It is surely time for a roundup of some Devastatingly Interesting Things.

The baby can fit into a Bumbo. Here is this morning’s evidence. From that, we can take that Ned is very handsome, and he has a strong neck, and his bottom is wide. Hmmm.

The weather has gone all wintery, and we are not prepared any more, and it makes us all want to weep salty tears of springtime disappointment. Where have all the winter coats gone, anyway? It must have been in some deranged, sleep-deprived domestic efficiency that I put them somewhere. I certainly cannot remember.

I have fallen for the charms of Ocado delivery. That means I do not go out and get stuff everyday, like the old days Before The Pushchair Died. It also means that we run out of food alarmingly regularly. Sorry about that, Large and Burgeoning Family, who suffer stoically with the absence of toast and jam of a morning.

I am mastering the art of vegetable cake making. Yes, I have found that I can create a mean chocolate cake out of butternut squash, and brownie out of aubergines. You get thin and full of nutrients and yet you get cake. Sort of. (Neradah tells me that just because there is some 400 grams of butternut squash in the cake, and no butter, it is not an “everyday” food. You do not “get thin” eating slices of it throughout the day. KILLJOY!). Admire my brownie below:

My hair is falling out in alarming clumps in the shower every morning. I know this is normal, and it happens after having a baby, and I had just forgotten about it. But I has also forgotten the fun that can be had when you weave interesting little tumbleweed/animal hybrid shapes out of the clumps in the shower and stick them on the wall in a hair gallery for your husband to muse over. I have considered asking him to guess what kind of animal hybrids they are, but then he might get cross. So they are just going to stick there until Claudia the Cleaner comes. She might like to guess. Or not.

We have booked summer holidays in Turkey and Greece. It is costing about 5 million pounds to get all 6 of us there and back. Mum and dad are going to come. I hope we do not all die, because hardened Turkish people have been suggesting we might well perish in the 50 degree heat. I keep thinking we are New Zealanders, and New Zealanders are very tough. It may not be enough though, and I am not ready for my parents to die. Mum has to at least teach Barnaby to knit first.

Even though the weather is so cold and windy that the children sob when we go outside, Barnaby is afflicted with springtime eczema. The kind of eczema that leads the school receptionist (the mean one – see “The Owl and the Villager” post) to draw in her breath loudly at the sight of him in the hallway and declare “You, my boy, have ECZEMA.” You think? You think the raw fingers and the flaking cheeks and the bleeding knees were for fun? The irony of being struck down with defective springtime skin in the pseudo winter! Donations of hydrocortisone cream gratefully received.

My husband has a birthday on Sunday. What gift to give the poor man? I suspect he will decide he needs a rowing machine, to fit awkwardly into our hallway and to trip us all up and put an end to the scootering-alley and yet never be actually used for the purposes of rowing. That, or a CD of Garth Brooks. Shudder. I think I would prefer the rowing machine.

Barnaby has taken a shine to my rabbit fur coat. Here he is, looking a little Studio 54, a little “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe”-esque. This is the only coat which has not apparently disappeared into ill-timed storage.

And that is kind of it.