Making it up

that I don’t learn from my mistakes.

Today I have tried really hard. I have wet washing on the line (sigh) and wet washing in the machine (bigger sigh), the kitchen is trashed again, but was clean and clear before I started preparing our home cooked tea, and I shifted another bit of paperwork before we went out today.

Took the overpriced chocolate decorations back to Wilco’s (hate doing that sort of thing, but at least I did it) and spent a fraction of the amount on fun things instead (paper fasteners and cotton buds - skeletons here we come!), although I did wonder if I should be concerned that Big drooled over the maths workbooks, and was thrilled when I agreed she could have one…

Bought red felt, red checked fabric and blue checked fabric so that we can make some christmassy decorations, and managed to get most of the other bits on the shopping list that I couldn’t get yesterday due to the assistance of Small. Today I had Big to chase him every time he departed, which was often.

Past the library which bizarrely seemed to be shut (blast!) and off to Graves Park for our picnic lunch. Cut the visit short when Small started shivering - I always forget how much colder it is there for some weird reason. Shame, as he was fascinated by the animals, and Big was thrilled to be there too. Ah well, must arrange to go again soon, but togged up for the arctic next time.

Off to Lembas to discover that my nappies have been and gone Apparently they’ll definitely be in next week though. Hm. Then we tried the library again, which was open this time, but full of school children?? Apparently they come on their way to and from swimming, so I think we’ll try to avoid Tues afternoons in future. Ever so quiet once they’d gone though, and we could get to the books.

Indulged in a bit of retail therapy - they were selling off loads of children’s reference books, hardbacks for 20p a piece. Well, it would be rude not to really I was very restrained, only bought 12

And home again, where we’ve started cutting out some Christmassy decoration shapes to sew, and Big has made a good start on her maths homework book. Turns out it has stickers in it, so she is very happy. We need to do some work on her number formation though - she gets most of them reversed. The maths itself is a walk in the park, but the reading and writing is giving her some difficulties. Will have to have a think about this - she obviously very much enjoys workbooks and worksheets, so I think I am going to have to cater to this need, and perhaps I can figure out a way that I can get to do some work as well *if* I can think of a way to entertain Small. He likes jigsaws, for about 30 seconds, then he throws the pieces round the room, he likes his trains, until the track breaks, and then he throws the pieces round the room, he likes balls (because he can throw them round the room - are you spotting the pattern yet?) Hohum.

We did have a proud mummy moment at the library with him when he went and helped himself to a book, sat down with it and turned the pages carefully one by one to look at the pictures. The teacher wanted to know how old he is - apparently her 21 month old would just shred a book if allowed access to it. Sometimes Small will too, but most of the time he wants someone to read it to him. That’s got to be a good start, hasn’t it? He’s beginning to figure out his insert jigsaw too, so I can see him getting new skills every day now.

to finish off a grotty day.

I’ve only just managed to get Small to bed, and mainly it was by holding him down while he screamed and I hated myself. I screamed blue murder at Big when she decided to create just as he was dropping off and wake him up again.

It’s been a tough day all round. I was trying to deal with paperwork (credit card bills, bank statements, bill for our holiday in January (which I’m almost wishing I hadn’t booked as financial situation is looking precarious at best), inland revenue demand for national insurance payments) which has just been piling up on the table while I’ve been ignoring it. Have come to the conclusion that this is not the most efficient approach to the situation, and I really need to get my finger out. Not quite sure where to go next though

So while I was attempting to deal with that, and housework, and washing and so on, it really helped to have Big throw a tantrum because I asked her to pick up the two pairs of her pjs which are decorating the bathroom atm, and tell me that I never do *anything* to help her. Grrr….I know that I shouldn’t be expecting a not quite 5 year old to be a grown up, but it would be nice to have a teeny bit of appreciation somewhere along the line. So she spent large parts of the afternoon playing in her room again, apart from the half hour that I chucked them both out in the garden for some fresh air while I hung the washing out.

Later on I gave up on paperwork and went out to do banking and shopping, leaving Big at home and taking Small with me. Turned out that that was a bad idea too - I’ve taken to having him walk with me instead of riding in the buggy, and today he decided he would assert his independence and leg it for the far horizon at every possible opportunity. This made the whole shopping experience rather fraught, and meant that I didn’t get everything I went for, and paid rather too much for some other bits (way too much, I’m going to take them back tomorrow! £9 for 45 pieces of chocolate, but that’s a whole other rant, don’t get me started…)

And then tonight neither of them has done anything I’ve asked, and consequently, I’ve wept on my keyboard, hidden downstairs while they rioted and eventually forced them both into bed, so that I could have some food in peace.

Bleargh.

You’re a witchy woman! Chances are that you see
Morticia Addams as a role model, and your
wardrobe sports a fair amount of black. The
other mothers at school pick up may look
askance, but your kids already know that the
judgement of others isn’t what counts.

What kind of a freaky mother are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

but not ones I like - Small has learnt to pick his nose. Eeuwww….

He has also developed this neat trick of coming and getting me by the arm and dragging me off to look at various things - was very proud of building the five blocks from his musical thingy into a tower and I had to clap for that (he applauds himself as well, very cute). And he helped me hoover. Which seems reasonable, as most of the mess was food he’s thrown on the floor

Between them, the children woke me at just before 7 this morning. They mainly entertained themselves with varying levels of success until A’s mum came for him at lunchtime - at which point Big was distraught. “But who am I going to play with?” Let’s just disregard the fact you’ve had someone here for the past 24 hours shall we? Aargh….

anyway, she got the next few folders of MMM stuff that we got from Jan yesterday, and spent most of the afternoon playing in her room with cut out dressable figures. Which meant that it was just me and Small tidying. Once I managed to find the floor it felt like I’d made some headway, but I did that at the expense of the sofas….basically we’ve got too much stuff! (Which is not a good state of affairs this close to Christmas - I might have my mother onside with the idea we don’t need loads more crap, but I’m not sure about the rest of the family.)

So by the end of the day I was tired and tetchy - I thought about titling this post, “Hi I’m Jax, I’m a blog addict” - I was positively twitchy with the machine turned off! My mood was not improved by Small being a little swine when I finally took him to bed and headbutting me several times, and biting me twice, or by the fact that Big went to bed in (extremely loud, dramatic) tears without her story.

But I’ve eaten, and I’ve watched the 4400, and I’m gonna do a little bit of work before I clear off to bed, and hope that tomorrow is a better day….

I’m 62% freak!!

A little while back I added a comments feature to reviews on Movie Gazette.

Sometimes we get intelligent, enlightened posts, others, well, less so.

We have a review of the Jim Carrey film Bruce Almighty and I am moved to share this comment, posted by a visitor from a school IP, with you:-

I quote:

“your review isent very good am at school were doing a review on it and ares it better then that”

Nothing more to say then really, is there?

I’ve decided that there is no reason we should be living in such a tip, so I’ll be offline today while I sort out my living room. Wish me luck.

Started with swimming, and Big finally conquered her fear, and swam without floats! Thinking about it seriously, that’s not really very *finally* iyswim, she had 5 lessons this summer, and has had 10 theoretically of this course (except she missed one and didn’t swim on another) so that’s not so very long from being firmly attached to my side at all points in the water. She didn’t quite manage a width, but she’s very nearly there (much better when she’s got her goggles on and face in the water oddly enough), and I was so proud I cried. Teacher says that she can go up to level three in the new year, and what’s more her level three class is 11 o’clock on Sat morning, so that would be lovely.

Also got told by the receptionist that they’ve got a new manager (old one has been off sick) and he’s having a bit of a shake up and they are hoping to set up a mother and toddler session on a Sunday morning - would I be interested? Well, when I managed to catch my toddler, I agreed I might

From swimming to pick up A, Big’s friend from nursery. We’ve got him overnight, which I hadn’t told Big about (can’t deal with the climbing up the wall level of excitement!) She’s got a return sleepover booked next week. Then back home and I dashed around madly, doing washing up, hanging out washing, feeding three children instead of 2, and getting clean, so that we could go over and see Jan for the afternoon. Big news is that Tim felt up to coming out with us! I’ve been trying to remember, and I don’t think he’s been out with us since coming back from MP Camp in June (was it June?) so that was really great.

Lovely afternoon for all the children, A slotted in really well and made friends with the smaller brother of one of C’s friends, and they ran around madly, played on the trampoline, dressed up and just generally had a wonderful time. As did Small, mainly pottering around by himself but occasionally attempting to join in with the bigger children. He also fell head first off the rocking horse into the dressing up box, but fortunately all the pink fluffy stuff broke his fall! After that he was a lot more careful getting up and down - can’t believe how adventurous he is. He was also thrilled to meet one of Jan’s new cats (the other is a bit nervous lol) and I was pleased to see Big making friends with her later too.

Late back and three tired children into bed very quickly. I’ve had a beer (didn’t get to drink over at Jan’s) and I’m feeling good. Think I’ll clear off fairly soon as A has this nasty habit of getting up early, and I don’t want to be crawling around growling at him in the morning.

Feeling grotty today (and at least now I know why I was feeling pathetic a couple of days ago) so just as well Barbara had invited us round. Got there for lunch, and of course the girls just disappeared straight away. Small’s developemental first of the day though was definitely the cooperative play - he was throwing the ball to B, who was kicking it back. He’s done similarly with me, but it’s the first time I’ve seen him do anything like that with a child outside of the family. Good stuff.

The older children baked as well, and Barbara and I put the world to rights (if only we could, just our own little corner of it would be nice) and we stopped for tea. Big showed that really I should try to get her home earlier when she was very rude at the tea table but we managed to get out without a full scale meltdown.

Hectic weekend ahead, so I’m off to bed now. Well, after I’ve put the washing on that I meant to get started earlier!

Telegraph | News | The state’s ‘nanny’ is targeting family life

Particularly liked this:
“Mrs Hodge argues that the state has always intervened in children’s lives at school and now that should be extended to the home. The intrusion is justified, she says, because the Government has to “pick up the pieces” when parents get things wrong. “There are always tensions between the liberty of the individual and the wider interests of society but the state has a role,” the minister says. “Parenting in the home is crucial.”

So are we left with any doubts that they are going to want to get their mitts on home educators too? We must scare them silly.

and we’re still out.

I was trying to follow up on an expressed interest in bones. Can’t quite recall why Big was interested, but the other day she was, and we did skeletons and stuff. Then I thought that I could keep it going with a life size drawing of her, and we could do bones and organs and stuff. So we cleared the floor (took a while), drew round her (took a while) and I folded the paper so that we would end up with four copies and started cutting out…

It *seemed* like a good idea. But Small is just at that into everything non-cooperative stage that Big never actually went through (she’s probably saving it for later) and everything is such hard work! And then if I speak to Big about anything she doesn’t like I get the stomping and hair tossing, which I’m not settling for - I lost count of how many times I sent her out of the room today. I’m trying so hard not to shout at her, and it so isn’t working!

Best moment of the day though had to be when I told her that if she felt like answering me back, to count to ten under her breath instead, then got to listen to her count to ten, and *then* got answered back. Yargh indeed…

She thoroughly enjoyed the drawing round. Then she took her clothes off and drew round them so that the paper Big could have clothes too.

I drew round Small as well, and he scribbled on the paper. I don’t think he got the idea at all, but he wanted to lie on the paper ‘cos Big had done….

She did the skull, then got a bit confused with the hands. Drew the bones going sideways. So we looked at X ray pics (gotta love the google image search), drew round our hands, and drew the bones in them. That worked rather better, especially when she sat and actually felt at her hands to feel where the bones where. And all of that took pretty much all morning, what with dealing with Small being equally horrid and so on.

I did washing and washing up, and fed them a few times, and suddenly it was only an hour til her ballet session. Now we come back to the expectations thing. She knows what she needs for ballet, she knows where she dropped it last week, why should I go and find it for her? And why do I have to ask her to fetch each thing one by one? Just as well I started an hour in advance! We were still late, but it was because of a traffic jam in the road next to the lesson - it’s really narrow, and always parked up one side, so with a van coming down, and three cars trying to go up, it kind of ground to a halt.

Anyway, she enjoyed her lesson. And the big news of the evening - the next two lessons are going to be open to parents to watch! So I’ve signed up to watch on 9th December (for a donation of at least 20p to Breast Cancer appeal) and I’m really looking forward to it. I want to see what they do in there. Big isn’t particularly happy about the fact that other parents are going to be watching next week but I’m not, but by the time the list came round to me it was pretty packed for next week, besides, it gives Tim another week to get himself better so I can leave Small with him. Can’t see him handling a 45 minutes dance lesson sitting quietly!

For some reason they were both really silly tonight, and it took ages to get Small to stop turning the tv on and off and let me put his pjs on. So I’ve had enough now, and I’m off to bed. Night all.

Grief this is hard work, not least given that Small has worked out how to turn the tv on (and therefore his sister’s brain off).

Hohum.

The batteries are flat in the camera again. Or too flat for me to pull the piccies off, which means I can’t show you all what arrived in the post today. You’ll just have to wait

Anyway, pretty good day today. Made it to the group at Chesterfield, which was pretty much OK, although I did have to speak to one little boy who kept kicking the football out of Small’s hands! Eventually his mother had a word and he stopped it then. I took two foam footballs, but there were still ordinary footballs in the room - I know I’m paranoid, but I do find that difficult. Hohum.

We were there for a good two and a bit hours - Big made a snowman, and played with Barbara’s B, and ignored Sarah’s Dino. Small pottered.

Shopped on the way home, and picked up a Christmas present for Small. There you go, I’ve started shopping! Had to stop for petrol, and he managed to fall asleep while I was filling up, even though I did pay at pump

Once we got home, definitely time to veg with some cbeebies. Oh, and there was that parcel….ok, I couldn’t resist. I went and found you some batteries. There are some piccies that fit in previous posts as well, so you might want to scroll down.

Look like anyone you know Merry? Or how about in this one?

Keep forgetting to mention Tim’s new routine with Big on an evening. After her bath, he does her bedtime story. Before the bedtime story he brushes her hair. While he’s doing that, she’s taken to playing on the computer - using Photoshop. Well, she’s definitely picking up something from it - when she typed her name in an ecard form yesterday, she didn’t have to ask where any of the letter are any more.

A new low. I presume that this Quicktime movie is one of those spoof/viral marketing efforts, but however you look at it I think it is just about the worst example I have seen of cynical commercialism.

What matters most is a camera phone for $20 less, apparently

and today it’s off out to home ed group. *If* the children stop watching tv and eat their breakfast!

Don’t know why, but today I’m finding moving from my computer chair a real chore. Not that I’m actually doing anything much here

So a list:

• washing did it
• washing up did it
• lunch (have already fed the children) did it
• investigate comment plugin by putting it on my blog found a different solution
• do something with the children (have already done jigsaws and reading with Small, helped Big build a den, she’s played on the puter and sent an E card. got big some worksheets printed off, and a piccie for Small
• edit a website to put email addy on done
• make a priority list of what work needs doing
• start to think about christmas prezzies to make

That should keep me out of mischief…

I am having so much trouble getting started today.

A great day today. I had lots of plans to do arty/ crafty/ sciency things with Big today, and instead, I finally remembered to check the phone for the message I’d noticed last night, and it turned out to be from the mother of her first nursery friend. Apparently he’s been wanting to see her again… so I managed to contact them, and he was dropped off for a couple of hours this afternoon.

There were a couple of minutes of shyness between them, but that evaporated as soon as his mother walked out and they had a fabulous time. Was great to see. They played with the dolls house (which involved a lot of shouting “smelly!” ?) , with the piano, with ping pong balls, upstairs for a bit, back down - I got loads done! Caught up on the washing up for once

Before he’d come round we’d done a printable skeleton (forget where from, sorry) and then Big played the put the skeleton together game after he’d gone. (Got the link off Muddlepuddle - thanks Merry!) Small played teletubbies peek a boo

What else? We finally finished her scales - they turned out to be a bit different to what I’d expected. They are opitec number 104678 if you want a look, and she had a great time with them. Maybe she’ll do better at physics than I did…she watched some tv, mainly animal planet. Small is getting a bit of a telly habit as well, which is irritating, especially as he seems to like MTV Dance!

I did try to read to them tonight as well, but they were both a bit hyper, and I refuse to read while someone is singing, so that didn’t work too well. But all in all, an excellent day.

Did forget yesterday, to mention Big’s trauma over the program she was watching. It was about a woman who had rescued a whole bunch of wild animals somewhere and was trying to let them go, and as she succeeded in letting a leopard go back into the bush, suddenly I had this wailing child plastered to my knee….”they’re leaving Marlee-ee-eeennneee….and they don’t want to….and she’s saaaaadddd”. So that was a good conversation, all about conservation, growing up, living free - but I had to be oh so careful how I phrased things - could just see her waking up with a nightmare about having to leave home. Hohum.