Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Cole is five months old and has never seen snow. He was therefore rather impressed this morning with this:






The Teens and I took him for a walk this afternoon, but he was far too excited to stand still for even TEN BLOODY SECONDS so I could take his photograph:







And even if I manage to snap a photo, a coal-black coat is not the best colour for showing detail:





The Teens, on the other hand, will happily stand still when I want to take a photo of them:





And they don't pee on the carpet either.

Don't come crying to me........

My beloved son was home this weekend. Well, I say home. I hardly saw him. He arrived at midnight on Friday, slept till noon on Saturday, went out on Saturday night with his friends, slept till eleven on Sunday and returned to his school two hours later. His room, which I had scrubbed, dusted, tidied, made up the bed with fresh linen, etc etc (you get the picture) looked like a typhoon had had a party in it within 20 minutes. Without thinking, I found myself yelling: "You treat this place like a HOTEL!"

Arrrghh. I have become my mother. When did that happen?

This got me thinking (rather like Carrie in SATC, only thinking about it, not rather like Carrie, in that I weigh more than two stones) about the stuff our mothers said to us when we were growing up. Here's a sample. Feel free to add your own bon mots.

(When asking if I could have a bike for Christmas five minutes after I'd spilled tomato soup all over the kitchen table) "Bike? I'll give you bike!"

"You'll be smirking on the other side of your face!"

"If you climb up that wall once more and fall off and break your legs - don't come running to me."

"Eat like a Christian." (Yes, I know. My mother is Irish and a devout Roman Catholic. I blame the nuns.)

"If the wind changes, you'll be left looking like that."

"Don't sit on a cold wall. You'll get a chill on your kidneys." (Perhaps there is a mysterious wall somewhere that is warm?)

"You can't go out with freshly washed hair. You'll catch a chill." (Whereabouts of said chill, unspecified.)

Me to my mother as she was making a cake: "Can I lick out the bowl?" Mother to me: "No. If you eat raw cake mixture, you'll get worms."

Mother to my sister and I: "If you two are going to kill each other, do it outside. I've just washed the floor."

"Keep that crying up, and I'll give you something to cry about!"

"Look at the dirt on the back of your neck." (How, Mum?)

"There's starving children in Africa that would be grateful for that cabbage."

"Eat your crusts or you'll never get curly hair."

And finally:

"One day you'll have children. THEN YOU'LL SEE..........."