17. Sell car

SOMEBODY stood on the laptop. Somebody pretty small, whose weight shouldn't really have cracked the screen, but did, and rendered it useless until Acer can tell us whether or not it can be replaced. This is just a couple of months after SOMEBODY knocked the laptop off the sofa and bend the power adaptor pluggy-bit, so that it couldn't charge any more. Thankfully, it's still in warranty, so it shouldn't cost too much to fix. And extra-thankfully, the laptop which the new laptop replaced, which stopped working just less than a year ago, was dragged out and dusted off and appears to work perfectly well. Yay!

But the argh-factor of having yet another something which is broken and needs fixing sent my head into a downward-spiral and the all-consuming guilt over having an unused car sitting on my drive for 18 months came to a head. Instead of my usual reaction of having a breakdown, I listed the damn thing on ebay with a start price of £50 and no reserve. Less than 24 hours later, a very nice man appeared, dragged it off the driveway and round the village a few times until the wheels unlocked, winched it onto a flatbed truck, handed me a wodge of cash and was gone. Just as easy as that, and I am having NO "Why the hell didn't I do this 18 months ago?" thoughts, because I just don't care any more.

As stupid as it sounds, the car sitting there has been the one thing which has stopped me from finally feeling like everything's okay. Being on the anti-depressants has helped me find my way out of my PND, given me a crutch to sort my head out and CBT myself into a positive-thinking machine. At the back of my mind has always been that little niggly thought of the money-pit that was the car, sitting there and doing nothing. I don't know why I find sorting out things like this so hard, but it has filled me with such anguish that I've refused to look at it for all this time. I hated myself for being useless every time it popped into my head. But that uselessness stopped me from doing anything proactive, like actually listing it for sale.

I'd love to say I won't make the same mistake again, but the uncomfortable fact is that the exact same thing happened with my very first car (and I'm only on my 3rd now, giving me a 100% idiot hit rate). I think the best thing to do is never to replace my current car, then I really can't go wrong.

Today, I feel like a weight has been lifted off my forehead (I don't know why people say they carry weights on their shoulders, mine are always focused on my forehead), and, dare I say it, there is nothing worrying me. It feels lovely. And I've had my AD dose halved, and me and J-cub went to the loveliest park after school today to play. Check out our view.

100. Give J-cub the best 1st birthday

I think I can technically count today - it's the last day of the hundred days challenge, and whilst I gave up, I definitely completed a list item today so I'm blogging it.

Both Jamie and I worked so hard for this party (see all details here), and I had some invaluable help from my lovely friends Cat and Rhian, who made food, and helped to set up, and helped to clear up, and were just fab all day.

My only bugbear about the whole day was that I didn't have time to make his cake (and I've spent AGES googling photos of cakes and trying to decide what to do) because I spent too long making his birthday banner. But it can be used year after year, so I figure it's worth it.

And isn't it lovely?

Bunting tutorial via Sugar in my Bowl

Day 100: Mission complete.

96. Put up hooks on back of door in hallway cupboard

At some point during this hundred-days process, I attempted to do this. We bought the hooks, I got the drill all charged ... and found out that the hooks wouldn't fit across the back of the door. I've looked and looked, and haven't been able to find any sets of smaller hooks. Plus I couldn't really remember why I wanted them there anyway. Maybe for hanging J-cub's coats up.

We'll see, anyway. I'll keep on looking for those elusive hooks.

91. Repaint garage door

This is the back garage door, rather than the large slidey metal front door thing. We haven't repainted it since we moved in, and most of the paint has completely flaked off. However, the sun doesn't hit the back of the house and garage at all at this time of year, so there's no chance of the door drying out in preparation for painting, or of the paint drying once painted.

Another one to leave for a beautiful Summer's day, when J-cub is running around chasing bees, helping with the gardening and playing in a sandpit. I can't wait for summer.

83. Put up shelves in study

Yet another item where I didn't think about the magnitude of it when writing the list. As far as I'm aware, putting up shelves is a two person job. Otherwise they'd be all wonky. The only time when there are two people available in this house, the baby is asleep, and any drilling/arguing/cursing would therefore wake him up. So we'll leave it until someone else is available for baby-wrangling duties.

74. Put up pictures in hallway

See previous post. I can't put up pictures if I haven't decorated, right? That would just be silly.

73. Decorate hallway

There's not really an awful lot I need to say about this. We can't decide on a colour, and it'll take AGES. The coat rack needs to come down, all the skirting and stairs and banisters and windowsills and NINE doors need to be masking-taped round, it needs an undercoat or two, then two coats of nice paint. It'll take forever, and I don't have forever. I was thinking that for the next list, I should break this item down a little bit, make it more manageable. But for now, procrastination is the way forwards.

70. Clean out cupboard under the sink

I hate the cupboard under the sink. It's where all the cleaning stuff lives, and it's one of those corner cupboard where you can't reach half of it. It's also a bit damp, and as I can't pinpoint where the damp is coming from, I get panicky about the house falling down if I don't do anything about it, and so I just don't do anything about it. In fact I go so far as to not use the cupboard as much as possible, preferring to leave all my regularly-used cleaning products out on the worktop next to the sink. Which is just stupid, when I stop to think about it.

There are also boxes of Stuff in there, and I don't know what Stuff is in the boxes, and I think that when I get round to cleaning it out, it's going to take me forever as I'll have to decide what to do with all the Stuff.

I'll do it one day, maybe in the summer when it's dried out a bit and I won't panic so much when I get in there and see quite how bad it is.

16. Take videos to charity shop

I do feel guilty about not having done this yet. We bagged them up ages ago, but had a surprising FOUR binbags full. The charity shops near us are of the extremely-small variety, so I feel a bit bad lumping all that much possibly-unmovable merchandise on them (do people still buy videos?). And then there's the baby problem. If he's in the buggy, there's no way I could carry heavy binbags and push him at the same time. If he's in the sling, I don't think I could carry heavy binbags in addition to 27lb of weight on my back.

And I live in fear that I'll finally manage to get there, and they'll turn me away. What I really need to do, is go down into Swansea, and try bigger charity shops there. Or freecycle them. Hmmm that's an idea.

Anyway, it'll be on the next list, honest.

93. Arrange J-cub's birthday party

I can hardly believe that there are less than 3 weeks until J-cub turns one. This time last year I was on my maternity leave, in hospital having J-cub turned around because he was breech, and the alternative was a c-section. It hurt like hell, but was successful and I was allowed back home to tentatively sit in a fully upright position so that he didn't turn back round again.

We've been to-ing and fro-ing about his party for weeks, and have finally booked the village hall for his friends party on his birthday, and a pub lunch for his family party on the following Sunday, which also happens to be Mother's Day.

I'm hoping to have an invitation for you to see before too long, so I'll update with that when it's available.

Mission complete.

77. Celebrate Valentine's Day

Following a string of disastrous Valentine's Days when me and Jamie first started courting, we gave up on marking the day in any sort of celebratory fashion. Plus the cards and trappings are so ridiculously expensive.

This year though, wasn't just about us. J-cub was being sent to stay the night with A, to whom he's been betrothed from the moment the sonographer said to us at my 20-week scan: "Well we can't be 100% sure, but that looks like a scrotum". How romantic.

J-cub expressed his desire to do something romantic for A, and we hit upon the idea of making heart-shaped cookies. I followed some half-assed recipe which seemed to miss out ingredients, seeing as how I was left with something resembling breadcrumbs, rather than anything I could roll and cut out. I made some hasty amendments and ended up with lovely shortbread-type biscuits. I then learned that piping letters and names is HARD. Perseverance paid off and I was rewarded with a lovely box full of love.

We delivered them when we dropped J-cub off on Saturday, and munching on cookies broke the ice between J-cub and A a little (and gave J-cub his first sugar rush).

On V-Day itself, we had our lovely breakfast in bed, then drove back to Cardiff to be reunited with our one true love. We took C, N & A out for dinner as a thank you, then packed J-cub and all his stuff back into the car. As we left, A stood on the doorstep with the cutest smile on her face, waving and calling "Bye-bye Jacob!" and blowing kisses over and over again.

I think Cupid has well and truly struck gold there.

Mission complete.

71. Go away overnight (without J-cub, obvs)

As I said, this is a slightly frivolous substitution. It was much needed though, and for that reason alone, I definitely think it contributes towards making me a better person. I do have a similar item on the list (#98, Go out for an evening), but going away overnight is so much of a bigger step, that I thought it deserved its own list item.

On Saturday 13th February, we dropped J-cub off with friends C and N in Cardiff. They have a daughter, A, who is almost a year older than J-cub. We've been friends with C since University, she's a fantastic mum and we were so happy that they agreed to cope with J-cub overnight. We were a bit worried about going, as he's had the most horrendous cold and cough for a couple of weeks, and seemed to be getting worse and worse as the weekend approached. Having a non-refundable hotel booked, and gig tickets bought, made it really difficult to know what to do. C said she was more than happy to look after a snotty, coughing baby, she was used to it and it was just one night. So we packed up his things, and our things, and drove to Cardiff in the afternoon.

We stayed and played for a bit, to settle him in. He got stuck straight in, playing with A's toys, while A stood on a chair and pointed everyone out to me.

"That's Mummy!"

"That's Daddy!"

Me: "And who's playing on the floor?"

(A peers over the back of the chair and lets out a delighted giggle) "It's Jacob!". A loves J-cub.

We eventually tore ourselves away, and I was sobbing before I'd even got into the car. I managed to drive to Bristol despite the tears streaming down my face and the feeling that my heart had been ripped out. When we were checked in and had started getting ready to go out, we had text reports that J-cub was fine, and happy, and getting ready for bed. I realised I was being a bit silly and if he could cope without me, then I should do the same.

After getting dressed and knocking back a few drinks (first time drinking in 20 months!), we headed out to the Thekla, which is a boat doubling as a live music venue. It was SO COOL. I had had maybe one too many drinks by that point, as I was already swaying around proclaiming "It's just like a boat!". We met some friends and moved down into the hold (that's right isn't it? Like the belly of the boat) where the stage is, to see the first band: The Lovely Eggs. They were brilliant, and funny, eliciting as much laughter as applause from the audience (I say audience, sadly there was hardly anyone there). The singer Holly used to be in the band Angelica, who we put on in 2000 when we ran an Indie club here in Swansea. I was crazy about Angelica, and was very excited at the time to meet them and go out for dinner with them. I have a photograph somewhere of me standing with them, wearing a tiny black miniskirt and a homemade bright yellow Angelica t-shirt. I was so cool ;)

More people appeared out of thin air to see Everybody Was In The French Resistance ... Now! Eddie Argos (Art Brut) and Dyan Valdes (the Blood Arm) recorded an album correcting the mistakes of pop songs from the past. We've been so excited about this for months. Years. Since I was pregnant, and we went to see Eddie in his glamrock side project Glam Chops, and he gave us our first baby-present, and a secret copy of the EWITFR...N! album. It's a great album, and I've listened to it pretty much non-stop since then. When I was stuck in hospital after J-cub was born, and they wouldn't let me go home, and I couldn't stop crying ... I listened to the album on my MP3, and laughed, and felt a bit better.

Anyway, I'm crap at writing gig reviews, so I'll just say that it was brilliant and just a shame that there weren't more people there. Afterwards our friends drove us to The Lanes, which is a bizarre venue comprising bar, dance floor, stage, private karaoke rooms, and a ten-pin bowling alley. There were some bands playing, including Tender Trap who I liked at the time but can't remember anything about now.

We spent lots of time talking to Dyan about her amazing Cuban heritage, discussing baby-rearing with a 19-year-old dad, dancing to Kenickie and bumping into people who we didn't expect to see (bearing in mind we live more than a hundred miles away, we see far more people we know when we go out in Bristol than when we do in Swansea). We ran out of steam about 3am (yes, really), and walked back to the hotel via a chip van.

It was blissful collapsing into bed at 3.30am and knowing that we didn't have to get up in the morning. Lovely Jamie did get up in the morning, walked around to find breakfast, and returned with apple & cinnamon and Nutella crepes for us to eat in bed. Mmmmm.

Mission complete.

36. Clean mildew from shower curtain

Mmmmm mildew. Lovely.

J-cub's bathtime antics have got so vigorous (he likes to like on his back and slam both legs at once into the water, sending waves all over the place) that I now have to have the shower curtain pulled almost completely across, tucked into the bath, to prevent him flooding the whole place every day. In so doing, I realised that having something covered in mildew trailing into his bathwater probably wasn't terribly healthy.

I googled useful hints for removing mildew from shower curtains, and the general consensus seemed to be soaking the whole thing in a bath of bleach. I don't like bleach. It's far too deadly, and it's made and tested in nasty ways, and in the same way that I don't want something mildewy trailing in his bath, I don't want something bleachy trailing in his bath.

So I took the whole thing down, scrubbed it by hand using good old washing up liquid, and put it in the washing machine with some vinegar, bicarb and lemon juice. Result: good as new.

I don't have any recent pictures of J-cub having bathtime fun, so here's one of him months and months ago, sporting a little beard:

Mission complete.

49. Cut back the garden

Leaving the garden to die down naturally in the Autumn, rather than cutting it back (as a good gardener should), seems to have worked in my favour this year. All the dead leaves and foliage have provided a mulch across the borders, and protected the dormant plants against the un-customary snow.

When I started clearing it all away, I found fresh new shoots forcing their way up, and whole new plants under a pile of a large clematis which fell off the fence, and 15 salvageable strawberry plants (I'd given them all up for dead), and bulbs growing all over the place.

Spring is most definitely sprung.

Before (this is only a bit of a garden, I did the rest too!):

After:

The resulting waste for the compost collection (I climbed into these bags and jumped on them to thoroughly squash everything down, so as to fit more in.):

Mission complete.

48. Prune Flamingo Tree

When we first planted this Salix integra, it was small and neat, as ornamental trees should be. We bought it more for the price (cheap) and the purpose (to fill a gap in the corner of the garden), rather than for any sort of design reason. My garden design ethos is what you might call slapdash. I love gardening, but am not very patient at plotting and planning. I'd rather buy something, and put it in a gap regardless of how big it's going to grow or what colour its going to be. The garden would work much better if we lived in an old cottage somewhere, rather than on a new estate.

I think my neighbours hate me.

The flamingo tree grew and grew, and I always missed that window of opportunity for pruning, so instead of the small, neat, ornamental tree it should be; it now overhangs the fence into next-door, and gets tangled up in the washing line. I've seen my next-door neighbour patiently clipping back the bit that hangs over the fence all summer long, and have felt very sorry for him.

On inspection, I found the branches were so thick that any pruning shears I had weren't going to make a dent on it, so I got the saw out, and hacked away until it was nowhere near the top of the fence. I then had to hack all the pieces I'd sawn off into manageable sections which would fit into our green-waste collection bags.

It looks much better now, and I can't wait to see it in bloom.

Before:

After:

Mission complete.

47. Weed patio

I've got a scary but effective tool for weeding the gaps between the patio stones. It might have been better just to use my fingers though, as the cold weather seems to have done something to the patio, and the edges of the stones started crumbling away as I worked.

I'd therefore like to open up this post to welcome rich benefactors, or patio/decking/playground manufacturers who are avidly reading this blog, and who would like to provide me with a new patio surface for me to 'review'. And by review, I mean have installed at your kind expense, and then let J-cub loose on it when the summer comes. Of course you'd also get a nice write-up.

That's it really, there's not an awful lot I can say about weeding between patio stones. A new patio surface though, I could wax lyrical about that for pages.

Mission complete.

42. Chuck out rubbish from garden

The rubbish in the garden seems largely to stem from the curse of the Post Office red rubber band. Around the local sorting office, these rubber bands spread out in a carpet all over the road as you approach. I can't see that they make any effort to pick them up there, and certainly our local post people think nothing of discarding them as they go.

Our cats have an obsession with them, in the same way that previous cats Chokki loved cocktail umbrellas, and Poppy loved emery boards. Tilly and Maeby (thankfully) don't bring us home presents of dead things, but they do make approximations of that behaviour by bringing home these rubber bands and yowling at the back door until you go and congratulate them on their kill. They then spend hours making sure they're completely dead, before depositing them in a pile outside the back door.

I collected up as many as I could find, and went round with a bin bag searching in the corners for windblown pieces of rubbish, and plant labels which have lost their plants, and other general garden debris.

Mission complete.

41. De-clutter and tidy downstairs toilet

Today was a bit of a wobbly day. J-cub had his first settling-in session at nursery, which in retrospect is probably why I can't remember anything about yesterday, since I was worrying about it all day. He got up really early, had his breakfast early, and then was tired and wanted his milk just before 9am (when we had to leave) and slept in the car on the way there. I think that was good, as it meant they didn't have to worry about giving him his bottle or trying to get him to sleep.

I took him in and sat down on the floor, where all the other babies were playing around. J-cub gave one of the nursery staff a high-five, then crawled off to look at the toys without a backwards glance to me. I left without saying goodbye to him, as I didn't want him to notice I'd gone. And I don't think he did, until I returned and he burst into tears and gave me that Look, the one that rips my soul out of my body.

He was okay though, as soon as I picked him up, and I was okay while he was there. I ran some errands and then went home, as my mobile had run out of battery. I rang the nursery and they said he was fine, and had eaten some raisins for a snack (which doesn't really surprise me, as raisins are #1 on his list of yummiest foods EVER at the moment). I left him about 2 hours, and he was absolutely shattered when I picked him up. They said he'd been really good, except for when they changed his nappy (which he hates at the best of times). They were still a bit baffled by the baby-led weaning, but I'd printed out some info sheets for them which they'd evidently read as they had lots of questions and asked if they could keep the sheets. Fingers crossed it all works out with them doing BLW with him, as I'd hate for anything to mess up his eating now he's doing so well with it.

We came home, had lots of cuddles, I made him promise never to leave me again, and then we had lunch and a nap. This afternoon he's had fun playing, and scaring the life out of me when I stepped out of sight for a couple of seconds, during which time he crawled about 3 metres from the kitchen door to the far end of the sofa, climbed onto it, knelt UP on the very edge, and started to bash the laptop which was balanced on the arm. I managed to catch him before he fell, and have now put his squishy-number-floormats in a line along the front of the sofa to cushion the blow if he does fall.

I started cleaning the downstairs toilet and realised I may as well do this item while I was at it. I attempted to take photographs but it's so tiny that it was impossible to get a shot of the whole room, so you'll just have to imagine it (or not). I went through the medicine cupboard and threw out old medicines which I can't envisage using - drops for the conjunctivitis J-cub developed after birth, drops for the thrush we passed back and forth between us while I was breastfeeding (why do I keep this stuff?), old gammy nail polishes, empty blister-packs of various pills, empty suntan lotion bottles ... there was so much rubbish in there.

I tidied and sorted all of my make-up, jewellery and hairbands (which I really need more of, since Tilly found out where I keep them and has been slowly squirrelling them away every time she gets the chance), cleaned the skirting board and door, weighed myself (woo hoo! That was a pleasant surprise) and dusted.

It now looks nice and organised and much less cluttered. I'm awful for buying lotions and potions, although I have seen the error of my ways since my new-found parent-frugality kicked in, and I'm now working my way through my stash, rather than buying new stuff.

I think it'll probably last a couple of years at least.

Day 63: Mission complete.

28. Make functional stereo area

This item was done yesterday, and I'm sure we did plenty of other things as well, but at the moment my mind has gone completely blank and all I can remember is having a nap. Blame it on the baby-brain.

The stereo (and by stereo, I mean crappy living room stereo, not lovely-upstairs-study-separates-stereo) used to living in the old TV table, but it was usurped by the Wii and its accoutrements. We dumped it, along with the downstairs-CDs (you can see the upstairs-CDs here) on top of the 2 cabinets which now reside under the stairs. It's pretty much the only place that's out of the way, and which J-cub can't reach, so it's become a dumping ground for broken things, dangerous things, expensive things, and things-we-don't-want-J-cub-to-eat.

All it really needed was the stereo setting up (including having a special pluggy attachment for my MP3 player, thus rendering CDs entirely obsolete), the CDs sorting out, a couple of boxes and baskets to tidy away bits 'n bobs, and it's done.

I know it seems like an easy list item, but quite frankly, I need an easy list item or two to keep me going. And (drumroll please), it is absolutely the last thing which needed sorting in the lounge so .... lounge complete! Hurrah! Now I just have to keep it like this ;).

Before:

After:

Day 62: Mission complete.

59. Start baby book

I had an unexpected 3 hour break this morning, as J-cub was up before 6 and was therefore tired enough to go to bed again at 9am. Great, I thought, that'll give me time to get ready for Baby Group at 10am, and we'll have a nice time for once as he won't be overtired or jonesing for a nap.

Baby group finishes at 12. What time did J-cub deign to wake up? 11.45. Oh well, at least I had almost 3 hours to myself, which pretty much never happens.

After kicking my heels around on the internet for a while, I thought I'd do something useful, and get going on the Baby Book.

We were given one proper baby book, with important milestones and dates to fill in, and places for pictures to be stuck. We also bought a lovely spiral-bound blank book from Paperchase, for us to fill with all the nonsense we think is important, and a matching shoebox-type box in which to keep things like his first bodysuit, his first shoes, shells and starfish from his first trip to the beach, that sort of thing.

It's been the spiral-bound book that's put me off doing this list item, as I didn't really know where to start, or what to put it in, or how to organise it. Yesterday, I unwrapped the proper baby book and had a look through what Marks and Spencers consider to be important information from a baby's first 3 years. And actually, it seemed quite easy and gave me some ideas of how to organise the blank book.

But for now, I just want to get stuff recorded before I forget. During this morning's mammoth nap, I took a nice pen, practised my best writing, and started filling in the blanks. I've handily kept records of J-cub's 'firsts', by noting them on the calendar, so it was fairly easy to fill in. Some information is missing though, and I'll have to search back through emails or text messages to see if I can find when he got his first, second, third, fourth and fifth teeth (really? Why do we need to remember that?!) and other bits and bobs.

The best thing is that the book runs from birth to 3 years, so I'm under no pressure to actually finish the darn thing.

Which, I think you'll all agree, is a very Good Thing.

Day 60: Mission complete.