Issues with time...

Yesterday morning, Olivia got herself out of bed, got her uniform on straight away and was downstairs watching telly before I got up. I hardly had the heart to remind her it was Saturday, poor thing. She doesn't quite have the whole week sorted out yet - and as they went on their school trip on Friday, I think that confused her a bit as to what day it was. She ought to know that any day I don't have to drag her out of bed when the alarm goes off, isn't a school day...

I'm not that much better myself - despite reminding myself all week that the clocks go forward this morning, I managed to forget to turn forward last night, and indeed, didn't think about it this morning until a friend arrived to take the girls to a birthday party at quarter past what I was thinking was 10, but what was really 11! At least they were more or less ready. Glad I wasn't the one doing the driving.

New glasses

And here she is...So far, so good - she's managed not to lose or break them yet. And yes, I do think she looks like me in this photo. (Indeed, all the time.) 

Christmas in March...

One of the strange things about watching American television series in the UK is that they often don't run at the time of year they would have run in the US. This is not a problem for shows like Lost, where seasonality is irrelevant, but for stuff like ER, which tries to more or less keep to the seasons of the real world, you end up watching the Christmas show in March. In a way, this is a good thing, because sometimes there's way too much Christmas at Christmas time, but it's also kind of surreal. Of course, it's cold enough here to be Christmas - in fact, to be Christmas in Chicago, so it doesn't feel nearly as odd as it might do in March in London...

Haircut!

This was entirely Olivia's idea - she's been talking about it for a few weeks, so we decided to go out today to have it done.

She has another big change coming up as well - her eyes have been bothering her a little (she complains about them being "smudgy" quite often), so we took her to have her eyes checked, and in a week or so, she'll be getting her first pair of glasses.

Apparently, she is just slightly long-sighted in her right eye, which means her left is trying to do all the work. Children's eyes are still quite "plastic" until about age 7, so the eye doctor said that even when it's only a mild prescription, they do prescribe to very young children, as there's a good chance the eyes may fix themselves, or at least, not get any worse.

She'll have to wear them at school and when reading or watching telly at home, but not when just playing, etc. Luckily, she is happy about this - maybe partly because they are Barbie brand glasses and have pink metal frames... Luckily for her parents, the NHS covers eye tests and glasses prescriptions for children under 16, so her basic glasses & lenses are free - although I did pay a little extra to have them coated with that extra tough coating - I'm sure they'll get some wear and tear! I'll upload another picture when she gets them - she was very disappointed she didn't get to take them home today...

Two out of three tigers...

Actually, the third one wanted to be Scooby Doo, but I didn't get a picture of that. I did them at home on Monday, and then went and did all the Rainbows in Olivia's group. [Not all tigers - I did one dalmation, a punk rocker, a floral garland, a black cat (which looked really good - must remember that one), a princess, and several hand decorations of various types. Oh and a butterfly, of course - always!]

Nobody here but all us chicken carcases...

So I was reading this thing in a magazine with tips for home cooks from well known chefs - most of them fairly sensible, but one of them was not to buy chicken parts, but to buy a whole chicken, as it's better value and you can make stock from the carcase. While in principle I approve of stock-making and certainly do so when I have roast chicken, etc, this little tip got me wondering what planet this chef lives on - must be Planet Much Larger Freezer Than Most People Have. I mean, let's say you are a family of 5 (ok, one of mine doesn't eat much yet, but hey, just for the sake of argument) and you're making tandoori chicken, which you don't want to do with the breast, as it will dry out. So you need at least 3 chicken legs (or 6-7 thighs, even less practical!) - I make that at least 2 whole chickens. And what if you don't have time to make the stock right away? Not only do you have to dismember the bird (which one can learn to do, readily enough, I suppose) but then you have to store the parts you don't need, make stock from the carcase(s) and then store that. What if you want to cook up a mess of chicken wings? Wonder how many chickens I can fit in my freezer...

...the size of golfballs...

I appreciate it's usually hailstones which are described as being "the size of golfballs" (golfballs being one of the standard units of size, along with a clenched fist and Wales, for geography (as in "flooded an area the size of Wales")) but in tonight's instance, it's lumps on the back of a child's head...

Poor Allie - various romping resulted, as one always fears it will, in one child crashing into another and sending him flying into the corner of the wall - flat wall is not so bad somehow, but the corners - ouch. Poor thing was complaining his head hurt - well, not suprising, as there was a lump the size of (you guessed it) a rather oblong golfball on the back of his head - luckily the skin wasn't broken, but it was a near thing, really. However it seems to have gone down in swelling a bit now and hopefully will have settled down even more by the morning.

I wish I thought this would actually teach any of them the lesson I am always trying to instill - that too much rough-housing will result in injury. I have very little hope it will, though.