Tag Archives: family

Day #317 How to stir trouble and marital discord

Our family is ailing somewhat at this point. I’m recovering from a very nasty bout of flu, the Mister has a sprained ankle, and Hawkeye has had an increasingly worsening cough, prompting me to take him back to the doctor this morning before our trip out west to Nana’s house. Now, normally the ladies at…

Day #313 Not the Mama!

Last time my mother was visiting Hawkeye was communicating with very basic sentences and a relatively limited vocabulary. Now, he’s a full blown threenager, and while much of his babble is still in that mysterious language unknown to grownups, there is also a significantly more complex communication going on. Observing natural language acquisition from up close…

Day #312 Helping

The end of ever-increasing incrementally exhausting number of days began with me waking up not even knowing if my mother had made her flight to Dublin and ended in a bar with a friend’s birthday party, full of people I dearly loved seeing, but costing so much effort from my non-existent energy reserves that I…

Day #307 Filtered Up the Wazoo

When I was first doing the #100happydays challenge on Instagram I started playing around with their manual photo editing options to see what was possible. Aside from the occasional dramatisation, however, I mostly stayed away from doing more than tweaking photos, either to correct saturation or exposure, sharpen or blur, or other minor alterations. I…

Day #283 Birthdays

When our son was born I looked up at my husband and said “happy belated birthday, dear. I got you a baby.” I mean, let’s be honest – I had a lot on my mind that year and didn’t quite get around to organising a proper birthday present. With only days apart, mid-October is therefore…

Day #270 Daddysaur Magic*

I never get tired of watching The Mister play with Hawkeye. I always knew he would make a good father. I had plenty of time to observe him with small kids and he always seemed at ease with them – something I often envied. I am not, by nature, a baby person. I don’t relate well…

I was discussing my post on my childhood memories of Russia with my mother the other day when she said to me "I have no recollection of Mama cutting up brown paper to use in the bathroom. Are you sure it was brown paper?"

"Yes," I replied. "It's one of my most vivid memories."

"Strange," my mum said. "I remember her singing while cooking, and sitting at the sewing machine, but not this."

"But surely you remember extended periods of not having any actual toilet paper available, right?"

"Oh, yes!" she assured me. "That was definitely the case, especially toward the end when we were there, it was very hard to get toilet paper anywhere. In fact, toilet paper was considered the best gift you could bring with you to a dinner party at that time. Much more appreciated than alcohol or cake!"

Postscript for Day #255 “Childhood Nostalgia”