Monday, 30th June, 2008
As the funky funk continues, I present to you some photographs of my time in Budapest. The weekend was too short, but Anne and I had a lovely time together. Budapest is a beautiful city, far more beautiful than Warsaw, and it does have a distinct Parisian feel to it. I loved the architecture and the wrought iron railings on balconies and terraces. Some buildings are need of some serious care (Anne has a balcony which was shelled int he war and she can’t really go on there as it’s damaged structurally. The war was over 60 years ago and nobody’s fixed the balcony since. Amazing!). Once those buildings are restored and cleaned up, the city will really shine. I have a lot to say about my weekend away but until my words come back, please enjoy these photos.
Tuesday, 24th June, 2008
Next week is language week and bloggers should traditionally blog in a foreign language (or one in which you usually don’t blog). Next week is the last week of school and it should be a fairly quiet one for me (unlike this week which is mad, but I need it to be that way) so I might be able to do it.
I wonder if Pig Latin counts?
Monday, 16th June, 2008
It’s gone quiet here as I’m stuck in some hellish form of bloggers block. I sit, ponder and watch the empty box where words usually go and can’t think of a single thing to write. Oh, there’s stuff going on. But some of it can’t be blogged and other stuff just seems dull. And even if the most exciting thing were to descend upon us, I still think I’d find it hard to clobber together a few sentences that didn’t send me to sleep, nevermind you, dear blog reader. So, no blogging for now.
But I will try to tell you that next weekend, the one coming up, will see me get on a plane all by myself. I will leave my boys behind to their devices and head off to Budapest for the weekend to visit Anne. I’m very excited about seeing Budapest and I’m even more excited about getting a full two days with Anne. We’ll have coffee, chat, discuss books recently read and put the world to rights. She’s emailed me that I should bring good walking shoes as she’s got a walk-intensive tour planned. I don’t mind.
I worry slightly about leaving N with A as the latter has developed an interesting rage streak this week. He’s moving about very rapidly now (crawling) and is into everything, including electrical cables and other things he’s not supposed to have access to. Removing him gently from said things is becoming more difficult as he throws a major wobbly when we do complete with a red face, stiff body, loud screams and jerky kicks. There’s also the issue of not staying still for a second, which really becomes a problem when we try to change a very messy nappy.
N has got the experience and he is great with A, knows how to look after him, so I’m leaving a pro in charge.
Friday, 13th June, 2008
Poland’s draw last night in the Euros against Austria left us stunned. Whilst the first 20 minutes of the game were dominated by Austria, we managed to swing things around and get a goal in before half-time. We controlled most of the second half and had a couple of chances to go 2-0. The penalty was a questionable one. Pushing, shoving and pulling are as common place inside the box as players. I think Howard Webb (the ref) just wanted to grab headlines. The draw knocks us out of the Euros and repeats the pattern of the past two major tournaments: qualify relatively well, lose the first game, leave the competition after 3 games. Sometimes, it’s just a little too depressing to be a Pole.
Euros on their own have been great. Aside from one rotten game between France and Romania, all matches have been exciting. Between the two of us, we’ve caught most of them. Last night’s Croatia-Germany game was fantastic, though I only caught the first half of it because bath-bottle-story-sleep falls during half-time. I look forward to more excitement as the tournament progresses. With or without Poland.
Friday, 6th June, 2008
A couple of weeks ago, A started pulling himself forwards. He’s been pushing backwards for a while, causing a lot of frustration when he was trying to reach a particular toy. But, finally, the forward push came and since then he’s been pulling himself around on this belly with increasing speed and accuracy. He’s not quite on all fours yet, but he tries it before reverting to the belly-crawl, which gets him exactly where he wants to go (like the recycling box and dvd shelf below the tv).
He also pulls himself up: when you hold his hands as he’s lying down, he is no longer interested in just sitting up. Oh, no, he now wants to go directly into a stand. Once he’s standing he jigs up and down and squeals with happiness.
N and I realise that this is the beginning of the end. No longer will we be able to leave him in one room to make a sandwich in the kitchen. Baby-proofing of drawers, cupboards and cabinets will begin. We’ll let him have free reign over the dvd shelf, though, as there’s not much damage that he can do. Yet.
Four weeks ago, he developed a terrible rash on his chest and back, which we suspected was atopic dermatitis and that it was caused by an allergy to something. 3 pediatricians, 1 dermatologist and 1 pediatric allergy specialist confirmed that a.)it is dermatitis and b.)it was caused by an allergy (most likely milk). So, we’ve put him on hydrolised milk (Bebilon Pepti — link in Polish) and a strict diet (which only required the removal of eggs, as he was on a bit of a non-allergen diet anyhow). We’ve also got enough creams to cover the surface of the earth and some anti-histamines.
So far, his skin’s looking a lot better but he’s still scratching. I hope that disappears over the next few days as the creams and anti-histamines kick in fully. I’m fine about the allergy thing, but I hope he grows out of it. I was also going to introduce yoghurts into his diet this month (which I love, love, love) so the allergy is a bit of a bummer. But, generally, he’s a great eater and loves his solids. Except for cabbage. Don’t give that boy cabbage unless you want him to get sick all over you. What sort of a half-Polish baby is he if he won’t eat cabbage? Shhhh…don’t tell the authorities, they might take his Polish passport away.
As we move towards his first birthday (he turned 10 months’ old a few days ago), I am struck by how boyish he’s beginning to look. He’s loosing that baby face and the jerkiness of his movements, but retaining those chubby cheeks (at least for now). We’ve still got zero teeth, but both N and I keep thinking “any day now…”. His babbling is taking on an interesting form with “bababa”, “mamamama”, “bbheyawalala” and “nanana” being most frequent and it’s so much fun watching him tip his toybox over and take everything out and examine it all carefully. The past 10 months have flown by but I’ve never had so much fun (and so little sleep).
If we could only get him to stop waking up, ready to face the day before 5am, we’d be set…
Monday, 2nd June, 2008
In attempting to move the blog over to a new host, I seem to have broken it. Thanks, T, for letting me know about this! After a couple of days of tinkering and deleting, uploading, checking, deleting, uploading, checking I seem to have fixed it. Unfortunately, all your comments on the last post have been lost. I hope there are no other issues, but do give me a shout if you find anything wonky. Normal blogging will resume shortly.
Monday, 19th May, 2008
The people at work are very good at sharing DVD box sets of tv series. This was something probably started by Anne, who has a known addiction to DVD box sets. It’s a good way of watching English-language shows and it gives us something to chat about during breaks and lunches.
Recently, someone lent us the first season of Brothers and Sisters. This predictable, conservative, family-oriented show is easy to watch in the evening. What keeps us coming back is not so much the plotline, but the cast. There’s Calista Flockhart (known for her role as Ally McBeal), Rob Lowe (who used to play Sam Seaborn on The West Wing), Ron Rifkin (aka in this family as Sloane), Patricia Wetting (whom I call “that woman from thirtysomething) and Sally Field (whom we call “Sally Field”).
Our conversations about this show go a little something like this:
- Hey, is Sloane Jewish?
- I don’t know. I think he’s got the hots for that woman from thirtysomething, though.
- You mean, like Ally McBeal has the hots for Sam Seaborn?
- Yeah, but does she know that Sam loves Cuddy
-No, probably not. But then again, Sam doesn’t know that Cuddy has got a soft spot for House.
With the recent arrival of that guy who used to be Samantha’s boyfriend on Sex and the City, the cast is full of well-known faces! It’s a shame the plot’s a bit predictable.
It might get a little quieter on the blog for the next few weeks. I’ve signed up to mark some external exams and that’s going to take up most of my spare time and I won’t have as much time to post as I would normally. But don’t worry, I’ll be back soon(ish).
