Touch your toes? Only Lara can

It's painfully amusing at home at the moment, as if something needs picking up off the floor, the quickest way is for us to shout for Lara. Olga has an obvious reason why bending, touching toes or lifting anything heavier than a lamb madras is a no-no, but since the end of last week, it's a bit struggle for me too. I've had lower back pain on and off for years, most likely caused by a change in posture after I mangled my knee playing footy back in 2003.  Previously it's been treated with heavy duty nurofen and some physio, but this latest bout was different. So different that it required a trip to the GP on Friday, who has diagnosed sciatica, and prescribed elephant tranquilizers and anti-inflammatories.
There was a funny moment on Friday morning, after I'd gone to get Lara up for nursery, and the pain nearly made me chunder, so I headed to the bathroom and lay on the floor. Lara came and found me, and this was the conversation:

Lara: "Papa, why are you on the floor?"
Me: "I thought I was going to be sick, Lara."
Lara: "Do you need the pan? I can go and get it." [We give Lara a pan to be sick into when she's under the weather]
Me: "No, thank you, Lara, I'll be OK now."
Lara: "If you're sick on the toilet, Papa, I can clean it up. I'll get tissues."
Me: "It's OK, Lara, I'll not be sick now."
Lara: "Or you can be sick in the sink or the bath. I'll clean it up."

Humour is the best medicine.

Since then the other non-Lara news is that I struggled through the cricket club AGM on Friday night, and that officially ended my reign as Second XI Captain, as my successor was voted in. I did resign, rather than being sacked, given that my efforts this summer might not be 100% aimed at Littlewick Green. 

Nappy-free house for 2 months?

Given that Lara has her new bed now, and has settled perfectly into it, not falling out once, we decided it's finally time to take the plunge and dispense with the night-time nappy. Up to now we've been quite content for all three of us to enjoy nice lie-ins, as Lara's good at sleeping until 6.45 at the earliest, and often past 7am. We've had no reason to rock that comfy boat?!
But now, we've decided we have to take the plunge at some point, and probably better to have those disturbed nights now before Junior arrives - the chances of them synchronising their efforts at waking us are pretty remote.
We've been talking to Lara about this for a couple of weeks, and all this week since she's had her new bed, but last night was the first night we tried it. We woke her for a potty visit (we're happy for her to use a potty in her room for night time tinkles to start with) just as we were going to bed, and whilst she wasn't delighted at being woken up, it had the desired effect, as she slept right through until 6.50 before we heard her stir, and it was difficult to tell if she'd woken and tinkled or tinkled and that woke her, but either way, it was a very good first night.  Fingers crossed things carry on that way, although we have a mountain of clean bedding ready to go at a moment's notice.

Making the bed

This weekend was dominated by a bed. Lara's new "mid-sleeper" bed arrived at 9am Saturday morning. Argos had been very efficient - first calling last Saturday to say delivery would be this Saturday between 7am and noon ("if that's OK?"). Then on Friday evening they texted to say it would be between 10am and noon. Then the delivery man phoned at 8.30am on Saturday to say they would be with us in an hour, and sure enough 30 minutes later they turned up, complete with two large, heavy boxes and a mattress. I'd just had time to dismantle Lara's previous bed, ready to put it back together in Junior's room.

It took me 45 minutes to unpack the boxes, get the wood into organised piles and sort out the screws, bolts, nails and other fiddly bits. It took Lara 0.45 seconds to knock down one pile of wood that was leaning against the wall. There were two parts to the assembly; the bed frame and then the chest of drawers/slidy desk part. The bed frame went together without any hiccups, the instructions matched the way we wanted the frame, with the ladder to the left of the bed... This was about 2pm by now, and I set to putting the chest of drawers together...
Which is when the fun started. The instructions for the chest of drawers were based on the ladder being on the right-hand side of the bed.. I hadn't appreciated this, and followed the drawings religiously, and ended up with a chest of drawers with a shelf unit that fitted perfectly under the bed, except the drawers were behind the ladder, and so wouldn't open fully. Hmm, I'd just nailed the back of the unit on as well...
So, I took a deep breath, got the nails out (with extreme prejudice), took the whole unit apart and put it back together in the ladder-to-the-left orientation. It was 5pm by now and Lara and Olga had already gone up to Lara's friend, Zoe's, house for drinkies, so I packed up for the night and went to join them.

After a bit of a lazy morning on Sunday, then a bit of work, then a lovely walk down by the Thames in Cookham with the boys (crisp, clear weather, and we bumped into another 5 year old male Airedale called Stanley), and a quick trip to the pub for a swift half (Lara's idea!), a roast chicken dinner, I set about finishing the drawer unit and fitting the slidy desk after tea. It was 9pm before the last screw was tightened, but the desk slides out, the drawers open and close, and Lara hadn't fallen out of bed after her first night on Saturday.
We're really pleased with the end result, and Lara is too. I climbed up onto her bed this morning whilst she was pretending to do homework on her desk, when I was told in no uncertain terms that "NO adults are allowed on my bed".
I took some photos as I was building it, here's the result...

Christmas

After a busy Christmas Eve, when she didn't go to bed until after 10pm, Lara didn't stir on Christmas morning until 8am, but then it was hard to hold her back from heading downstairs to see if Father Christmas had been. This was the result..

 

It wouldn't be Christmas without the traditional photo of us with party hats on, I was lucky that I got to take the photo using my new camera Olga had given me, but trust me, I was still wearing my hat.

 

Christmas Eve and New Years Eve

On Christmas Eve we took a short notice trip into London, Olga had to meet a client in the huge Westfield shopping centre and pass her a brown envelope (it's was all above board!), then we took my mum to a Russian cafe for borsch, and so Olga could do some shopping for New Year's Eve (more to come on that), and to reward Lara for her patience, we took her to the Winter Wonderland park in Hyde Park. I normally do very little other than sit in front of the TV on Christmas Eve afternoon, so this made a lovely, Christmassy change, and of course Lara loved it.

On New Year's Eve we went to a Russian party. The local Russian community had hired a village hall, and the idea was that each family would bring some food and that was put out on tables for people to help themselves to, and you just brought your own drink. There was lots of entertainment for the kids, centered on Ded Maroz (the Russian version of Father Christmas), the evil Baba Yega and Ded Maroz's grand-daughter, Snegurochka. Midnight in Moscow (8pm) and Tallin/Riga/Vilnius (10pm) was celebrated before the big cheer at midnight. The kids games were conducted in Russian, and Lara watched for much of them, but joined in in places, and then enjoyed a boogie on the stage as the music played.

And here's a bit more of Ded Maroz and Baba Yega: