Widdle and Puke

A Story Book.

"The cats nestle close to their kittens now.

The lambs have laid down with the sheep.

You’re cozy and warm in your bed, my dear

Please go the fuck to sleep."

Adam Mensbach.

From Go The Fuck To Sleep, a story book for the sleep-deprived parent. A GENIUS story book for the sleep-deprived parent. Thanks Amber.

'Adam Mansbach's daughter, Vivien, is two and a half.

This is his first children's book. You probably should not read it to actual children, and if you do, he cannot be held legally responsible.' Amazon.

les vacances

 

I need your help lovers.  We have just booked our first vacances en famille (get me with google traslator), we're spending two weeks in the south of France with Nye's parents. Whether or not this is wise is debatable but who can resist family in the south of France? 

While we're there Nye and I are going to leave the bubs with his parents and go to the coast for a couple of days by ourselves.  A COUPLE OF DAYS BY OURSELVES PEOPLE.  AND NOT EVEN AT A WEDDING.  (Sorry about the shouting, but you know...)

The thing is, we don't know where to go.  N's parent's live pretty much in the middle, about an hour from the sea, so the whole south coast is open to us.  Do we go east, towards the beautiful people?  Or west, towards the Spaniards?  (I'm sorry, that was rude. I actually think the Spanish are very beautiful. I'm just pale and jealous.)

We are looking for:

• a small town or villiage

• right by the sea

• where we can swim

• and eat good food

• and stay in a small, possibly slightly run-down, rather cheap, family-owned type of a hotel type of thing.

• (where the people aren't too beautiful)

Do you have any recommendations?  Because really, we don't have a damn clue where to start. Thanks loves. 

* photograph courtesy of Berta.

meaning

It's Easter Sunday. That it's Easter Sunday doesn't mean a whole lot to me though.  That it's Sunday, that it's quiet, that the sun is pouring through the window of my kitchen which smells of New York (coffee and cinnamon bagels), that we weren't working yesterday and we aren't working today, that birds are chirping in the trees,  that I just had a stolen week away from the internet, that I spent not one but three days this week with friends: in cafes, in the sunshine, in my kitchen eating homecooked food, that an hour has gone buy where I sat quietly in the morning light reading a book alone, that Amelia has learned to roll over and that Ella discovered a slice of lime last night, that we are planning not one but two adventures with our girls this year, that my husband is my best friend and my babies smile when they see me; those are things that mean a whole damn lot to me.

Happy Easter, if that's your thing.  Happy Sunday if it's not.  

 

The babies are asleep, Nye is asleep, his mum has just left to catch the first train to the airport.

It's 8.12am and it's me, the rabbit, the quietly ticking clock, the birds chittering through the fresh spring leaves and a cup of coffee, steam rising silently in the golden morning sunlight.

It is quiet, it is still, it is heaven.

sub-clause 7b

CLAUSE 7: PROMISES FULFILLED

Sub-clause 7b: DOGS

On such an occasion as a wedding-dog is promised that does not materialise, the photographers reserve the right to leave the event.

The provision of a four-course meal and local micro brew may reverse such a decision.

We are in full flow with the old wedding thing again. It's wonderful. No, really.

I love my babies and they're so much fun to be with but it's also quite fantastic to get out and use the photography bit of my brain again and to spend a day with Nye not being parents. Weird thing though: when we were trying to make babies and there was a baby at a wedding I would wistfully follow it around all day. I thought it was because I WANTED one. Now that I have one two, I still wistfully follow them around all day, desperate for a cuddle and a chat and to just soak in the cuteness. Turns out I'm obsessed.

* 1920s wedding photo via Alan Knocker

oddities

God the internet is wonderfully odd.

(thanks Chloe)

* photo by unknown photographer, via Buzzfeed.

engage brain, then speak

Yeah, I could do with listening to my own advice.

I would like to take a moment to acknowledge that I say stupid things ALL THE TIME. Mortifying things. Things that instantly make me wish I was dead because then the horror would stop. Things that I, who will willingly embarrass myself here will not be telling because you will jugde me (yesyouwill).

In my defense: I DIDN'T MEAN IT.

BUT. I have never told someone else that their (perfectly well-behaved) children are trouble. So at least I have that to be proud of.

* rabbit, by Steve Hoskins via The Daily Bunny.

Double whatever

"double trouble!" (always either smug (thank god I was clever enough not to have twins) or snide (you are clearly an idiot for having twins). )

I have no idea how to respond to this. Because:

a) it's a stupid thing to say

b) it's a boring thing to say

c) it's rude.

I mean really, where do you go with it? (I get that it's just one of those things that people say without thinking and without meaning to cause offence, like the things men say to other men about marriage. But really, come on people. I do not buy 'not thinking' as an excuse for what comes out of your mouth. Engage brain THEN speak.)

Usually I smile politely and keep walking (or doing whatever I'm doing), taking advantage of the mother's prerogative to be too busy and too tired to stop and chat (with idiots), but some people are belligerent. To wit:

(yesterday, at the post office)

her: "Double trouble!"

me: smile politely, continue with posting packages

her: "I bet you hear that all the time!"

me: "quite often"

her: "well, it is true."

me: smile politely, continue posting

her: "They really are double trouble!"

me: aware that silence is not working "And double the fun and love."

her: "Oh for now, because you're in control. Wait until they're in control. It will be hell!"

me: less smiling, more determined silence.

I've heard a lot of twin parents talk about the best response to the "double trouble" drudgery. Discussions about how best to educate people to the fact that 1) twins are the best and 2) it's pretty rude to call other people's kids 'trouble', however many of them there feature on every multiples forum that there is. The search for the perfect one-line response is rife and almost everyone falls back on the (equally witty I must admit) "double the positives too" quip. But it's not working, people are determined to tell me how awful I have it having two babies at once. So from now on the conversations are going to go like this:

her: "Double trouble!"

me: "Fuck off you moron."

(smile politely, keep walking)