The Backstreet Boys most devoted fan. Ever.

I’ve been doing a lot of laundry this week.

Putting something in your mouth and chewing is something we largely take for granted until we have to teach someone else to do it. Especially someone who, as of yet, has no teeth and has subsisted for 6 months of life on an entirely liquid diet. (Quite frankly, the Prawn can remain toothless for as long as she wants. The minute they come through, The Rock Star and I are going to have to start brushing them and I can only imagine that this process will be only slightly easier than trying to tango with an octopus.)

So, we’ve started on solids.

There is quite literally a bewildering array of advice in terms of weaning floating around. When you should start. What you SHOULD give. What you SHOULDN’T give. How much salt is too much? How much sugar is too much? Do you mash, mush or puree? I myself have been given conflicting advice by two midwives working AT THE SAME SURGERY. In light of this obvious lack of organization among health professionals, I have taken my own path which is called, “Feed My Daughter Things That Don’t Make Her Vomit Or Bored Enough to Simply Smear In Her Hair”. It seems to be working out okay. My full color recipe book of the same title will be in stores in time for Christmas.

We are pretty much still at the textured goo stage. In a fit of supermommy ingenuity, I prepared an actual meal for the Prawn several nights ago; the same meal that her father and I were having, which included salmon, mashed potatoes and peas. I was tremendously pleased with myself; not only had I prepared a tasty, nutritious, low salt meal for my daughter, I had made enough for two MORE meals for her which I promptly stuck in the freezer.

Of course, it made the Prawn gag. Try as we might, shovelling ejected comestibles back into her gaping maw, we could not get her to eat until we gave up and went back to the organic puree that we’d been starting her out on. (Which, by the way, looks god awful, but she seems to think that a broccoli, pea and pear combo is manna from heaven.) So, to the health visitor who so confidently proclaimed that babies don’t NEED food to be pureed, even at the beginning, I say please kiss my ass. YOU feed her. I am investing in a hand blender asap and the Prawn WILL eat her food in liquid-ish form for a bit.

It could certainly be worse. I could be feeding her crisps. I could be putting Coke in her bottle. (No shit. One of the midwives I talked to early on told me she’d run into someone who was doing this) I could be Britney Spears. Eating mushy food for a bit will not be the worst thing to ever happen to the Prawn.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment with a stain treater and three bibs covered in day old Weetabix.

My mother is an extraordinary baker of cakes. Although it has been rather a long time since she had to make one in the shape of a large doll or flower garden, in the heyday of my childhood birthday parties, her cakes were not only tasty, but works of art. I remember hanging out in the kitchen while she used her bewildering array of cake decorating supplies- little silver nozzles attached to bags that spewed forth colourful icing, most of which I was allowed to lick when she was finished. (Then she’d spend the rest of the day trying to peel me off the ceiling depending on which food coloring she’d used.)

Every one of her culinary sweet things was an unqualified success aside from the unfortunate batch of cupcakes that she prepared for my 4th grade class that ended up tasting exactly like Rubber Cement because we glued little ears and whiskers onto the cake wrappers. Whoopsie. Luckily, this was in the days before frequent, petty lawsuits. Mom now sticks to more adult friendly cakes that include copious amounts of rum and raspberry cordial and less industrial adhesives.

The Prawn is now officially half a year old. I remembered seeing a photo of a ½ birthday cake that my mother made for me smeared all over my face and thought I’d like to do something similar. (Make a cake, not smear it on my face.) In preparation, I bought my first icing bag and nozzles at John Lewis, thinking that everyone including the cashier who rung me up could probably see that my first attempt was likely to be a bit of a hash.

“I’m going to bake you a cake, girlie,” I told the Prawn.

“I don’t doubt it, Mummy,” she seemed to say, “but the day will likely end with more icing on you than on your chocolate sponge.”

In the meantime, between the purchase of ingredients and decorating implements, BoyRacer and Trumpet only went and got themselves engaged. So it was pretty obvious that one cake was not going to cut it.

Betty Crocker is my cake goddess and her mixes always produce cakes of extraordinary moist tastiness, so the process of turning one of those babies out wasn’t too difficult. My only regret is that my tongue is not adequately shaped to get all the batter out of the spokes of the mixer. It is a feat of self control that I waited until after switching it off to begin the licking process.

The icing was another matter. My only frames of reference were dim and fuzzy memories of haunting the kitchen while my mother worked. I remembered the white icing bags, the nozzles, the food coloring…but not exactly how to use them. Without being excruciatingly boring, I will suffice to say that I now have 2/3rds of a can of salmon colored frosting left over and a shirt that’s going to need some stain treatment before it goes in the wash.

At any rate, you can see the results. Duff and Trumpet returned from their holiday (they spent a week at Uncle Investment’s villa also) last night and we celebrated their impending union by demolishing a bottle of champagne, all of the engagement cake and part of the Prawn’s birthday cake.

The Prawn, being too cranky to remain vertical and conscious for the bulk of the celebration, will get her token frosting-smeared moment this afternoon with lunch for the benefit of posterity.

I hope to become more proficient at the art of cake decoration before she asks for a Taj Mahal themed birthday party.

So, apparently, fall has happened while I wasn’t looking.

I should have expected it really, as it is the 18th of September. But when you spend a week pretty much running around in your underwear, it can be easy to forget that, at home, we have, you know, seasons.

It wouldn’t be a holiday for me if it hadn’t begun with a slight amount of chaos. Being newbies at baby travel, we managed to forget a good many things, including copious numbers of Prawn sunhats that I’ve been collecting in anticipation of this trip, most of my clothes (this is the second occasion that I’ve arrived somewhere with little or nothing to wear) and most significantly, the keys to the villa where we were staying. Luckily, the later of these items, we discovered in time for my ever patient father in law to dash back to our flat and then back to the airport at 4 in the morning to get them to us before we passed through security.

Navigating an airport with the Prawn for the first time was a bit of an eye opener. There are few environments MORE hectic and the addition of a baby who most likely needs a bit of sedation just adds a new dimension of tension. Here’s an exercise not for the faint of heart; go through security with a baby on your hip, trying to take off your shoes, belt and handbag and then try to reassemble yourself on the other side, baby still on hip. It’s not so easy.

Our travelling companions were our friends, Mr. Steve, his wife, the Danish Muffin and their one year old son, Coneass the Barbarian. (The Danish Muffin and I met about 3 years ago while working under the bipolar yolk of a common employer) They were a good deal more experienced in travelling with children and managed not to forget anything, despite getting up at 3am for our 6.40am flight. (Note to self- it’s not worth having “an extra day” of holiday if you are far too tired to enjoy it.)

The Prawn surprised us all by passing out completely for nearly an hour, missing take off and the loudest of the chavery that was occurring behind us courtesy of the airport bar. Who needs beer at 5am? At any rate, while the rest of the tiny fleshpods on the plane were screaming their heads off, the Prawn slept, coo-ed and batted her eyelashes at all and sundry.

After spending the obligatory hour and a half at the car rental facility upon our arrival, we finally made it to The Rock Star’s Uncle Investment’s beautiful villa, high on a hill over looking the scrubby hillsides and coastline near Faro. The Rock Star and I spent a weekend there last summer when I was about 8 weeks pregnant and I spent a lot of the time feeling pretty nauseous, so it was good to revisit the place, Prawn in tow, for a slightly less vomit inducing experience.

The pool was the first stop for all of us. The Prawn’s first experience with a large body of water was not exactly an unqualified success. We were probably foolish to try her out after an early morning flight and on an empty stomach, but we have documented video evidence that the Prawn REALLY hated the pool. An ear-piercing hate that she shared with most of the neighbourhood. We were a little disappointed. As the week wore, on, however, subsequent trips into the water were met with much splashing and many smiles.

One often hears the expression, “they’re okay to hang out with, but you wouldn’t want to go on holiday with them” in reference to one’s personal associates. Luckily, Mr. Steve and The Danish Muffin are EXACTLY the kind of people that we wanted to go on holiday with. Besides sharing a common sense of humor, world views and love of books, it was nice to be able to share the experience with another couple with children, as even the most relaxing holiday with children is probably more stressful than an average week at the office. Had we gone with The Rock Star’s brother, BoyRacer and his SO, Trumpet, we would have spent the entire time feeling even MORE stressed about any fussing or shouting. (They are happily luxuriating at the villa this week, in peace and quiet.)

A week with a slightly older child was rather illuminating in a lot of ways. One of these was the incredible variety of children’s television (Uncle Investment has every Sky channel except for the dirty ones) and how infernally creepy a lot of it seems to be. We were introduced finally to the ever popular “Dora the Explorer”, which actually seems to have a good deal going for it other than the fact that the lead character, her family and all of her friends (including an anthropomorphic monkey) spend all of their time shouting. HOLA, DORA! CAN YOU TURN THE VOLUME KNOB DOWN A LITTLE? GRACIAS! Coneass the Barbarian was a big Dora fan, but an even bigger Thomas the Tank Engine fan. This program naturally lends itself to sideline comments by adults. It led to a fairly in-depth and innuendo laced conversation about shunting mail trucks and large funnels.

Portugal is one of the EU’s poorer countries. It seems that a lot of the world’s favourite vacation spots are often poverty ridden and that locals end up cleaning the palatial pads of foreign property investors. The Rock Star remarked that there was little sign of any kind of infrastructure, although there must be one. The roads were one of the signs of this as there were potholes, even on busy stretches of road, that were big enough to swallow any vehicle smaller than a VW Polo. Mr. Steve and the Danish Muffin lost a hubcap to one such pothole, but were lucky enough to spot it the following day as we were heading to the beach. Mr. Steve did a small victory dance with it at the side of the road.

We also got to spend some time relaxing on nearby beaches. We ventured further west on this visit than on our previous one, to the town of Albufiera and one of its rather magnificent rocky beaches, Sao Rafael. The water of the Atlantic around the Algarve was still fairly swimmable. I’ve always loved swimming in the sea apart from getting a huge case of the heebie jeebies about what might be sneaking up on me. Since one of the snack bar’s salad-du-jours included fresh octopus, I regarded everything that brushed against my leg as a potential menace, and scampered for the shore more than once because of errant seaweed. I don’t know why octopi give me a terminal case of the willies as opposed to other ocean dwellers (such as it’s much more dangerous native friend the Portuguese Man O’ War) but they just make me want to crawl out of my skin.

Mr. Steve and the Danish Muffin pretty much had their hands full trying to make sure Coneass didn’t ingest too much sand or get washed out to sea. The Prawn, being pretty much still immobile, made her contribution to the day by having a nappy blow-out so severe that the babygro that she wearing made it into the trash rather than into the laundry. And we shall never speak of that again.

Other than our two excursions to the other nearby beach at Vale Do Lobos (a country club/golf course) we spent most of our time enjoying the villa, snacking copiously, drinking copiously, watching the cricket and the rugby (Mr. Steve and the Rock Star engaged more heavily in this particular activity) and strolling around the grounds. It was not so much a “doing” holiday, but rather a “being” holiday. Just what we needed.

But now we’re back and I’ve had to unpack the sweaters. The Prawn will likely see her first leaf turning soon after her first swim.

Already dreaming of next summer…

Blogapotamus is off to sunnier (hopefully) climes for a week. I shall not be far from broadband, but I’m probably going to spend most of the week trying to keep the Prawn from falling in the pool or drinking daddy’s rum, so I may check in midweek.

Can someone pause the web until I get back?

Okay, so we all know that being a teenager sucked rocks. And equally, we now all think that TEENAGERS suck rocks. And throw them too, if you’ve been watching the news lately. I know that the visible teens in our village are pretty much assholes, but you think back to your own teenage years, I’m sure that just about every one of us can think of many occasions on which we behaved like total dicks in public or in private.

Some of you know that we recently got new neighbours. The family downstairs (a mum, dad and toddler) moved out and a late 30 something single mother and her 14ish year old son moved in. I’m kind of crazy about my living space, especially since the Prawn arrived, so naturally, any new neighbours were going to be the subject of my hypersensitivity. The Rock Star has been good in keeping my annoyance gland in check. He’s reminded me of the fact that although things that they do might be vaguely irritating, they’re still ENTIRELY in their rights to do them. (i.e. throwing a basketball against the wall of the building in the afternoon, smoking in their garden which forces us to close our windows, etc.) I think my general irritation with the inconsiderate nature of the public in general has made me a lot more sensitive to things that drive me up a tree in my living space. But this is my OWN problem, and not that of my neighbors, so I’ve let it go.

However, last week, around about 9.30pm, all hell broke loose when the young man downstairs decided to act his age. Through our closed front door I heard thumping around, some liberal usage of the f-word and then, a building shaking door slam.

The Prawn, who was having one of those nights when she doesn’t feel like falling asleep, woke up from a light doze and started howling.

“I’m just going to go have a quick word with the neighbours.” I told the Rock Star, who was attempting to persuade the wailing Prawn to please put a sock in it.

Downstairs, I found who I assumed to be a rather shocked friend of Mr. Shouty Slammy staring at a closed door, behind which I could hear a full blown ruckus erupting.

“Are you here to speak to your friend?” I asked brusquely.

The teenager nodded miserably.

“You don’t mind if I have a word first, do you?”

He shook his head and I knocked.

I’m not sure who the fellow who answered was, but he assured me that things were being “sorted out” and he was sorry for the disturbance.

Fast forward to last night, round about 8.30pm when we get a knock on our door and it turns out to be the kid from downstairs.

“I just wanted to apologise for my behaviour last week. I was really angry with my mum and I was out of line shouting and slamming doors like that. I hope it didn’t disturb you too much.”

Color me gobsmacked. I told him thank you very much and it was very nice of him to come up to speak to us.

After closing the door, I had to think that there is NO WAY I would have had the guts to do that when I was 14, even WITH some pretty extreme parental encouragement. Behaving like an asshole is one thing, but having the guts to go to someone, OWN your assholic behaviour and apologise for it, that takes some cajones. For someone of ANY age. Saying “I’m sorry” is a lost art in an age of non-responsibility.

So, hats off the big ball of hormones living in #1.

In my fondest daydreams, I have always wished for true Pre-Raphaelite hair. Long, flowing, wavy and effortless. The truth is, I will NEVER have this hair due to the fact that my actual hair is thin and brittle as glass and pretty much just stops getting any longer because of extreme split ends; split ends that have gone to Split End Academy. As a result of said industrial strength hair breakage, I decided over the weekend that I had finally had enough and asked my hairdresser, an extremely straight man called Steve, if he wouldn’t mind awfully chopping it all the hell off. I’m pretty pleased with the result, to be honest and will be spending the rest of the day tossing my head like a show pony.

My barnet has had quite a tawdry history. During middle school, my mother introduced me to the concept of perms, which is probably one of the reasons for the sorry state of my hair at the moment. So paranoid was I about the straight flatness of my ‘do that I would submit to nearly 40 minutes of hairdressing every morning in order to insure that I would not end the day looking like there was a dead racoon on my head.

Of course, no teenager’s life would be complete without some pretty drastic experimentation and in an ill-conceived notion to become part of the alternative music scene, I allowed a pseudo-friend to shave a portion of my skull. This was, of course, not as large a mistake as the fit of self loathing pique several years later in which I simply took a scissors to my hair, not really caring so much what it looked like until afterwards when I tearfully begged my mother to make an emergency appointment at the salon with a stylist called Cheryl who said, “Well, you won’t be doing THIS again anytime soon, will you?”

I didn’t discover dying products until my freshman year in college when I reasoned to myself that I wanted to dye my hair for a play that I was in, but really, I just wanted to do it because it’s simply what everyone else on my hall was doing after having been dumped by their high school boyfriends. Naturally, I assumed that “temporary” black hair color MEANT that it would eventually wash out, but due to the freak-like nature of my follicles, they sucked up that dye faster than Paris Hilton at a….well, wherever, and I found that I had instantly gone from dirty blonde to Queen of the Damned. I expected a horrified reaction from my parents when I returned home for Thanksgiving, but to my surprise, my mother was pleased because for the first time in my life, I actually LOOKED like her daughter. (My mother has black hair and brown eyes.)

Since having the Prawn, I’ve experienced the phenomenon that just about every child-bearing woman warned me about- the hair loss. I have to admit that I was more than a little pissed off about this as I seem to have missed out on the gorgeous, lustrous hair DURING pregnancy that had also been promised to me. So, having been screwed out of that, you can imagine my chagrin when I began to notice enough hair in my brush and the drain to make little tiny coats for those god-awful hairless cats. (Is there anyone who DOESN’T want to put little clothes on those poor, ugly creatures?) So, after spending every day wondering when I was eventually going to look like Captain Picard, I finally decided to bow to the scissors.

So, have I done well?