Your Daughter

*Disclaimer*: Highly (overdue) angst post to follow!

I think I've mentioned somewhere on here before that I have an alcoholic parent (AP). The AP and I have never got along. I guess that's just the way it's meant to be in our house. We're so similar you see. If you believe in all that numerology stuff, you could say it's because we're the same number. Or it's because the AP has raised me and and certain aspects of their personality have rubbed off on me. Whatever the reason may be, we don't get along.
It doesn't help matters that the non alcoholic parent (NAP) is quite defenceless when dealing with the AP.

The AP shows their love for my siblings so much more than for me. It's probably because they always give in and fund the AP for their habit. Or because they let the AP get on with their stuff when drunk. I don't know but for whatever reason, it always end up coming back to me.

I am the cause the of everything.

"Your daughter...." AP tells NAP.

"Everything that goes wrong is because of your daughter."

"She's the one who's going to be downfall of this family."

"Either she goes or I go."

And blah blah blah. Tell me something that I haven't already heard before.

AP wasn't always like this. There was a time when I would stay out of their way and things would flow that little bit more smoothly in our house. But nowadays, it's like AP picks a fight with me. Knowing that with just that little bit more persistent goading, I'll give in and retaliate.

I try so hard not. Believe me. I've even taken to leaving the house and walk the streets until I know that enough time has passed for AP to calm down or fall asleep. Anything to spare NAP and siblings what I know will follow. The ranting about how I'm such a disappointment and that I'll bring shame to the family with the amount of guys I'm supposedly with! It's something that I've heard repetitively but something that doesn't hurt any less when it gets shouted out there in the open.

The thing is, I don't know how much AP remembers the following morning. If I try to avoid them and not talk to them, I can hardly help myself because when AP is sober, they're back to being the parent I remember from my childhood.

Oops!

I may have just booked my next holiday without planning to! Not such a bad thing I hear you cry.... Well, I haven't told my parents yet! :S

So, This is Christmas?

Having been tagged by Thé Doc and Gehan, I should really get around to this post before the New Year!

I think the point of this post is to summarise 2008 so here goes I guess!

In 2008:

• I have fallen out of love with New York.
• I started this blog with the hope of just having somewhere to pen down my thoughts and in addition to doing so have met some very cool people.
• I've had my heart broken (repetitively).
• I realised that you can't always depend upon your family.
• I bought a SLR camera.
• I took up kickboxing (though I'm not going to carry on as I am far too lame to hit anyone!)

There's probably a bit more but nothing that strikes out me. I wouldn't say that 2008 has been that much of a defining year for me. Maybe this time next year, I'll have more to say!

The Love Affair Is Over (!)

I didn't think that it would end like this. All it took was 6 days! 6 days breathing and living it. For those of you that knew, I was in New York a couple of weeks ago. Up until this trip - New York had been one of my favourite places. Always busy - the hustle and bustle of it all, the fact that whenever you're in Manhattan it feels as though you've stepped onto a set of a film or Friends, the fact that everything is celebrated OTT amongst so much more.

But by the end of the 6 days, I'd had enough. Maybe it was because of who I went with (siblings and S - the ex).
Arriving at Heathrow T5 (which looks awesome) - I was filled with that excited anticipation that is expected when you're going on holiday; the prospect of being away in a foreign land without the dramas of being at home! The flight was uneventful and thankfully due to online check in I had managed to bag us all seats by the exits. You know the ones where you always see other people sitting and glare at them enviously because they have so much leg space.

Arriving in JFK, I was happy to be back in NY - it always seemed like a home away from home. We were staying at the Pan American in Queens and they offered a free shuttle service from the airport to the hotel. Saving money is always a bonus so I was well excited when I booked the hotel. Being someone who tries to plan meticulously, I read the reviews about the hotel (do not ever go on TripAdvisor unless you never want to go on holiday ever again!) and was highly prepared for the worst. I kept telling myself that we wouldn't be spending much time in our hotel room so it would be fine. Arriving at the hotel, I was pleasantly surprised that it didn't look as bad as I expected but appearances can be deceiving. I'm one of these people that judge the quality of a hotel by the quality of the bathroom. And suffice to say - it was very nice.

Despite physically being prepared for the cold, mentally none of us were. The days were spent wondering around Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn in a cold daze. It was unbelievably cold but we ran out of things to do after about 4 days.

If we had more time, we could have done so much more but due to the fact that I was travelling with a group who weren't really interested in doing anything apart from shopping and the normal (overrated) sights, I ended up being quite disappointed.

I will go back to NY at some point but not for a long time yet!

Season Greetings

I haven't had a chance to read any blogs and today was spent running around doing family stuff but to everyone that reads this - I wish you and your family a very Merry Christmas and the best for the New Year! :)

The Outcome

What happened next?

R left me her keys, contact telephone numbers, some money to order pizza and casually dropped it into conversation that this was the first time that they had left P with someone overnight (!). On top of that, my dad freaked the shit out of me by saying something like” Say they give her some drugs and go off and then you’re the one left to deal with that….(!)”! WTF Appa?! Why would you say something like that?! So I was in freaked out overtime!

Leaving work – I looked like a right dishevelled nutter and I may have been muttering to myself slightly about what to do!
Arriving at the nursery (first part a success having found the nursery and not getting lost – who said I didn’t have a sense of direction?!), I was pleased that they remembered who I was and let P know I had arrived. She ran up to me and again gave me a knee hug (she’s getting better at those!). She made to run off but I asked her politely to hold my hand and she did. As we walked down the stairs, I heard the inevitable.

P: Where’s mummy?

Scrumps (S): Mummy’s at work my love. She’s working late with daddy and they’ll be back soon.

Phew – no further questions your honour. She put on her jacket and sat in her buggy (pushchair) for me. First proper hurdle. Trying to push a buggy with a child who’s probably (clearly) too heavy to be in it. I was all over the place to begin with and she probably felt a bit queasy after it but didn’t say anything.

We stopped at the sweet shop and bough some sweets. R told me to buy her whatever she asked for. She chose a sweet that probably had the highest sugar count known to man but who was I to stop her – I didn’t want a tantrum!

I managed to find our way home and promptly texted R to let her know. This was what she was most worried about – again, me? No sense of direction? Hell to the no!

S: So P – what shall we do?

P: Baaaaaarneeeeey!

S: OK. Barney it is. Where are your DVDs?

P proceeded to open a box and fling out a few DVDs. Now I am not one that’s clued up with technology. I can operate my phone, turn on a computer, just about manage to turn on my TV at home with the DVD box but games consoles are not my thing. So imagine the horror when I see that they use their X-Box © as their DVD player. Bollocks! Luckily P knows how to use it – but I for the life of me could not fathom out how to change the channel to receive the picture. After a few tries, I give up. P luckily and happily agrees to do something else.

P: Puzzles! Yay!

So we did some puzzles. At the same time, P is covered with in sugar from the sweet that she chose. So I tried to negotiate with her.

S: Shall we order some pizza now?

P: Yes.

S: Shall we put the sweeties away until after dinner.

P: Yes *whilst shaking her head*

So I ordered the pizza. Upon arrival, I managed to get P to sit down and eat something that wasn’t sugar. This wasn’t that easy. After dinner, we sat and watched some rubbish TV.

An hour later or so, I asked P is she was ready to go to bed. She said yes and I remember thinking to myself – RESULT! I didn’t manage to get her to change into her pyjamas – well I managed to get her to put the bottoms on and that has got to count for something.
As I tucked her into bed – I was still reeling at the ease of it all. What do these young frazzled out mothers complain about?!

P: Can I have a story?

S: Sure you can honey. Which one to do you want?

P leaps out of bed (but I just tucked you in!) and chooses about 5 different books.

I’m still smiling. I can do this I mentally tell myself!

So I read them. Some of them are interactive. P needs to join in. But then it gets absurd. She has chosen a French/English translation book – how the hell do you manage to change random words into a story?!

*pen/un stylo* S: The pen is blue.

P: No it’s not. It’s green. *giggle giggle* A lot of fumbling about on the bed.

S: No it’s not P. Come on, let’s not jump about on the bed.

P: What time is mummy coming home?

S: Soon my dear. When you open your eyes in the morning, she’ll be home.

What succeeded was a lot of me reading random stuff and trying to get P to fall asleep. This took about 90 minutes. Finally she fell asleep (around 9:30 ish) as I was reading Dr Seuss. Thank the Lord almighty!

I didn’t manage to get to bed until midnight. I kept checking to see if she was still breathing. As I lay in bed – every sound managed to freak me out. I did doze off and at 1:00, P came into my room telling me she wanted a drink. This was easy enough as I had made on earlier. And off she trotted back to bed.

3AM, P wanders in again – she needs the bathroom. Not a problem – and she manages to stumble back into bed once more.

5:30 AM – she wanders in and needs the toilet again. Sure P, I tell her. But she doesn’t wander back into her bed. Because now; P is WIDE AWAKE! Oh dear Lord. It’s 5:30 I tell P. Shall we try and go back to bed I ask her. Sure she says. But she wants to get into my bed. OK… I can deal with that. I close my eyes to make it clear that I want to sleep but I feel her eyes boring into me.

I open them and ask her what’s up! Baaaaaaaaaaaaaarneeeeeeeeeeeeeey she replies.

I guess it’s time for me to get up! 5:30 AM on a Saturday. Luckily – Saturday morning TV is totally geared towards little children. So we sat there watching Milkshake, Thomas (who is by far my favourite), Tom & Jerry amongst so much more!

I managed to get her to eat breakfast and we managed to play with a lil’ bit more play dough. R text me to let me know what time she’d be back and I remember thinking to myself “only need to keep P occupied for 2 more hours – phew!”.

I managed to make the last few hours go by quite quickly by playing hide and seek and creating a fantasy world where P was the princess and I was the evil dragon (yeah – I’m bad!).

Despite the fun P and I had, I can not tell you how happy I was to R. Not that P was any trouble at all but there’s only so much play dough I can take!

It can't have been that bad because apparently P asked R when I'd be coming around again! Yeah, not for a while I remember telling myself!

The Incident

Politics is not my strong point. I mean, I’m not some airhead bimbo but it’s definitely not something that I’m mega clued up about.

Which is why when I write this, I fear the backlash that I’ll receive from those who are anti America, anti The War on Iraq and inevitably anti George “Dubya” Bush (GDB).

Fair enough, GDB made some dubious decisions (OK, more than some and definitely more than dubious) but remember, he didn’t put himself there. It was the majority of a population of some 300 million people that did that.

Did he deserve the shoe throwing? Not in my opinion. Why? Because he’s an old man that’s had his run. Let him be. If it’s the most disrespectful sign in the Arab world – I don’t think he deserved it. Watching him helpless on the video made me wince slightly. I know I might get the " what about the helpless Iraqis?" question but do the Iraqis believe that they would have been better off under Saddam?

At the end of the day, GDB was doing his job – he may not have done it well but he did what he believed was right. Isn't that a true representation of someone's character - doing what you believe in despite the backlash you may face?

I just feel sorry for the guy and I never thought I'd say that about "Dubya".

A Four Year Old and Me

This should have gone in my I've nevers but tonight for the first time ever - I am babysitting. And by first time ever, I mean someone who isn't related to me.

My colleague (R) has asked me to babysit her four year old daughter (P). I'm touched that R trusted me with this because she's only known me 6 weeks. So I'll be picking P up from nursery, taking her home and staying the night.

I met P the other night (so that she didn't get totally freaked out when a 5'7 dark ass Sri Lankan turned up at her nursery wanting to take her home!). She's beautiful and slightly scary. Is it possible to be scared of someone who's 20 years younger than you?!
She came up to me after R introduced me to her and mumbled something incoherently about a biscuit and then proceeded to hug me. It wasn't so much of a hug as it was a knee hug.

So there was R, P and I walking home (well P ran most of the way with her other nursery buddies). When we got to their house, P showed me all of her toys. Like all of them. And I think I may have been more excited than her. She had play dough, dolls, a playhouse, a lil' mini shop and so much more. Totally brought out the child in me (not that it needed much effort!). I left thinking that it'll be good fun and I'll have an excellent time.

But in less than half an hour, I'm off to babysit. And I am freaked outta my mind!