best-laid plans

Monday, September 22, 2008

Oooh, work has nice gym. Hadn't set foot in a gym in five years, not since finding I was pregnant with Becca, thinking 'Ha! but I am going to be one of these mummies who works out right through her pregnancy' and then the vomiting started, and that was that really*. For five years. Went back on Saturday, and then again tonight: now have v sore arms, but it's a smug sort of sore. Best bit: having entire, pristine, swimming pool to myself; floated on back in the middle, bobbing up and down all meditative like Juliette Binoche in Trois Couleurs: Bleu. And not an Elastoplast in sight. May never leave the Parliamentary Service.

Off to Auckland to visit distaff side on Wednesday. May also go to the zoo.

*is remarkably good abs exercise, if you keep it up for long enough. Like, say, for nine frickin' months.

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start turning purple

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Maggie has taken to bursting in on my violin practices and doing a little jig while flapping her arms and making excited noises. We've decided she's got gestational klezmer: as Jack says, like gestational diabetes, but funkier.

And don't get me started on 'Zvezda Rok-N-Rolla', by Russian ska-punk band Leningrad: a recent addition to the Rebs repertoire, it's now Becca's absolute favourite song in the world ever, eliciting screams of joy when we play it in the car, and pleas for repeat hearings. After months of which she can now produce a creditable imitation of the Russian lyrics, which are, sadly, of such surpassing filthiness that we're unlikely to take her to Russia any time soon lest acute social awkwardness ensue when she decides to start singing the rather rousing chorus: it'd be like taking her to the US and having her break into 'Too Drunk To Fuck'. My word, I'm a bad mother.

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nsfw

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

This will almost certainly appear on the Daily Show; call me puerile, but it did cheer me up at the end of a long day with the kids.

Becca is no longer throwing up. Although it didn't take her long to work out that claiming to need to is a great way to prolong an already long day. Now if she could just manage to stop smirking while she's doing it. Next week we're taking them to Auckland and unleashing them on the grandparents; Becca got very excited when we told her about our travel plans, before gravely informing us that it was a good thing Gran had plenty of ice cream containers, as she would be able to vomit into them. The war stories look likely to continue for some time...

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Monday, September 15, 2008

Maggie likes her food

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simple stuff, but from the heart

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could i have a translation, please?

Saturday, September 13, 2008

This morning, Maggie toddled into the study, climbed up onto the swivelly chair in front of the PC, opened a Word document, and issued the following set of demands:

m

3

.0 n

0.nv b # s jnbhbgfvffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

I have no idea what she means, but I'm pretty sure she's serious.

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reduce, reuse, recycle

Memo to self in 2004: when you are equipping a house for your first baby, don't buy a sofa with feather stuffing. Vinyl-covered foam rubber would be a more suitable choice. Or better still, bales of newspaper.

Becca's got a stomach bug and has spent the last couple of days cycling between grey and listless, burning and shivering, and screaming and vomiting (this is generally the nocturnal phase). She does seem to be coming out of it though, thank God: principal sign that she's getting her groove back is that she's resumed treating me with her ususal cheery disdain (No, not you, Mummy, I want DADDY). Roll on adolescence. And in the meantime we're monitoring a still pink and perky Maggie for signs of malaise.

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fun for all the family

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Before I forget, Sunday is Open Day at Parliament, as well as the 150th anniversary of the Parliamentary Library, where I work as of about 10 weeks ago. Come on in, have a look around and say hi: I'll be lurking in the library wearing a standard-issue baseball cap, helping direct traffic and answering questions (with blank looks, mostly: it has only been a few weeks).

Have also been unaccountably roped into the Library choir: we're performing an amusing 150th anniversary song at the staff party on Friday. In the style of a High Church psalm. Bit of a change from Klezmer.

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around the point

Sunday, September 07, 2008

Went for a mood-enhancing bike ride this afternoon - first time in months, despite my good intentions (around the next bend the fiery pit is bubbling away, but then it's been a hell of a year). Perfect day for a ride though – clear, still and only slightly chilly. We rugged up the kids for a trip to the beach; J dropped me and Red Girl at the end of Cobham Drive and I pedalled around Miramar Point and along the south coast to meet up with him and kids at Lyall Bay. Best moment: cresting the rise in Seatoun up to the cutting and through to Breaker Bay to see the South Island sitting there across the water all pretty dusted with snow. Runner-up good moment: realising halfway though that my odo was still set to Imperial and that I'd actually been going 1.6 times faster than I'd thought.

I can now play "Sympathique", by Pink Martini (and as covered by the Rebs), on the appropriately pink uke J picked up the other week. E flat minor 6 is a bugger.

Here's a photo of the Rebs at the Klez/Slow Food fest last week.

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things of joy and beauty

Saturday, September 06, 2008

Here's a tip for the frugal: the Wellington City Libraries have added the Naxos Music and Naxos Jazz Libraries to their databases. Log on from home using your library card ID by going here. God bless the internet!

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