Feb 28

Babies, bags and bedtime

I was amused to see that you took the bait, Nastya!! I merely made a passing reference to babies and you leapt upon the topic and expanded upon it!! I’m sure that in your true style you are keeping us in suspense for now but you will open up and answer the baby question, answer all the Alex questions, the moving to the UK questions and disclose many more fascinating facts about yourself on the final blog day.

I’m surrounded by pregnant women at the moment, Nastya, five of my close friends are at different stages of pregnancy right now and actually three of them will deliver in August this year!! You are right that babies come in all shapes and sizes, different personalities and guises and new parents are often stressed out and sleep deprived BUT … it’s so worth all the angst and worry and bags under the eyes (It’s a cliché but any parent will tell you that!)

By the way, did you know that I have two babies? One is an angel and full of sweetness and light and the other one is a problem child, a real handful. Do you know which one is which? Here is a photo of my two bubbas.




What happened to the invitations that we were supposed to help you choose?!! Some delay? Will we get to see the choices do you think because we have only two days left!

Further to your request, here are more (difficult?) phrasal / multi word verbs for you to include in the blog;

To talk someone out of
To cut back on
Eaten something up (e.g. The wedding has eaten all my money up)
Mount up
To take to someone
Take in (e.g. The conman completely took me in)
Bring on (e.g. The pollen brought on my hay fever)
Do out of (e.g. My brother did me out of my rightful inheritance)
Do away with
Set aside (idiomatic)
Put on (e.g. I am good at putting on a Russian accent)
To put someone down (idiomatic)

Ana Paula was right when she said to grit one's teeth means to face a difficult challenge or problem and ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ means that everyone’s idea of what constitutes beauty is very different so well done Beatriz.
Pary, I didn’t know that you had kind of sandstorms in Iran. I must confess that I know very little about Iran in general.
Kuldeep, I sympathize with the hot temperatures and the sand and dust storms you described. Sounds as grim as some days here ;(


For Stephen Keller and others who like to hear information about the ‘Middle Kingdom’, here is another little ‘China fix’ for this blog, although I’m afraid to say it’s another negative aspect (but there is hope!)China is extremely polluted as I’m sure most of you well know. The worst pollution to live with, in my opinion, is air pollution and anyone who lives in a thriving city or metropolis will understand what I’m saying. Another form of pollution, that I hadn’t really thought about or seen evidence of until I lived in China, is ‘white pollution’. This refers to the unsightly and widespread pollution that is caused by plastic bags and disposable tableware (including foam take away food boxes and similar containers). Lots of river banks, open grassy areas, streets and living areas are littered with white pollution here.

A few stores have just implemented measures to help this problem, they make customers buy cloth re-usable bags and don’t give free plastic bags any more. This is a great idea as long as you remember to take your cloth bag with you on every shopping trip. Companies like IKEA only provide big, super-thick, re-usable plastic bags now and they charge for them. The Chinese government are jumping on the bandwagon as they have declared an outright ban on providing free plastic bags in supermarkets and are banning any further production of super-thin bags. This is progressive action to combat this type of pollution isn’t it? But what about the foam food boxes…maybe they are still trying to figure that problem out. Do you have any problems like this where you live Anastasia? Is re-using and re-cycling a primary concern to Russian people and your government? From your descriptions of your hometown, I imagine that it is pretty much pollution- free and relatively clean and tidy, am I far from the truth?


Got to rush off now, Teah has just gone to sleep for the night so it’s my time to do things. I want to phone my Mum in the UK, I have to prepare dinner and also read 3 chapters of my child development text book before collapsing exhausted into bed. No rest for the wicked…

Have a good evening and get a good nights sleep

Trudi

Vocabulary

to take the bait to accept something that was offered to get you to do something

open up to talk in a free and honest way

disclose (v) reveal

guises (n) Outward appearance or aspect

sleep-deprived (adj) not having enough sleep

angst (n) anxiety or apprehension

cliche (n) overused expression or idea

a real handful child that is difficult to control or handle

metropolis (n) a major city

unsightly (adj) ugly or unattractive

to jump on the bandwagon to become involved in an activity which is successful so that you can get the advantages of it yourself

outright (adj) completely, entire

progressive (adj) progress toward better conditions or new policies, ideas, or methods

primary (adj) high importance