we’re gonna need a bigger larder!

We may need to turn her bedroom into a pantry similar to this!

I was talking to The Girl yesterday on the phone.  Her school is closed today, but it was at rather short notice and neither myself or The Man could get the time off of work.

She still has to go in for half an hour at about midday (this is for some kind of ‘student appraisal’ with their form teachers – it’s rather bizarre, never happened in my day, and means the school is closed on the Friday before Bank Holiday? handy, aye?)

TG:  I’m doing my homework, mum – I’m being extra good!
Me: OK, that’s good.  Don’t forget you haven’t got school tomorrow
TG:  So, what’s going to happen tomorrow?
Me:  I’m afraid you’re going to have to be home alone baby
TG:  Yay! I’m finally trusted to look after myself for a day!!
Me:  Well, I wouldn’t really use the word ‘trust’ – more like ‘not much choice’.
TG:  I will be absolutely fine – I’m happy to live by myself!
Me:  LIVE by yourself?  Cool!! When are you moving out then?
TG:  Don’t be a silly mummy, you know what I meant. I will be fine by myself.  In fact I would be absolutely fine until…well, probably until the food ran out.

That’s my girl.  although knowing how much she eats, the food running out today COULD be a reality!

oompa loompa, do-ba-dee-doo

OompaLoompas were fine, whereas these freaked the hell out of me!

While getting ready this morning, The Girl looked (slightly) up at me and said:

TG:  Do you know what my goal in life is?
Me:  Nope, what?
TG:  To be at least an inch taller than you
Me:  Erm, why?
TG:  I DON’T WANT TO BE A MIDGET!!!!

Cheeky bloody bint.

geekiful

Beautys & Geeks

It’s been rather a wearing time at home for the past couple of weeks as The Girl has had problems breathing due to an infection in her windpipe!

So, today is the first day back at work – and I have been working from home while she has watched Back To The Futures 1 AND 2!

After watching that, she’s watched a couple of other things, and has just settled on what is apparently the fist programme in Series 4 of Beauty & The Geek, which I have never seen before.  Personally, I am so exhausted that I can’t even be bothered to get her to turn it over – in fact, she wants me to TiVo it!

So I said to her “So, which would you be?  Beauty or a geek?” and she said “I have absolutely NO idea, mum! I think I’d be right in the middle, cos I’m just totally average. I know I’m really geeky, but I can be a little bit of a beauty too, can’t I?”

Bless her, and she’s right!  She’s geekily gorgeous!

I have no idea what happens in Beauty & The Geek?  Should I be letting her watch it?  Does it all come out right in the end?  Is it good for trying to break down perceptions of stereotypes, or does it play to them?

(She’s currently getting VERY vocally annoyed with the girls trying to do some IQ type test that she is doing without even thinking hard!)

…the sincerest form of flattery

So, I was walking from the station to Westfield with The Girl the other day, and I was giving her an idea of how she sounds when she’s being really sullen and teenagerish.  Obviously she didn’t really like it.

TG:  Ok, mum, you can stop intimidating me now
Me:  I wasn’t
TG:  Yes you were, just now.
Me:  What are you talking about?
TG:  Just now – you were pretending to be me!!
Me:  Ohhhhh, well then you mean ‘imitate’!
TG:  Oh. OK. So what’s ‘intimidate’?
Me (glaring straight into her eyes and doing my best Ross Kemp impression):  Now, why don’t you just stop giving me jip and come shopping like a good little girl?
TG:  *pause while she just looks at me* Mum, you’re scary.
Me (smugly): No darling, I’m intimidating
TG: *thinks, then gives me a big grin* But you don’t sound anything like me!
Me (sarcastically):  Oh ha ha. Touché.
TG:  What’s touché?
Me:  A turtle
TG:  WHAT?!?!?!!?

*snigger*

modesty doesn’t become her

She truly is!

Last week, when I got home one night, The Girl was on the phone.  I wasn’t sure who to, but she was happily chatting away.

When she finished, she came and said hello to me and then asked:

TG:  Have you got anything planned for me next week?
Me:  Well, just a couple of things, but that’s Monday and Tuesday, why?
TG:  Would it be OK if I stayed at grandma and grandad’s for a couple of nights?

I assumed that must have been who she had been on the phone to, so said:

Me:  yeah, that’s probably OK.  When, and how long for?
TG:  Oh, I don’t know yet?  Shall I ring them and check that it’s OK?
Me:  Erm…who were you just on the phone to?
TG:  Dad.
Me:  So – erm, grandma & grandad haven’t spoken to you about this?
TG:  No
Me:  So you want to ring them up to invite yourself round?
TG:  Yes
Me:  Don’t you think that’s a bit presumptious?
TG:  But grandma & grandad LOVE having me over!!!!

I am not actually sure that her head can get much bigger…

the important things in life

Knock, knock at the knocking house...

I am currently watching BBC London News, and there has just been a rather lengthy piece on the police raiding a brothel.

The Girl is eating her dinner and watching the news and has been making loads of comments and asking questions about previous stories, so I was a little concerned what she was going to ask me during this particular segment.

There were pixelated faces and loads of words being bandied around such as ‘prostitute’, ‘brothel’, ‘sex-worker’, ‘madam’, ‘client’ and I was gradually getting more and more wary as she looked as if she was concentrating rather intently.

Suddenly, there was a quick soundbite from the slightly chavvy looking, heavily pierced next-door neighbour of this particular brothel, when The Girl finally decided she had something to say.

“Do you know, you can get an infection from having your ears pierced twice.”

just a 6″ belt

Rendered speechless

Last night, my daughter managed to shock me speechless.  Yes, even after everything I have gone through with her over the years, she has still managed to completely flabberghast me!

So, I spoke to her while I was at work, and told her that if she came down to meet me at the station, I’d buy her dinner at Le Delice before she went to Guides.  This made her very very happy – as it would, Le Delice is divine!

I got to Walthamstow Central and looked up the slope to where I could see her standing.  I did a double-take, I squinted, I did a triple-take, and then (unfortunately) I realised that what I thought I couldn’t possibly be seeing, I really really WAS seeing!

I composed myself, walked towards her, tried to ignore her great big happy smile, leant close into her ear and said to her:  “WHERE…IS…YOUR…SKIRT?!?!”

And her response?: “I forgot it!”

well, if you WILL drink like a fish…

Hungover much?

On Saturday, The Man went to the pub for his usual stint (about 2pm – 6pm).  I popped in for one quick one to say hello to a few people after meeting in the wonderful Le Delice with some of the Awesomestow Twitterati.

However, we were then invited back to the pub later to help celebrate The Man’s best mate’s 40th.  So, we took The Girl over for a while, and then I brought her back home and watched a couple of films.

He came back about 12.30, followed shortly by his mate and his wife, who were a bit ‘night out happy’ as they haven’t had many since their son was born.  They had brought champagne with them, and we had champagne too.  I stuck to vodka (not being much of a champagne drinker), and the 3 of them polished off the bottles – this is on top of the Guinness and gin that The Man had been drinking already.

Our mates left about 3.45am.

Yesterday morning, I got up, did a little work, got dressed, took The Girl to Walthamstow Farmer’s Market to get Giggly Pig ‘sausages in a roll’, before getting the train and taking her to the British Museum.  This was followed by afternoon tea at the Radisson in Bloomsbury (a post on that later) and then off to have her hair cut.

When we got home, 6 hours after we’d left, The Man had barely managed to make it out of bed to watch the footie and was lying on the sofa groaning and complaining that he obviously had cancer of the head, cos it hurt so much.

He lay there groaning and complaining a bit more, until The Girl (happily bouncing around checking out her new hair) gave him a hug and said:

“Oh come ON!  It’s not that bad!  It’s not like you’ve got a brain tuna or something!”

I kid you not.  Best entertainment of the day…

have my cake and eat it

The Girl always pulls out the crocodile tears...

I have been going through a difficult patch with The Girl again.

One of the (many) problems I have with her is that when she gets told off, it’s never her fault – she’s never actually done soemthing wrong off her own back.  Oh no, when she’s worked me up and given me attitude again and again and again until i’ve lost my rag with her, she’ll burst into floods of tears and then wheel out a story of how SHE is having a hard time at the moment, and how *I* just simply don’t understand!

So, after annoying me rather admirably today, and being told in no uncertain terms how disappointed in her I am, she stormed off to her room shouting and screeching like a fishwife, only to return 5 minutes later in a stream of tears telling ME that what she’s so upset about is the fact that there is nobody at all in her life who has ever loved her, that I don’t love her, that I have never loved her, that I didn’t love her before she was born and that I obviously don’t love her now.

Me:  Yes, of course, *I* really don’t love YOU.  That’s right.  Everything I have ever done for you is because I don’t love you.  Well done for finally realising this.

TG:  I’ve been thinking a lot recently about runnign away

Me:  Running away? Really? How interesting

TG:  Yes, not that you’d care

Me:  No, of course not, because I don’t love you, obviously

TG:  No, you’d probably think it was great if I ran away.  You’d probably have a party and a great big chocolate cake and eat it all yourself!

Me:  Don’t be so silly

TG:  Really? You wouldn’t?

Me:  Of course not – if I was having a party, I wouldn’t eat all the cake myself.  That’s just rude.

*SIGH*

Bloody child.  She’ll be the death of me.  Love her to pieces, but she isn’t making it easy the past few months.

the day the girl became quicker than me

This was the actual cake we watched them making yesterday

We were watching Cake Boss yesterday (as you do – thanks to @jezza9 for pointing out its existence), and they were making little fondant icing people for a cake for someone called ‘Snooki’ and her mum – and very artisitcally I have to say.

They’d put their eye whites on, but hadn’t finished them and The Girl said “Ewww, they all look like zombies!”

“That’s because they haven’t put their pupils in yet”, I replied.

“I think they’d find it hard seeing through 30 children”, she answered.

And I hate to admit, it took me at least 5 seconds to realise just how witty she’d been.  Before I groaned.