Vomiting

ACE woke up unwell this morning. Not that 'woke-up' is a good description since she spent five hours today asleep on me. It happens so rarely these days that it was quite a treat; except that she was obviously under the weather and vomiting-up any food, milk or dioralyte we got down her. GP said there was nothing obviously wrong though he took some samples and is referring her onward to have her reflux reviewed. Again. Takes it out of you, though, when kids are unwell. Nik's now crashed out on the sofa and I'm about to do the same on the other sofa. Still, made a new friend yesterday from Gwent, got back in touch with an established friend up in Glasgow. and with another in Cardiff. Despite running around or being a mattress for Angharad, I also sent out this year's xmas cards over the last 24 hours. Hope they go down well as I've tried a new approach this year.

Straight ahead

Angharad has taken to walking with her hands clasped behind her back, chest out, proud as you like. This is how a member of royalty might walk as they stride across their inherited and unearned estates (Oops, a bit of 'me' seeped-out there. *) Or an admiral of the fleet on his poop-deck regarding the forces arrayed before him.

It worried me at first. What if she lost her balance and fell forward onto her face? What if something jumped out in front of her before she could react? (Are you listening Kira and Meg?) Then it struck me that this stage in her perambulatory odyssey may or may not be common to all kids as they find their feet. My guess - and I'm not that obsessive that I want to check this out - is that it is a common stage and relates to balance or such like. But, and this is the point, it is a stage that perfectly sums up Angharad's character. She goes about her life with her head held high, never questioning that she has a place as of right out there in the world. She's brave and isn't worried about falling on her face, getting up again and carrying on. She steps forth into the world happily and without the need to have her hands out in front of her feeling her way.

It came out in the two parties she attended over the weekend. She's never been afraid to wander off and meet people, play with things, explore, and so on. There'll be plenty of time to teach her the necessary rules about being wary in certain circumstances or with certain people. But right now, the world is her oyster and the people in it are to be appreciated. It means that Nik and I chase-around a bit but... small price.

* post-script: the dogs are named after some transliterations we found of Hungarian phrases (they being Hungarian wire-haired viszlas and all). Kira's mother's kennel name was Lady something or other so we named her after the Hungarian word for princess - Kirahyno. When we named Meg, we decided that Princess was one royal too many for this household, so her name translated as "an honest to goodness republican" - Megyerzadaishaish republicanus". If you are Hungarian or speak it please don't write-in telling me that my translation (or my transliteration) is all over the place. I know!

Xmas parties

Another party today, this time at the UHW, for kids who've been through the SCBU/ICU there. Held in the Paediatric Outpatients department, it was packed to the rafters. Little people running around everywhere. Our thanks to Jacqui and Sue and all the other staff who made it possible, including a rather scary santa claus.

More work on the website followed that.

Once I'm clear whether I'll keep the website within 'Google Sites' or, rather, tranport it to Nik's brother's server (most likely option but will entail a change of URL) I'll load up lots of pics from the parties.

Next time I'll try to have something to say.

Parties and problems

We took ACE to an xmas party given by Liz, who runs "Music with Mums (and Dads!)". Nik and I were both told, by different people, that Angharad is the liveliest little child they know, without exception. I guess she is more than making up for her first few months, when it was all she could do to eat and breathe. It was a lovely party. An Xmas Bear (an adult in a bear suit) was the guest of honour. When Liz brought the bear in Angharad ran across the room signing 'bear' then sat at its feet, on its lap and generally falling for it big time. I must remember never to let her loose near real brown bears.

We've also booked her into two new classes for the new year - Tatty Bumpkin (I'll elaborate in the future), and Tumble Tots (gym, movement and such like).

The rest of the afternoon has been spent using feedback from friends about the website that runs alongside this Blog. One annoying issue is that some text appears underlined once published, text which is completely unformatted when I prepare it. What's more, there is inconsistency between pages but I haven't yet been able to use this inconsistency to establish the cause of the problem. Nor have I found a way of uploading pics which I can then add pic-specific text to. Pah! I'm sure the problem lies with my use of the Google software not with its engineers' coding! Maybe I should just swallow the bullet and use Front Page or Content Management Software and get into the 'gubbins' behind the site? We'll see. For now, Google has at least got me started, which is no small thing given that Angharad was born in 2006.

Hello, welcome and testing

Well, and welcome! This is me test-driving Google Blogspace. I don't know what I'm going to say or how often I'll be saying it. If there's a 'point' to this it stems from the fact that Nikki, my wife, and I brought Angharad Evans (ACE) into the world in March 2006. Nik was 43 and I was 48 (yep, that makes me a recent 50 and the 'point' probably that I'm in denial about a mid-life crisis). Angharad has been a blast, which proves Cap'n Jack Harkness's point that "the 21st century is when everything changes". (A "Torchwood" reference there for the unbelievers in our midst - appropriate because, like me and mine, it's based in Cardiff, Wales.)

When I first started looking after Angharad I remember reading one of those 'Help' articles in a Sunday paper aimed at reassuring parents, well at mothers primarily. A scrummy-mummy wrote a page of "It's OK if..." stuff, one of which was "It's OK if you are still in your dressing gown at 2 in the afternoon". Angharad is now two and two-third years old and today is the first time that that advice has actually been useful. Its 1630 hours and here I am in my pyjamas still. Mind you, that's not so much down to the perils of parenthood as to the frustrations (and addictive allure) of blog creation and website development: I've been putting this off for ages. Enough for now, this was just to get up and going.