Sickness, Stagefright and Toast

Gah! International Put your Poem in a Shop Month  is slipping past me and nary a contribution!

Last year I had a really good excuse. What with being all pregnant and then all c-sectiony, and the weather being all ends of days snowy. It was fair enough that I didn't get out. But this year. What sad excuse will I roll out for my creative cravenness? My literary loucheness? My apathetic poeticness! My phlegmatic phonetics...

Well, baba has been sick. And had her first birthday. She was sick for her first birthday. All photos have her looking miserable. She was probably pissed that I made no effort for it though. What can I say, she's baby number four - oh look, you're a year old, well done. What do you want? A medal? No cake was made. I bought her the chavviest red track suit as her only present. I'll laminate Childline's number for her.

Sick... but wonderfully quiet.

That said, she did achieve two things of note this week. 1) She was so sick she didn't have the energy to screech. It was a blessed release. For the past ten days we have not had to listen to her go 'EEErnnnnnghghghghghgghgghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh' for 90% of the day. and 2) She said her first word! I was able to muster up some excitement for this. Mainly cause it was quite a good first word. We did have two possible other candidates for first word - 'Clap' and 'Dance' (a future on the stage perhaps?). But we couldn't definitely say that she meant to say these words. But the other morning was different. I was sitting there with my cup of tea, poached eggs and toast. She had a rusk. She wasn't into the rusk. She was pointing at my breakfast. I said, 'Toast?' She looked at me, thoughtful. 'Toast' she said. 

Sod this Baby Atkin diet - give me Carbs!!!

Can you beat that? How could you not love a creature whose first word was toast? She'll go far.

In other news, Big Sister Oub is in the bad books. Oh yes. As a mother I ask only that my children are brilliant and talented at all times and show the world that both my genetics and mothering are superior to all others. I don't think this is too much to ask. Well, Big sister Oub has disappointed! She has displeased me. 

It was Christmas Concert time. She was star of the show last year. Charmed the audience and quite frankly set me up as Alpha Mother among the Montessori Mafia. I was Don D'Oub. I wasn't actually there for the concert last year, what with me being held in a maximum security maternity hospital, but I did get to see her opening night triumph via live satellite link up. Hmmm, or maybe it was on video a few days later. I'm not sure. I was on a lot of morphine. (Not kidding about the morphine.)

But this year I got to be there! I could accept the admiring glances from the other mothers in person. I could be a shining beacon for nurture versus nature right there, right then!

But, I could tell from the moment I walked in that all was not well. Big Sister Oub was surveying the crowd. Cause she's a sentient 4 year old now. She knows that the crowd is made up with actually people this year. When she was three she didn't care! But now, now... now she has stage fright!!! 

Ah jaysus, me no likey!

She made it half way through before she collapsed in tears and had to retire to my knee for the rest of the performance. 

I wasn't happy. Uh huh. She has disgraced me in front of all the mothers. I will most likely be challenged by one of the other, younger, mothers in the car park now. I cannot avoid being beaten and cast from my pack to wander in the wilderness alone, looking for somewhere to curl up and expire...

Think of me, in my decline.

Remember me as I once was. Great and better than everyone else.

ahem.

I'll go write my IPYPIASM poem now... 

Sickness, Stagefright and Toast

Gah! International Put your Poem in a Shop Month  is slipping past me and nary a contribution!

Last year I had a really good excuse. What with being all pregnant and then all c-sectiony, and the weather being all ends of days snowy. It was fair enough that I didn't get out. But this year. What sad excuse will I roll out for my creative cravenness? My literary loucheness? My apathetic poeticness! My phlegmatic phonetics...

Well, baba has been sick. And had her first birthday. She was sick for her first birthday. All photos have her looking miserable. She was probably pissed that I made no effort for it though. What can I say, she's baby number four - oh look, you're a year old, well done. What do you want? A medal? No cake was made. I bought her the chavviest red track suit as her only present. I'll laminate Childline's number for her.

Sick... but wonderfully quiet.

That said, she did achieve two things of note this week. 1) She was so sick she didn't have the energy to screech. It was a blessed release. For the past ten days we have not had to listen to her go 'EEErnnnnnghghghghghgghgghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh' for 90% of the day. and 2) She said her first word! I was able to muster up some excitement for this. Mainly cause it was quite a good first word. We did have two possible other candidates for first word - 'Clap' and 'Dance' (a future on the stage perhaps?). But we couldn't definitely say that she meant to say these words. But the other morning was different. I was sitting there with my cup of tea, poached eggs and toast. She had a rusk. She wasn't into the rusk. She was pointing at my breakfast. I said, 'Toast?' She looked at me, thoughtful. 'Toast' she said. 

Sod this Baby Atkin diet - give me Carbs!!!

Can you beat that? How could you not love a creature whose first word was toast? She'll go far.

In other news, Big Sister Oub is in the bad books. Oh yes. As a mother I ask only that my children are brilliant and talented at all times and show the world that both my genetics and mothering are superior to all others. I don't think this is too much to ask. Well, Big sister Oub has disappointed! She has displeased me. 

It was Christmas Concert time. She was star of the show last year. Charmed the audience and quite frankly set me up as Alpha Mother among the Montessori Mafia. I was Don D'Oub. I wasn't actually there for the concert last year, what with me being held in a maximum security maternity hospital, but I did get to see her opening night triumph via live satellite link up. Hmmm, or maybe it was on video a few days later. I'm not sure. I was on a lot of morphine. (Not kidding about the morphine.)

But this year I got to be there! I could accept the admiring glances from the other mothers in person. I could be a shining beacon for nurture versus nature right there, right then!

But, I could tell from the moment I walked in that all was not well. Big Sister Oub was surveying the crowd. Cause she's a sentient 4 year old now. She knows that the crowd is made up with actually people this year. When she was three she didn't care! But now, now... now she has stage fright!!! 

Ah jaysus, me no likey!

She made it half way through before she collapsed in tears and had to retire to my knee for the rest of the performance. 

I wasn't happy. Uh huh. She has disgraced me in front of all the mothers. I will most likely be challenged by one of the other, younger, mothers in the car park now. I cannot avoid being beaten and cast from my pack to wander in the wilderness alone, looking for somewhere to curl up and expire...

Think of me, in my decline.

Remember me as I once was. Great and better than everyone else.

ahem.

I'll go write my IPYPIASM poem now... 

Schools, Boobs and Lost Tribes of Papua New Guinea

What's Team D'Oub up to at the moment? Lots and nothing. Never has the name of this blog been more accurate.

One is rather domestically imprisoned at the moment. But, we're looking at the last month of 2011, Baba Oub will be 1 year old in a couple of weeks, so roll on 2012 and maybe a return to creative ways.

What we have been doing is obsessing over secondary schools for eldest Oub child. We went to visit another one a week or so ago. They had an Open Day. Everyone turned up. I mean everyone. Old ladies had heard that Confey College was open. Prisoners applied specially for day release so that they could have a look. Tribes from Papua New Guinea who had heretofore never made contact with the rest of the human race showed up. My youth, missing in action for some time now, was spotted strolling the corridors.

It's a great bloody school. Excellent results, lovely building, co-ed, polite students. Clean toilets. I dunno - how important are clean toilets to the over school experience? I've been in the loos of the other two schools and urgh, mingin' just isn't doing them justice. "So, Mrs Oub, why did you pick Confey College for little Master Oub?' "Clean toilets."

But, things are never simple. We did our tour of the school with the rest of the seven billion inhabitants of earth. And we were just generally blown away. Seeing as we felt there might be a bit of competition for spaces, we decided that I'd pop into the school super soon and put sons name down. Because this school has an unusual enrollment policy. You pay them a non-refundable 100euro, your child is guaranteed a place. Simples.

So, off I headed the very next morning. Knock, knock, knock on the secretaries door. One little conversation later. They're changing the policy. The board of management are putting into place a proper enrollment policy. A policy, if it is in line with the policy followed by pretty much every other school in the country, will see us bottom of the list!

But of course.

I tried bribing the school secretary. I tired flattery. I tired threatening her! Well, I didn't actually threaten her, but Baba Oub was in the room, so there was an air of menace... But to no avail. We've put his name down. Time will tell...Sigh...


What else have I been doing?


Breastfeeding. Extreme Breastfeeding. I should be put in a packet with instructions on the back that say 'Just Add Water'. I am a shrivelled husk. Baba Oub has discovered the auld pulling up of the top. My beleaguered boobs are being pawed at day and night. And when Mr Oub is done, baba is always hungry.

This blog post has been disturbed four times by demands for milk.

She is drunk on the power. No longer does she have to wait for mama to decide that she can have a feed, no, she can grope like the office letch for access anytime she bloody wants to. She is a milkcoholic. It's just boob, boob, boob, all the time. And she just screams if she can't. She's like an addict! Is there rehab for babies who like boob just that little bit too much? A twelve step program to recovery? It's time for her to admit that she is powerless over boob and that her life has become unmanageable... She needs to make a list of the people she has harmed and make amends to them all...

Hello, my name is Baba Oub and I a boobaholic.

She got so drunk on milk she woke up in the laundry basket, not knowing how she got there...

And, last but not least, here's what I made in pottery class last week. (Can't show you this week as I didn't have my phone with me. Please try not to be too inconsolable.)

Right, I'm off to write a poem for International Put Your Poem in a Shop Month! It may well be about schools and boobs. But then, aren't all poems?
 

Schools, Boobs and Lost Tribes of Papua New Guinea

What's Team D'Oub up to at the moment? Lots and nothing. Never has the name of this blog been more accurate.

One is rather domestically imprisoned at the moment. But, we're looking at the last month of 2011, Baba Oub will be 1 year old in a couple of weeks, so roll on 2012 and maybe a return to creative ways.

What we have been doing is obsessing over secondary schools for eldest Oub child. We went to visit another one a week or so ago. They had an Open Day. Everyone turned up. I mean everyone. Old ladies had heard that Confey College was open. Prisoners applied specially for day release so that they could have a look. Tribes from Papua New Guinea who had heretofore never made contact with the rest of the human race showed up. My youth, missing in action for some time now, was spotted strolling the corridors.

It's a great bloody school. Excellent results, lovely building, co-ed, polite students. Clean toilets. I dunno - how important are clean toilets to the over school experience? I've been in the loos of the other two schools and urgh, mingin' just isn't doing them justice. "So, Mrs Oub, why did you pick Confey College for little Master Oub?' "Clean toilets."

But, things are never simple. We did our tour of the school with the rest of the seven billion inhabitants of earth. And we were just generally blown away. Seeing as we felt there might be a bit of competition for spaces, we decided that I'd pop into the school super soon and put sons name down. Because this school has an unusual enrollment policy. You pay them a non-refundable 100euro, your child is guaranteed a place. Simples.

So, off I headed the very next morning. Knock, knock, knock on the secretaries door. One little conversation later. They're changing the policy. The board of management are putting into place a proper enrollment policy. A policy, if it is in line with the policy followed by pretty much every other school in the country, will see us bottom of the list!

But of course.

I tried bribing the school secretary. I tired flattery. I tired threatening her! Well, I didn't actually threaten her, but Baba Oub was in the room, so there was an air of menace... But to no avail. We've put his name down. Time will tell...Sigh...


What else have I been doing?


Breastfeeding. Extreme Breastfeeding. I should be put in a packet with instructions on the back that say 'Just Add Water'. I am a shrivelled husk. Baba Oub has discovered the auld pulling up of the top. My beleaguered boobs are being pawed at day and night. And when Mr Oub is done, baba is always hungry.

This blog post has been disturbed four times by demands for milk.

She is drunk on the power. No longer does she have to wait for mama to decide that she can have a feed, no, she can grope like the office letch for access anytime she bloody wants to. She is a milkcoholic. It's just boob, boob, boob, all the time. And she just screams if she can't. She's like an addict! Is there rehab for babies who like boob just that little bit too much? A twelve step program to recovery? It's time for her to admit that she is powerless over boob and that her life has become unmanageable... She needs to make a list of the people she has harmed and make amends to them all...

Hello, my name is Baba Oub and I a boobaholic.

She got so drunk on milk she woke up in the laundry basket, not knowing how she got there...

And, last but not least, here's what I made in pottery class last week. (Can't show you this week as I didn't have my phone with me. Please try not to be too inconsolable.)

Right, I'm off to write a poem for International Put Your Poem in a Shop Month! It may well be about schools and boobs. But then, aren't all poems?
 

Enjoy the silence...

This blog post is a tribute to John Cage's 1952 composition -  4′33″.

Enjoy the silence...

This blog post is a tribute to John Cage's 1952 composition -  4′33″.

Pictures...

So, it's November.

The Diva Baby of Lucan has calmed down a smidge. Not enough for me to reply to emails. Read our book club book. Write anything. Shower.

But, I shan't complain. It turns out she has hidden talents. We had a photo session yesterday - you know the sort of thing, family portrait, all of us looking uncomfortable and forced, captured forever to hang pride of place in the hall (for extra humiliation.) But Diva Baby was a natural! Her first word was practically 'I'mreadyformycloseup'. She turned, looking over her shoulder, eyes popping! If she can avoid the D'Oub snail like metabolism (it's me glands!) and our horror of physical exertion, then she could be a supermodel. But, like, one of those supermodels that goes to Oxford too...

It's been all about the visual arts in the D'Oub household lately...

Myself and the Mr have obviously gone and got notions of being Charles Saatchi and decided what we really needed was a massive art collection. We've been doing with mass produced Ikea prints up till now.  I'm not going to slag Ikea prints off or anything, they've done us very well up to now. But I think there comes a time in a persons life when they just have to get something original up there. Having grown up in a house with a mammy who was an artist, whose works covered all our walls, I felt the need for some actual art work.

We had a budget set aside to have the interior of our house painted. Sure Mr Oub could have done it, but I wanted it done while I was young enough to have the eyesight good enough to enjoy it. But, we've gone and spent most of what was earmarked on pictures. They will have to cover up our manky paint job. Maybe Mr Oub will have to do the painting after all.

First up, thanks to the wonderful Titus, we came across the fantastic artwork of the artist Matt Kish. Loved his Moby Dick pictures. Couldn't resist and bought two!

 

It's a bit blurry, but I think you get the idea.

Framed and at the bottom of the stairs.

So delighted with ourselves and the pictures, we've been keen to find ourselves some more. I came across the artist Nicole Tilley in the Cow's Lane market a few weeks ago...

She does etching thingys - something about copper and wax and stuff... here are the two prints we bought

We haven't had them framed yet - the village framer is our new best friend, we're putting his kids through college at this rate. But soon they will be up on our messy walls to delight all and sundry.

Inspired by all this, we then discovered a little known Lucan artist who we feel has real promise. Even if her kids ask why she gave herself a beard.

Till next time, whenever that may be :)


Update: Just for Titus, I give u the work of Mr D'Oub, professional pumpkin carver!!!