Maman fâchée

So you know those shows where some superhuman woman comes into a family home and calmly sorts out the outrageous nighttime routine of screaming toddlers who keep getting out of bed? Well our home is like that at the moment. But without the supernanny.

Yep, it's just me and a crazed 19-month old boy who gets up as soon as I put him down, taking his pyjamas off and running around half-naked giggling and saying "maman fâchée" (mummy's angry) while my 2-month-old son screams until he is blue in the face, pre-empting a full night of crying and unsettled tossing and turning. In fact, in the last 48 hours, I have slept only 3 hours... The big boy bed and newborn baby routine have their disadvantages where my patience is concerned...

In his awake hours (of which there seem to be so many), bambino is talking up a storm. It's amazing how fast he picks up every little word he hears (including "penis", which he promptly repeated all day long to whoever would listen). He can say "tournevis" (screwdriver) and "porte-monnaie" (purse). He can say "tourne la page" (turn the page) and "chercher papa" (find daddy). He can say "happy new year" and "bonne annee", proving he is bilingual, too. He can say almost anything you teach him, in fact.

At first I was almost disappointed - it's like when you hear someone speak a romantic language like Italian, you imagine that they are talking in beautiful rhyming poetry about the wonders of the world, when in fact they are asking what time the next train is. I spent months wondering what Oscar was trying to say - turns out he was just pointing out what was right in front of him.

But then, a few days ago, he said "maman, je t'aime" (mummy I love you). So who am I to say what language is interesting or not?!

So we went and had ourselves a little bunny rabbit...

Forgive me blogosphere for I have sinned - it has been 109 days since my last entry.

I have been furiously writing notes on my phone though, ready for the next time I had a second to spare for blogging. Not sure I understand most of them, though, as I don't even have the time to write notes properly nowadays. In fact I'm way too busy feeding and burping and changing nappies for trivial things like, say, writing full sentences. Or writing anything noteworthy, really. In fact these are the highlights of the questions I was asking myself the day after I gave birth to our second beautiful baby boy:

- Breast pads are useless, aren't they? Oh right, without them I look like I am sweating from my nipples...
- What's that warm feeling? Oh right, Henry just pooed on my hand...
- How can such a small body poo so much?
- I'm freaking out - why does Henry look like a shrunken head version of my husband

And other such gross and scatological Pulitzer-worthy gems of literature. The rest of the weeks since then has gone by in a daze of to-do lists that never get done, and of life-changing milestones. Here's my entry for 4 December:

"This is the day my son found out how to get out of his sleeping bag and climb out of his crib. Just one week after the day my other son sprayed poo in my hair and all over my pjs and bed cover."

Yes, Oscar, the tiger, has graduated to a big bed. After witnessing him throwing himself over the side of his cot a few times, I came to the obvious yet depressing conclusion that I would have to take the sides off before he killed himself. This - at a time when son number two, the rabbit, was not even remotely sleeping through the night - was NOT good timing. A few days of leading the truant back to his bed after he climbed out to see what we were up to (and repeat several dozens of times) and we are now down to bedtime story, short sing-song and no real trouble. Apart from early rising in the morning, and some baby juggling around bedtime in the evening, it was much less painful than I expected. And seeing my baby tucked up under a duvet, with a pillow and everything... It's the end of an era. And the beginning of a much more interesting one, no doubt. One where we feel like we have pets rustling around the curtains in the early hours of the morning.

And if a pregnancy is any indication of things to come, Henry should be a doddle compared to Oscar. The latter was breech, with the cord around his neck (no doubt from all the climbing around, trying to get out), came out a week before planned and was, as a first child, a bright light eclipsing all others, totally all-encompassing and engrossing. Henry, on the other hand, was complacent, turning his head into the appropriate position at the right time, not keeping me up at night, waiting until the day of the C-section to come out... He is more of a soft, ambient light that I don't really have time to pay proper attention to but who really adds to the quality of my environment.

Blimey I'm happy.

Back on the last rung of the rental property ladder

Well, here we are, the worst has happened... After months of toying with the idea of leaving our super flat for a more baby friendly one, we decided to stay and live with the difficulties in exchange for the extra space. And then, just two months away from baby number two's arrival, we have to move anyway.

The hows and whys are too long of a story, but in short I have spent the last five days lugging bambinos one and two around in 40 degree heat to flats in Tung Chung, Taikoo Shing and Tai Hang, each boasting a more appalling layout and condition than the last. It is shocking what hovels people are prepared to pay top buck for.

The best one I saw didn't even have any floors, either inside or outside the flat. Going for 50% more than our top budget, the estate agent assured me that the renovation work would only last "five to six months, after which the floor tiles will go down" - but the rent might then go up too. Luxury.

Anyway, we have no choice but to find something soon, as I don't really want to be moving within days of going into labour... Which brings me to my next hilarious anecdote of the week (I am "laughing yellow" as they say in French, which is to say that my grin is only hiding the most tortuous Ernst-style scream of despair) - today, at my 30-week antenatal checkup, my doctor regaled me with this exchange:

Me: "I have a really sore throat, what can I do?"
Dr: "Go and see a Dr."
Me: "Erm... Arent' you a Dr?"
Dr: "This is a healthy clinic, for healthy patients."

It made me feel all warm inside, almost like when I read my file from the first pregnancy and found out I was an "obese alcoholic". Oh Hong Kong, how welcome you are making me feel at the moment...

Oh the glamour

So what's new with me? Well, I have breasts that look like out of date aubergines thanks to two pregnancies and breastfeeding, I have three veins popping out of my left leg, and my feet have expanded beyond the largest size of women's footwear... Yeah, I'm great!

Apart from the (many) niggles of carrying baby Segundo, all is well, and Oscar is taking my mind off everything by having full blown conversations with himself. Now if only I could find out what "bee-ya dee-ya doo-a bee" means, we'll be laughing.

Oh and he saw his first elephant today. I mean his first real elephant. Now that - seeing your baby see in the flesh what he has been obsessing about in 2d for months - that is priceless...

Staring at the son

Well, I'm finally in a position to be able to sit down and write a few things down. In other words, I'm on holiday in the Ile de Re, with no chores to do, and someone else is taking care of Oscar.

A lot has happened since I last blogged, obviously. In no particular order...:

Oscar turned one, and said Maman for the first time. Or rather Oscar vomited and then looked up with love in his eyes before saying Maman and kissing me with his mouth still full of vomit. But it was mother's day, so I still had tears of pride in my eyes. And it's not like I'm not used to being covered in food and vomit stains by now, anyway...

As a bilingual baby, he hasn't said many intelligible words yet (although as his official translator I understand a lot more than others think he can say), but he delights us with all things beginning with baa... There's baaateau (boat), baabaa (sheep), baaain (bath) and baaaon (ball), and then he amazes us with his animal impressions, with a hand up in the air to show us the elephant's trunk, the cow's mmmoooo and the woowoooo of the owl. But most impressively, I think, is the fact that when he's tired, he runs up to his bedroom door, banging, saying Dodo, which means sleep. What a clever boy. Then again, as the wiser members of my family and friends have pointed out, have you ever heard of a one-year-old who wasn't clever? The cleverest of all one-year-olds in fact?

So life is good. Oscar has a brilliant nature, laughing most of the day and waking up early plotting his domination of the living room without crying for at least half an hour, sharpening his teeth on any surface he can find (five through so far but three more are showing signs of joining the party soon). His months of squealing non stop are over now that he is walking all over and climbing anything that seems stable enough to hold him - or not.

Krusty has turned into a fabulous daddy, too, getting up to play with Oscar each morning to let me sleep an extra 20 mins each morning. In fact the one or two mornings I did have to get up, Oscar just looked at me angrily saying dadda, as if I had stolen away the best part of his day...

And anyway, I'm glad to grab those extra minutes in bed, because most of the time I'm bloated, and nauseous, and exhausted, and in a bad mood.

As for the rest of the day, my mouth is constantly full of saliva and I have to go to the bathroom every 30 minutes.

But I'm happy.

Oh and I'm pregnant again, by the way. But Oscar's already in love with every other baby (or, in his language, deedee) he sees, so let's see how THAT goes!

The Kitchen Nomads

So here it is, finally, the reason why I have had no time for rats and monkeys recently – my dear and stylish friend Paola have been obsessed by deliciousness for a while now, and after a long simmer (slow cooking brings out the best flavours, remember?), our blog is finally ready to be served.

The Kitchen Nomads is a layer cake of recipes and anecdotes, with a few exotic journeys thrown in for good measure. On it we share our Colombian, Spanish, French and British family cooking secrets, adding inspiration picked up from our nomadic lives along the way. Yes, we've gained a few pounds getting this collection of recipes together, and yes, you will probably gain a few in the process too, but we promise that it'll be a real treat.

So come put your feet under our table. If you want to jump right in and get an update every time we cook a meal, send us a nice email at hello@thekitchennomads.com, or get all modern and "like" our Facebook page. You more shy and reticent types can simply click through and explore www.thekitchennomads.com – at the moment it's still in its beta state, but we'll be introducing new concepts, ideas and events soon, where you can come and taste what we are talking about in the flesh.

Make yourselves at home, and welcome to our gourmet family!

Punished by Portman

While my husband was out hobnobbing with the financial intelligentsia of Hong Kong, I sat at home making croissants from scratch. As you do.

Not only was it the most labour-intensive thing I've ever made, but you do NOT want to know how much butter goes into those babies.

And the result is not the light, fluffy, crispiness I expected really. Then again, I made them while watching Black Swan - how I imagined I could make something so calorific while watching such skinny girls strut their stuff, I do not know.