off from SeaTac and it was clear all the way to California. The weather, upon landing at 8pm, was warm and had that lovely smell that only California air has.
We had a car to the hotel (which first dropped us off at the wrong hotel!) and settled down for the night - getting up early to get a shuttle at 9am into Disney. Dylan was so excited, it was his birthday. He opened up his presents before going and was promised lots more when he got there. In typical Dylan manner the 'pressure' of this seemed to make him a bit moody but he did soon cheer up.
Neither G nor I had expected to enjoy being at Disneyland particularly, we've both been before and I'm not a huge fan of theme parks. We were pleasantly surprised therefore, to enjoy ourselves thoroughly. I guess it's the difference when seeing it through the eyes of your children. Thanks to the 'fastpass' service they now offer on the rides at Disneyland we managed to go on lots and lots on the Saturday, stopping for lunch and drinks and toys (millions of plastic disney related toys) and balloons. Both kids absolutely loved the rides. We stayed and watched the parade at 7pm.. having walked 10 thousand miles before getting the shuttle back to the hotel at 8.15pm.
Next morning (with sore feet from the day before) we went back and this time went over to the California Adventure park which is opposite Disneyland in the park area. Our ticket allowed us to visit both.... and this one wasn't quite as good in that there was none of that special excitement that Disneyland itself offers thanks to the atmosphere it creates with the music and the characters and all the little attractions to compliment the various rides. This one did, however, have some pretty cool rides and we managed to pursuade (bully) Dylan into trying some and he ended up going on everything including a very scary roller coaster which went upside down. Harry went on a few things too and we ended the day by going on a new ride in that park called Monsters Inc (after the film).
One of the things we'd enjoyed about Disneyland was that after lining up for however long it took, the rides weren't over in 3 seconds and that you actually felt you got value for your queueing. Monsters Inc was the longest queue, due to being new, and it was an hour long. Someone in the line behind us promised us that it was well worth it so we stuck it out - Harry taking a nap in Gareths arms as we snaked up and down towards the front. When we finally got on the ride we were very disappointed, it was nothing special at all... the only one that wasn't in our whole weekend.
Because we had some fancy 3 day ticket deal we were allowed to enter the park an hour earlier than everyone else on Monday morning, so we arrived there bright and early at 8am (!). In that hour we actually managed to go on loads of rides, some twice! It was well worth doing, no line ups whatsoever. We also managed to go on the Thunder Mountain roller coaster (twice) and Splash Mountain (also twice), the log flume type ride. We had to leave at 2.30pm to go to the airport but we did more in those few hours than we had done in the previous two days combined! Fun!
Both kids had a splendid time enjoying the rides. Harry really loved them, especially the Buzz Lightyear Astroblaster ride in which he got this hair-dryer style laser gun and was able to shoot things as he went along. Dylan's favourite was the Matterhorn, a bob-sleigh style roller coaster which he went on twice. I liked Splash Mountain and Gareth liked everything!
Coming home from The OC airport was an experience. Because of all the gazillionnaires in Newport Beach they have noise restrictions and we were warned of their 'different take off procedure' as we taxi'd down the runway. Gulp. The plane took off very quickly and almost vertically and then they cut the engines and it felt like it dropped out of the sky..... until we reached the ocean and the engines were powered up again. Bloody scary!
All in all though, a fantastic weekend, really enjoyed it, really enjoyed the 85 degree sunshine, and really enjoyed the whole birthday weekend experience. Dylan finished up the weekend by saying 'This is the best place I have ever been to in my whole life'.
Happy Birthday my lovely big guy. Today you turn 7 years old and to celebrate we have gone to Disneyland for the weekend. We arrived home from the park this evening exhausted, with aching feet, with several million battery operated light toys, and happy happy happy. You have thoroughly enjoyed spending your birthday here, going on lots and lots of rides and basking in the sunshine.
I write alot about your brothers development in here because he is in that phase of life where there are milestones every 5 minutes (walking, talking, counting, etc) and although you're no longer a baby or toddler who leaps from one developmental stage to another it is fair to say that you still change from day to day. It's just a more subtle kind of change. In the last year since I wrote on your 6th birthday you've grown up enormously.
For a start, you're about a foot taller than you were. Unbelievably big and grown up looking. You've developed a self conciousness that you didn't have a year ago, caring how you appear, what you wear, what is acceptable to be seen in at school. what is 'cool' versus what is 'IM NOT WEARING THAT MOM, NOBODY WEARS THAT KIND OF THING'.
When we moved to Seattle in the Summer it was incredibly hard on you. You felt happy and secure amongst your friends in Canada and the stress of uprooting ourselves really took it's toll. You had nightmares about Daleks for weeks and you seemed to lose a bit of self confidence - we're working on building it up again! You are scared to make decisions or choices incase you get it wrong....... I am not sure what you think will happen if you do get it wrong but Daddy and I are very keen for you to realise that nothing bad will happen! We are trying to help you build some self confidence, and I'm sure alot of it is stemming from the move. You will get over it big guy, do not fear! :)
You did settle down very well into your new school. You love it and often say that you prefer it to your old school and even to your old Montessori school. The work is challenging and interesting and the resources are vastly better. You come home having learned alot every day. You have incredible spelling tests every week where you have to learn how to spell words like 'Chimpanzee' and 'Agreement' and similar. Every week we have a fairly similar routine during which you put off or find excuses for not studying your spellings, eventually panicking at the last minute and deciding they are much too hard and you'll never get them right but eventually knuckling down and learning them in 10 mins flat. Then you come home on a Friday having got 100% on the test.... smart boy!
You're still wonderfully caring towards your baby brother, you adore him and would never let him come to any harm. He idolises you and copies everything you do! You're also still very much my boy, cuddling up to me in an evening, loving me to come and lie in bed with you and chat, wanting me to be the one who comes on the rides with you! Not that you don't love your Dad of course, you do, and one of the things you have been doing together is going to Cub Scouts every week. It's great Daddy & Son bonding time, doing really 'boy' things like building cars and shooting rockets into the sky.
One of my favourite things you said to me this year .... I called you a 'spud' for something silly you said. You replied ' Well you're a lesbian!'. You didn' tknow what it meant of course, but I was crying with laughter for the longest time!
It's impossible to remember everything that you've done for the last year but the most important things are that you've started to grow up, you're growing into a fantastic young man who is loving, kind, smart and funny. Every day I look at you and am thrilled and amazed by you, as I am sure I will be forever.
Love you big guy
Mum xxxxxxx
For the last few days we've had absolutely beautiful weather here. Cold, but crisp and clear and sunny. The sort of weather that you can just about get away with only a sweater on, and if you turn your face to the sun you can feel the warmth shining down on you. Harry has enjoyed playing on the deck. I took a couple of the outdoor toys onto it (cars and such like) and he's had enormous fun scooting about and enjoying the sunshine. After months of rain it's been fabulous.
The weather also reminds me of England in some ways..... in as much as this weather just doesn't happen in Ontario. There it went from freezing to humid overnight and I really missed these almost spring like days where you almost feel a sense of excitement, a sense of rediscovery.
Talking of discovery, I discovered yesterday that we can just about see the Olympic mountains from our deck. The tips of them anyway. And just across the road (which is significantly uphill!) you can see quite alot more of them. I saw a rather spectacular view at sunset yesterday with the sun silhouetting the mountains as it descended behind them just as I happened to be pulling into the driveway.
One thing the fresh air hasn't brought is an end to my bloody flu which has now turned into a Sinus Infection. I've been to get antibiotics this morning because these annual sinus infections are as painful as you like, and I don't want it ruining our weekend at Disneyland! Hopefully the meds will kick in before it gets too bad as we leave tomorrow!
Your son says "Mum, that Surf board in the Laundry Room just fell over"
This weekend we've started to replace Bathroom #1 (of 3 which need replacing). It's the bathroom downstairs which is the least essential of the 3 for family use, but given that G has never fitted a bathroom before it makes sense to 'practice' on the least important one. Also we're due to get some visitors shortly and the guest room is downstairs so visitors will at least be able to use something half decent!
G managed to rip out what was previously there in about 45 minutes. He then had to rip out half of the drywall (which has to be replaced with some kind of waterproof board that you tile over) and the nasty lino floor that had obviously been down for several hundred years. We've chosen some tiles and hopefully work can commence on the rebuild shortly!
On Friday night there was a fierce storm which blew trees down and closed the 520 bridge over Lake Washington. Gareth was out playing poker of all things, and it was quite eery to listen to the wind howling around outside by myself. Went out for dinner last night with some friends which has broken up the weekend quite nicely, we went for some rather splendid Thai food at a top restaurant in Bellevue.
Harry is a little better so I'm hoping to get back to the gym tomorrow! Sickness has prevented me going for the last couple of weeks and I am desperate to start again.
I'm so fed up with illness. Illness which has plagued Harry since we moved here. I don't think he's been well for more than a week at a time. Endless cold upon cold upon cold. We're now on the 2nd round of antibiotics as the first didn't work and possibly caused a rash. There's a permanent trail of green snot hanging from his nose and we've been stuck to the house for more days than I care to think about! I cannot take him to daycare at the gym or baby music or any other activity if he's got green snot / is under the weather because it's not fair on the other kids, even if he's OK in himself.... which he mostly is but occasionally isn't.
The odd thing is that the rest of us haven't caught any of these bugs, whatever they are. We must be immune. And I suspect the weather must have something to do with this too, with it not getting cold enough to kill off these bugs. One good thing abou sub zero temperatures I suppose (perhaps the only good thing?). It's a mild 10 or so degrees celcius here most of the time...... the kind of weather that never requires a coat unless you're going to be walking any significant length of time outside.
Next weekend we're off to DISNEYLAND (yay!) for Dylans birthday for a few days. And the forecast for there gives 72 degree sunshine- I can't wait!
Bartell Drugs (aka Bart HELL drugs) , our local pharmacy, is a disaster. Between us we've had to go there several times over the last couple of weeks.... G for new supplies of Insulin, me for some migraine medication, and twice for different antibiotics for Harry. Each and every time has been a bloody awful experience.
They have a drive-thru section where you pull up to the window, drop off a prescription and then later you can drive up to the window and pick up said prescription. They also have a queue inside, and they have 1 person working at distributing all these medications. This means that no matter which you do (walk or drive) you have to wait for a minimum of half an hour. Obviously the lesser of two evils is to wait in the car but you then get frustrated by them serving people who joined the walk in queue long after you drove up.... or someone in the car infront of you always having 1091820398 prescriptions filled and taking forever.
G went last week for some refills on his test strips ... fairly key things to keeping him alive and healthy. He'd been given a repeat prescription from the DR a couple of months ago and phoned through for some more. He went to pick them up from the drive-thru queue (half an hour) and when he got them home he realised they were the wrong ones and didn't work in his meter. He went back down to the pharmacy and this time went in, queued for half an hour, only to be told by the useless female behind the counter that his prescription said the ones she'd given him and that was tough.
He came home concerned and determined to call the Endocrinologist the following morning. Half an hour later the pharmacist rang to say that he'd been worried and looked through the old prescriptions and discovered that they had been mistaken, so G went back for a 3rd time to pick up the correct test strips.
A few days later I called them and asked them to get me a new prescription for migraine medication from the Doc. Someone had told me this wonderful thing in the US is that you can ring the pharmacy and they then fax the Doc, ask for prescription, get fax back, and then go and pick it up. Sounds wondefully simple doesn't it? Saves a trip to the Doc? Ha. Would have been far easier to go to the doc considering it took me 10 phone calls, multiple times of them 'forgetting' to fax the Doc and having to chase it, and finally a half an hour wait to get the damn things.
Harry got given antibiotics last week. I had to go in, because I'd not gotten a prescription for him before there and I had to do some paperwork. I had to wait in the line for ..... ooh 45 mins with him feeling poorly and upset before I could get out of there. Half an hour, they told me. I had G go and pick it up on his way home from work (2 hrs later) ... he then ended up sitting in the drive through queue for 45 mins only to find they'd not made the damn thing and then sit there for another 30 mins while they did.
This week Harry got given more antibiotics as the first lot haven't worked and he's poorly again. I drove through and dropped off the prescription yesterday (30 mins) and was told that it'd be ready in 30 mins. Once again I asked Gareth to pick it up on the way home (3 hrs later). He , once again, sat in the drive through queue for 45 mins and it wasn't ready. They went off to make it leaving him sitting there for another 20 minutes, and handed it to him. When he got it home we discovered that they'd completely mislabelled it and put the wrong doseage on it. The Doc had said 5 ml twice a day, they'd written 4ml and put a confusing 'NEEDS MIXING' instruction on the bottle which was actually something they had to do there, not us at home!
Fuckwits. If there was another option closer to home I'd go in a flash - bit scary that these people are handing out life altering medication.