Sunday we took the boys to see Father Christmas at Altons, thought we'd get in there before the December rush. Great value for money, you get a very friendly Father Christmas, a christmas card making set and a real christmas tree to plant in your garden for a fiver. Tyler was his usual chatty self but Dillon was a bit shy. Jenson just said babababa and blew a raspberry. His usual conversation, although I swear he tries to say brothers now. You just have to say that and you get a great big smile from him.

If you have some time to kill this website is perfect. Been playing about with it all day!

The B3ta website have a newsletter where at the bottom they make absurd requests for what they'd like to see. Many happily oblige, making objects from melted haribo sweets or eat brightly coloured foods to see what poo emerges. Reminds me of The Word a bit.
Anyway I have my own list that I dare Jon to do, he's yet to take up the challenge.
For example I'd like to see someone busk the hits of Paul Simon outside the curtain shop of the same name.
I want to arrange a flash mob in my local asda. Assemble the members of the SWF myspace group, take over the walking mike with Black Lace and Conga down the aisles.
One silly thing we do though is what we've called snarfstalking. We've noticed many shops (Tescos or PCWorld for example) are bluetoothable. So we take a picture of the shop or a joke one (every little helps *groan* I know photoshopping brings out the worst in me) and bluetooth it to the shop.
Back to woodham again, I had this premonition of the future.

Now parking is limited in town to 3 hours only by corporate decree, shops are closing down like nobodies business and soon parking won't be allowed down many of our residential streets. You can see how not driving and being able to escape here sometimes can drive me a bit bonkers.



Ooh new Doctor Who!


Jenson's being a poppet as usual.

Tyler and Dillon are getting excited about Christmas. Dillon is playing a ball in the Christmas play, Tyler is singing and possibly playing guitar, he has electric guitar lessons at school and they've taught him to play the Doctor Who theme. He's been sent hom with lyrics to Shakin' Stevens Christmas classic. So we use the wonders of you tube to show him the original. It's so handy, especially for nostlagic moments. I found this awful performance by Buck Fizz on Pebble Mill strangely amusing. I've been thoroughly enjoying killing time browsing through this guys collection of 80's adverts and really want to see the rest of this episode of Telly Addicts. Particularly love the TV listings there. Very Look Around You.
This week I got myself a haircut, got bored, asked for something new so got a fringe and layers. Also got some fluffy post as it's known in sling fetish circles. A gorgeous custom made reversible XT babyhawk. It's fantastically comfy, big thanks to Becky for organising that!

I'll leave you with a picture I took the other day of some yellow leaves I liked. I've noticed it's been a very yellow autumn. I'm assuming that's due to how warm it has been until very recently.

The weetabix hands particularly amuses me right now, bloody pomphloyx!

Can't wait!

Das ist Nümberwang - That Mitchell and Webb Look

For those of you who refuse to give one penny of their money to those bastards at Nestle I hope will understand my joy when the products I have missed all now have adequate replacements! There's Terrys Waifa, filling the gap kitkat chunky left, Terry's the Chocolate Orange Mint bar replacing the mint aero and finally for any lion bar urges I have Terry's Caramel Bite. Thanks Terry (whoever he is, Jon suggests Nutkins) for answering an ethical (ish) consumer out with her chocolate cravings.

If you have the time The History of Oil by that clever Rob Newman (see my husband's blog for Rob doing Pebble mill!) is worth a watch imo. You can catch it on more4 but it seems to only be on at ridiculous times like 2am. So thank goodness for things like google video and you tube eh!
I'm also rather liking this new way of displaying the time although I'm concerned that fellow synaesthesists who have already allocated colours to numbers won't remember the colour times. I colour days, today is a bit like this, tomorrow more like this and Wednesday most definately like this.

A Town Called Panic: Cake

Stuff and that

Dribble on my didy,
originally uploaded by moogyboobles.

Having 2 Alfie Kohn books on the go right now (like I have time to read!) I was so happy to read this story on rethinking primary education. My favourite bit would be
It called for an emphasis on "children's intrinsic interest in learning", instead of using "fear of disapproval or desire for praise" to motivate them.
My school years were dominated by trying to keep to he straight A standard people expected from me. I thought nobody would like me if I failed. Caused me way too much stress so I don't want my children thinking like that. I want them to learn because children are naturally curious not because they'll get a sticker/team point/marble. It's shame all this target crap ruins school.
I would actually love to home educate but I'm just too isolated for it to work. No driving and the fact there are very few home schooling families about ( I don't know of any in woodham) means I'd probably not speak to any adults other than Jon for weeks on end! If only there was a Steiner place round here.

I'm off now, QI is on. I'll leave you with my mini collage of housewifey crap that I hate. Why do they assume stay at home mums like this stuff? Drives me mad.

New BBC One Ident Montage

Jenson being highly entertained by Dillon's antics here!


I have been waiting ages for the BBC to change their idents. That do do do do do do do doo do do do..tune has been really annoying me for months now!
I'm looking forward the hippo one.

Eye eye

Those babyblues
Originally uploaded by moogyboobles.

captain..hope you all had an excellent Talk Like A Pirate Day.
TBH though apart from the E4 voice over guy and didn't experience an awful lot of pirateness. There's always next year.

Excellent Mitchell and Webb tonight (and still laughing to myself about Cheggars on Extras last week)...



From a home of Top Gear/Brainiac fans thoughts are with the Hammond and family.

2 years ago!

Wedding day.,
originally uploaded by moogyboobles.

It's our anniversary today, not that we can celebrate much so just had the usual takeaway from Chilis...our local scrummy indian fusion restaurant.
Serious multitasking evening sewing name labels into Dillon's uniform while feeding Jenson in bed. Dill starts tomorrow, he's still so little turning 4 just 2 weeks ago. He seems happy enough with the idea though.

Just Gorgeous
Originally uploaded by moogyboobles.

Jenson is as gorgeous as always,not far off 5 months now. It does amaze me though looking at him that many babies his age are already on solids! I have a theory on that...either parents mistake the 16 weekish growth spurt (where they just need more milk and feed alot to get supply up) with needing solids, or they get bored. Bored of just milk and now want highchairs, bowels and all that paraphernalia! We do it the baby led way. Having experienced the traditional 4 month puree way with Tyler (i knew no better then) and the BLW with an 8 month old Dillon I can easily say BLW is easier and much healthier.
Anyway I'm sure I'll have fun pics of a sweet potato covered Jenson and tripp trapp in a few months time!

I found the best job ever (in my opinion as someone who interrupted their Physics degree with reproducing activites) in the New Scientist this week. Imagine that! Which reminds me of the fantastic shirt I bought that husband of mine this week.

Some links -

Cosmological theories article I rather like.
Immature voiceover thingy that made me giggle (probably offend some, lots of naughty words)

and I just knew I wanted to be here! I just wasn't brave enough to do Reading with a baby.

V2006

T4 stage, originally uploaded by moogyboobles.

Jon,Jenson and I all went V on Saturday. We did plan to take them all but we found out too late that Tyler would need a ticket, we know for next time though!
We didn't hear a peep out of Jenson (except when beer was thrown over the Radiohead crowd while I was feeding him and it got him a bit!), he loved all the attention I think. I missed out on a few bands I fancied like Young Knives and Go! Team as it was too loud in a tent for a baby (I plan on getting those baby ear defenders for next time), Girls Aloud looked popular, people were flocking to that tent.
Kula Shaker were great, I like their new anti Bush song. I really enjoyed Editors, definately give a more confident performance compared with last year. Their REM Orange Crush cover was fantastic. I saw just a bit of Radiohead and Kasabian (last song we heard before we left was Empire) but decided to beat the queue out and left early. Got home in half an hour just in time to stick E4+1 on to watch what we had just seen for ourselves!

You can probably guess I'm keeping a close eye on this Gina Ford/mumsnet malarky! (loving morningpaper's apology)
This publicity is great, I'm hoping it alerts some parents to why some people hate the books she writes so much and go find out for themselves what the possible consequences of the methods advocated in such baby training type books are. It really is quite amazing (well I think so) when you learn just how much is going on in that little body, and how they are treated in these early years is so important.
I don't deny these quick fixes can work but I don't actually want the outcome you get with a trained baby. I want babies whose mind and body does what it naturally is supposed to do. They should wake at night to feed (and when nuzzled up against mum there is little disruption to sleep anyway), it's healthier from a SIDS perspective they are easier to rouse like this (see the work of James McKenna at the Mother-Baby Sleep Lab, link at the side). They should feed very frequently, they have so much growing to do, all those essential fats needed for the brain developing at a fantastic rate and teeny tummys. They should "manipulate" us into getting as many cuddles as possible. Not that the manipulation is done with intent (their little brain isn't developed enough to form that kind of thought anyway) but inate and done for survival. To make sure they thrive and are looked after properly. Trouble is the fashion for a while has been to learn to ignore this.
Babies know they need tonnes of touch and cuddles, this helps create positive healthy pathways between neurons..then we get happy, healthy and confident adults later on. You need foresight in this job, and well it's hardly a chore to snuggle up with a yummy baby.
If you leave them to cry alot and make them wait to be fed it's not helping them fulfill their potential, those synapses formed in this case are going to form a brain that's not as healthy. Hormones released under the stressful situation of being left to cry alone or seperated from parents too often have an undesirable influence too. In fact research shows they can end up with all kinds of problems, depression, learned helplessness, addictions, stress related illnesses and eating disorders. Dehydration is also a known risk when schedule feeding a baby.
I'm sure many parents if they knew would not risk this outcome for the sake of an "easy" baby and an evening to themselves. To be honest to me all this training nonsense looks like hardwork with no benefit anyway.
Now i'm on number 3 I can truly appreciate how much fun it is just to really get to know your baby and just go with the flow.

Do you think now authors can go and censor the net I can go censor books? If I got my hands on that book it would be full of blank pages..and then possibly be the best childcare book ever!

My suggested reading list if you want to know more about all that brain stuff going on (not that I think you need books, just do what feels right. I'm just a curious so and so and love to know how things work) -
The Science of Parenting
Primal Health
Why Love Matters

Feeling really crap recently. Ever since school finished. It might be a healing crisis from the homeopathic treatment for my colitis or just general run downness, I don't know exactly but somehow I have caught a cold during the heatwave! How on earth did that happen?
Anyway boys are bored already, we did all the Back to the Future's today, has to be done. Might make them watch Flight of the Navigator tomorrow. I need to get Wargames on dvd too. They will watch my childhood films if I have anything to do with it.
They may have found aliens! How did this news snippet get past me? At least I have found it now.
Jenson's being yummy and smiley. I had forgotton how lovely cosleeping is. So lovely to wake up to a happy chatty little baby next to you. Growing up too fast though.
I'm rather looking forward to Time Trumpet on Thursday night...


I'm off to bed now.

Anyone else get songs in their head when hearing the reporters on the BBC Ben Ando and Orla Moore?

All smiles

Dillon...

seems to think he's a BBC announcer!

Gurgles

Apparently -

Your Inner Child Is Naughty

Like a child, you tend to discount social rules. It's just too much fun to break the rules! You love trouble - and it seems that trouble loves you. And no matter what, you refuse to grow up!

How Is Your Inner Child?

I tag Jemma and Kell!