belgianwaffle

Sleeping, CVing, Skiing


Posted in: Princess, Work

Last night we let our baby cry. Twice. It was tragic. We rescued her from her cot the other three times, so doubtless, we are giving mixed messages and she will never learn. I am steeling myself for more of this tonight otherwise we’ll still be getting up 6 times a night and patting her on the back when she turns 18. Or so says Gina. Gina is bitter about her own mother who never ensured that she got to bed on time. Gina has been a poor sleeper all her adult life as a result. So she says. Mr. Waffle points out that her choice of nursing as a profession may not have helped much either.

In other news. My displacement activity level has reached herculean proportions. Our Princess is going to the creche a couple of hours a day so that I can concentrate on looking for a job. We have been back in Belgium three days and not one CV has winged its way to a prospective employer. On Tuesday, I had no car and it was pouring rain. Our creche is spectacularly inconveniently located and is really too far to walk. Particularly in a downpour, so the Princess stayed home and no CVs were sent. On Wednesday, I decided to find milk for Mr. Waffle. He likes fresh, pasturised milk and it is hard to find in Belgium. I went to our regular supermarket first. Mr. Waffle had checked it out the previous day and said there was none. I was convinced he had looked in the wrong place and went back to check. I am becoming my mother. I know this. Mr. Waffle was correct. There was no milk. I went to another two supermarkets still looking for milk. I bought a small number of purchases in each (thus ensuring that I stood in three seperate queues) and, you will be delighted to hear, in the third supermarket I visited one of these purchases included milk. This took two and a half hours and what with the creche being so spectacularly inconveniently located, it was time to collect Princess Waffle and no CVs were sent. Today, was the second last day of an exhibition for which I bought tickets before Christmas. If I don’t go today, I will never go, I said to myself. I went today. It has been extended until the end of January. Were any CVs sent out today? Go on, have a guess.

So for tomorrow’s displacement activity, I have lined up a series of tasks. Most of them involve skiing preparation. When this skiing trip was mooted, I thought “fantastic, I will be so cool and trendy bringing my baby skiing, it’s going to be marvellous”. Now, I think, “are you mad woman?? Eight hours in a train with a ten month old?” And back. And furthermore, my friend (hmm what name will I give her? she has Welsh connections, perhaps Blodwyn but then on the other hand, I am anxious that she speak to me again, we will settle on Rosie, as she is English) Rosie whom I visited today expressed the view that it is probably too late to book creche places at the resort now. This is very alarming. Rosie is, perhaps, a smidgeon more organised than I am. Her son has just started school and she tells me he is to finish at 3.30 every day next week. Although there is no documentation to that effect. She worries her legal training has made her over meticulous, her first thought was “How can I believe it if it’s not on paper?”. Anyway, she has scared the bejaysus out of me and I am going to ring the resort tomorrow. That could take a couple of hours. If there is no creche place, there will be much unhappiness chez Waffle.

Am off to bed to stare at the ceiling and listen to piteous cries from my baby daughter.

Sleeping


Posted in: Princess

At the airport yesterday we met a woman whose 7 month old baby has been sleeping through the night since she was seven weeks old. Last night the Princess woke at 10.30, 1.30, 3.30, 5.00, 6.00 and, definitively, at 8.45. Something will have to be done. Mr. Waffle has bought a Gina Ford book on how to get our baby to sleep.? If you follow the link above and read the reviews, you will see that opinions on Ms. Ford’s methods vary greatly. Mr. Waffle is keen to try Ms. Ford’s suggestions but I am a little reluctant. Controlled crying sounds terrifying. Over Christmas a neighbour described how her grown up daughter tried this on her son. The baby cried in his cot for 15 minutes while she cried outside his door. This would be me.

In other news, I am sure that you are dying to hear how the wedding on January 1 went. Very well. It didn’t rain and there were no photographs on the beach for the bridesmaids. In fact the bride, who is as kind as she is beautiful, did go out to have some photos taken but told us that there was no need for us to join her. I have to say, the bride did look spectacularly beautiful. The bridesmaids didn’t look bad either although some foolish person tactlessly described them as the world’s oldest. This was probably true although, as you can imagine, it didn’t go down spectacularly well. One of my fellow bridesmaids was a mother of three (I said we were old) and when she heard that our baby still doesn’t sleep through the night she said and I quote “You feckin eejit”. These third time mothers are very heartless.

Wedding was awash with doctors and medical types of all kinds (bride is a heart surgeon and her father is also a surgeon and her new husband is a medical student). I spent the day concealing the fact that I trained as a solicitor. Doctors are not fond of lawyers. I was doing very well until somebody cornered me and said loudly “I don’t know how you could defend someone who you knew was guilty”. Suddenly I was surrounded by people muttering darkly. I didn’t know where to begin my defence, the following sprang to mind –

I never really did any criminal law,

For the past number of years I haven’t practised – I’m clean,

You’ve known me since I was 12, couldn’t we have explored this at a different time (this for the bride’s mother),

Or, most bravely, I think you have misunderstood how defending criminal cases works.

I opted for –

Did you know that one of the other bridesmaids is starting law school in the autumn? I think you should talk to her. It may not be too late to save her.

Comments

Locotes

on 08 January 2004 at 23:18

Happy New Year Ms. Woffle. I trust your holidays in the People’s Republic went well? No doubt you were impressed by the still unfinished Patrick’s Street – they’ve already re-started work on 6/7 streets around the city (God knows when they’ll ever finish) and as a result traffic is once again wonderfully painful. Ahhh…Irish efficiency.

New Year’s Resolutions


Posted in: Belgium, Reading etc.

We are somewhat flattened after unpacking the 14 bags we needed to carry home the Princess’s Christmas gifts. Now, however, she “sleeps in her turret” as my mother in law would say and we rejoice. She’s exhausted from the strain of playing with a wide variety of exciting things. In particular, she enjoyed chewing on our luggage tags.

Hard to say whether she recognised the flat. She looked around with interest, but I think that she misses her court at home. She’s in for a nasty shock tomorrow when Mr. Waffle returns to work and it’s just the two of us. We won’t be able to go out either because pouring rain is forecast.

Belgium is perishing. Our flat is also a mite chilly and despite the fact that our radiators have been on full blast since our return, I am sitting writing this with my feet on a hot water bottle. All stand alone heaters have been moved to the Princess’s room to ensure that it is toasty.

Faithful readers (both of you) will see that I have added a new category – photos. This is for my father-in-law and my mother (yes, this publicising thing is getting out of hand), both of whom seemed reluctant to wade through my text to get to the photos. Ingrates!

My new year’s resolutions are as follows:

1. Get a job.

2. Start a bookclub.

So far I have made no progress with either. When is it that you can abandon your new year’s resolutions?

Happy new year.

Comments

Angie

on 06 January 2004 at 23:15

Will you accept faraways into your book club?

What if aforementioned faraway takes over six months to read an 800 page book?
And PS: Our 8-month-old does not sleep through the night. I keep telling myself that she wakes up so often because she loves us more than the average baby loves his/her parents, and she simply must scream about her love in hope that we’ll want to spend a bit of late night time with her…

Suicidal Bunnies


Posted in: Reading etc.

I got a book of cartoons from Mr. Waffle’s sister. Entertaining and sinister in equal measure. Mr. Waffle refuses to see the funny side but I can’t help liking it.

Princess Waffle got (inter much alia) 2 Dr. Seuss books for Christmas and was so pleased that she has already begun to suck the spines and tear out the pages. Parents were also very pleased.

Mr. Waffle is now reading the Peyps biography by Claire Tomalin and has abandoned the abridged diary and is reading my father’s full length 9 volume version. Am curious as to whether he will accomplish his mission before we leave on Friday. He is already on volume 3. Meanwhile I am still ploughing through volume 5 of Harry Potter. You can’t imagine how brilliant this makes me feel.

And while I’m writing about books can I nominate a further contender for worst book I read this year? Have you read Fingersmith by Sarah Waters? Dreadful. All year long Eileen Battersby has been knocking this book in the Irish Times. She would insert snide references to it in other reviews (along the lines of “this book is wonderful, not like the dreadful Fingersmith thing..”). I thought she was being cruel and snobby, but no, it is dire but at least it’s not as inexplicably popular as “Cold Mountain”. For all its faults, it is a page turner. Faults are many but am too tired to list them. Stay away, don’t say you weren’t warned.

Getting Religion


Posted in: Princess, Siblings

Took Princess Waffle to mass today. For the godless, today is the feast of the holy family so it was very appropriate. We felt like pillars of the community. The priest referred to Princess Waffle from the pulpit saying how wonderful it was that she clapped along to the choir. We were very proud and hung around outside to tell other members of the congregation that she is very advanced for her age. This is, in fact, the second time that Princess Waffle has been referred to from the pulpit but since last time the priest was slightly irate that she was roaring and interrupting his sermon, I would prefer not to dwell on that.

And in other news, my sister flew back to Chicago today after a brief week in Ireland. Americans don’t really believe in Christmas holidays and she had to beg and plead for the week off. She may have to give up her job in the US and come home so’s she can have decent holidays, but not, I hope, before I have had a chance to stay in her new apartment. Only slightly deterred by the thought of flying 9 hours with Princess Waffle.

Comments
amillionpieces

on 29 December 2003 at 01:24

Your brave, I would never have the bottle to show family my weblog, in fact I would be really worried if they found it! So even if she doesnt like it, you deserve a medal for bravery!

Party on


Posted in: Dublin, Ireland

We had a party on Saturday night for friends in Dublin. This was kindly co-hosted by Richard who agreed to let us use his house for our nefarious purposes. When I started writing this blog I was going to keep it deathly secret and build up a following by stealth on the internet but, frankly, two weeks in and with no one reading it, I felt that the party was the ideal opportunity to do some publicity. I told my friends, they were…interested. Sort of. My friend Cathy (I’m tired of thinking up imaginary names, it’s very tiring – I asked her siblings for suggestions for a code name but I just feel that their suggestions wouldn’t go down terribly well) rolled her eyes to heaven and said “My God, you’re already terminally indiscreet, are you sure you need a wider audience?” Yes, of course I do. However, I see that none of them has seen fit to comment on my blog. Very distressing. I am driven to the conclusion that they have not read it. I am quietly confident, nevertheless that a couple of days at home in the bosom of their families will force them to look for unusual avenues of entertainment and they will peruse this with, um, interest.

Party was slightly odd as Mr. Waffle was ill and we had to leave early so waved goodbye to our friends and left poor Richard holding the fort. I apologised profusely for abandoning him. “Not at all” he said affably “your friends are lovely people, whoever they are”. I understand that there were a number of exciting rows later in the evening. I particularly regret missing the row on benchmarking as the combatants were quite evenly matched…I understand it was a clash of the public and private sector titans. Richard said he was picking up glasses in the hope that the rowing parties would leave but they just dug their heels in and started to enjoy themselves while he gave up hope of ever getting to bed. A successful evening all round then.

In other news, I have done a lot of visiting since we returned. My friends are buying up the nicest houses in Dublin. I’m torn between envy and excitement. Largely envy.

Tomorrow will see our arrival in the real capital. I understand the local populace is waiting agog for the first viewing of princess waffle in some months.