Ouch - again...

You might be bored of me writing about kids being ill, Pappa Kas being ill, Malo, the goldfish, dying. So much misery, I’ll make this short and sweet.

Brave smile from our little H(ero)

So when I now write about H having high fever and put on antibiotics, there’s nothing new there. She was at the hospital for a couple of days, but when she started getting her energy back, eating, drinking and taking her medicine we could go home.

Doing laundry - and loving it! 

It’s been sad having her on the sofa wrapped in a blanket, with her dummy, security blanket and Lagontxu, bit it has also given us time for snuggling.

Baby M got to have her first ever sleepover at her grandparents so that Little H could get all the attention from her parents and Baby M all the attention from her grandparents. It’s been a win-win for everyone.

But what to do with a girl whose energy-levels are down to 1 (from 100)? Well, get her involved in some easy housekeeping between watching The Lion King, Sleeping Beauty and Peppa Pig. 

P.S want to know what happened to Malo, here’s my FB update:

Missing Malo, the goldfish was miraculously found at a pet-shop yesterday. 
We have no idea how he managed to get that far. 
But we are thinking he was kidnapped as we had to pay a ransom...

R.I.P. Malo

Little H loves pink, Hello Kitty, feta cheese, swings, dogs - all animals in general and especially her own goldfish.

While Little H is recovering at the hospital after an urinary infection (I will give no details), a tragedy has taken place at Casa Castro-Nyhus. 

H has two goldfish in a bowl .With its pink pebbles the bowl is the centerpiece of our living room. Not nice, but what do you not do for your children? You certainly commit interior design crimes. 

The fish are called Pinky and Malo. The fish were given to H as a present from Amama Socco and Aixite Sebas. Amama Socco has had plenty of goldfish during the years and apparently all of them have been called Pinky. 

First they were both called Pinky and Pinky, but after Pinky tried to "escape" several times (slip through H's fingers whenever she tried to catch the poor fish), it was re-named Malo (xxx in Spanish. 

Pappa Kas has noticed that Malo has not been his active self over the past week or so. Yesterday he barely moved and Kas anticipated that Malo did not have long left to live. He was right. This afternoon I found him belly up in the bowl. Poor poor fishy fish.

I have been told that the most common cause of death for gold fish is overeating, but for skinny Malo it must have been something else. 

I panicked a little bit and asked Kas what to do. “Easy peasy” he said. “Malo being Malo. He just escaped”.

Aha, brilliant.

So upon visiting H at the hospital we had to break the news. 

Pappa Kas told her that Malo escaped during the night. This came as no surprise for Little H, she had not been at home to look after the goldfish and Malo had seen the opportunity to make a run (swim) for it. 

Sad to say Malo took his last swim in our toilet and down the drains this afternoon.

RIP Malo. 

H & M - partners in crime

Such a happy wee one

You might think that baby M should overshadow little H, but it is impossible to out-stage her cheeky big sister. Little H fills the house with her presence and her little sister comes in the background. But baby M is here, it’s just that she is too nice for her own good.

She sleeps well, all through the night if we want her to. But with skinny arms and legs and a bit below average on the scales, we wake her up to feed her once a night. When she is awake, she laughs, smiles, makes cooing noises and is the nicest baby on earth.  

Not so innocent as they look

But there is a tingling at the back of my head. I know that these two will be partners in crime sometime in the future. It is just a question of time before they will gang up against us. 

Monkey no more

It’s carnival -time and last year we had such fun of dressing Little H like a monkey. We thought she was the cutest little cheeky monkey we had ever seen. It is bad to laugh at your daughters expense but, it was impossible not to. The costume proved a great success, but that was last year.

This year we thought that the monkey costume was an easy choice, but no. 

When asking Little H what she wanted to wear for the carnival she promptly said: “Princess, Pink Princess”. Oh, nooooo.

I tried: “What about a cool and scary lion?”

“Pink?” She said

“What about a ladybird?” I asked

“Princess?”  She answered

“What about Pippi Longstocking?”  I was running out of options

“Pippi with Hello Kitty?” she answered enthusiastic

Now we were getting somewhere

I tried: “Pippi with Pink Hello Kitty elastic bands and hairclips? And Pink nail-polish?”

I was negotiating with a two and a half year old!

“Ja ja ja!” She shouted and we had finally reached a conclusion we both could live with.

So here she is:

Pippi Kitty Longstocking with pink and purple nail-polish and at least seven Hello Kitty hairclips to keep her pigtails - with pink Kitty rubber bands, in place. 

Cousins - tough love

As you could read in the previous post, we have recently spent some time with our family in the North of Spain. I always want to highlight the North, as whenever I say Spain, everyone sighs with envy and says: heat and sun - just what you need this time of year.
I hate to disappoint you - rain and max 10 C is more like it in December and January.

Little H (and Baby M) has a cousin  in Spain. Her name is Laia and she is cute as a button. She was born in July 2011, and is a year younger than H. They have met several times, and Saturday mornings are Skype play-date-time, so they are no strangers to each other.

The whole family was very excited for the two of them to meet again, as they now both has become little ladies- with tempers, and their own sets of habits.

It was wonderful seeing them together and they clearly enjoyed each others company. Although tugging hair, pushing, yelling and stealing toys from each other they always said sorry and hugged after.

See for yourself:

I'm splashing soap in you face Laia and I like it!

Idyllic - before the balloon- fight

Laia with a cheeky grin and up to no good

United in the name of Hello Kitty

Our parents are forcing us to hold hands and act natural

The excuses

Oj, no entries since December. What’s the excuse?

Not entirely sure, but I can think of a few:

• Forgetting my IPhone in the car when flying to Spain on the 30^th of December.
• Deciding to go off-line for the two weeks we were in Spain
• Me being ill with Stomach-flu for almost a week
• Pappa Kas being ill with Stomach-flu for two weeks
• Baby M being ill with stomach-flu for 4 days
• Little H going bananas in quarantine while her family was ill and no one was allowed to visit.
• Knitting woolly trousers for Baby M (yet to be completed)
• Reading: Margaret Attwood – A handmaids tale (brilliant).
• Hanging out with friends and family when not in quarantine

I am boooored

Now we’ve been back home for two weeks, slowly adapting to normal. This means kids with the flu, plenty of housework, various DIY projects, planning new time-management strategies, lunching with fellow mothers on maternity leave and generally spending time on…

What really?

What are you spending your time on these days? 

Just chillin