One word? When seven would do…

hmmmmm…does bad behaviour breed bad behaviour?
 
A nice enough day today, this morning was lovely, kids ate well at lunchtime and off we went to Rachel’s house. Kerry, baby K and EL were there too. As we walked in E pointed straight at Monster and said in a very sneery tone ‘He’s not looking at my hamster’ (which was what everyone was doing – gathered round looking at his birthday pressie hamster). Monster tbh seems pretty oblivious to this (I would say) quite obvious dislike of him. When all kids were out of earshot Rachel and I resumed our usual weekly chat about the kids. Apparantly after they left our house last week E was saying how he didn’t want Monster to come to his birthday party, how Monster didn’t want to come anyway (which in theory could have been said – and frankly I wouldn’t have blamed Monster if he did say it in response to something like ‘you aren’t coming to my party’ ‘i don’t want to come anyway’) and how he doesn’t want Monster to be his friend. All he would say when questioned – and apparantly was desperate to change the subject – was that he didn’t like it when Monster shouted at him. Regular blog readers will recall this is what I have told Monster to do if anyone does something to him he is not comfortable with – he has the right to put his face right in someone elses and shout as loud as he can ‘stop doing that, I don’t like it’, in the case of E the something he is likely to be doing is physical violence. (so hurrah it worked!).

Rachel reading between the lines has decided that E’s problem with Monster is that he feels inferior to him. E is pretty bright and apparantly in the main is well used to being the clever one in any group – amoung school peers, other friends etc, but Monster blows him out of the water. Monster (and I am stepping out of proud parent mode and know his other limitations but believe I am saying this objectively 🙂 ) is very bright, he is very articulate, very able to hold an adult conversation, has excellent thought process and is very lucid and descriptive in what he says.  TBH I see this as an occassional handicap in the ‘wrong’ company and this is probably an example of it. What he is suberb in is also his downfall in that I don’t think he always relates too well to other children. Because he does not get much opportunity to be ‘silly’ and ‘schoolboyish’ (in the theorectical rather than literal way) as I don’t tend to tolerate for example ‘Teeny smells of pooh pooh, she is a smelly girl, na na na na na’ type stuff he simply doesn’t really do it, so when it is called for he struggles. Rachel has been watching him quite intently it appears and was able to call up a couple of example conversations where E was apparently left floundering. One was today when he walked in and one of E’s birthday pressies was a set of dinosaurs, one a hatching baby coming out of an egg, one a baby dino, one a fully grown and one a skeleton. Now this just so happens to be a bit of an area of his expertise but he gathered them all up, put them in logical order and proceeded to explain the life cycle to me, he did this not in a showing off way, simply matter of fact cos he has been taught it and he knows it and is used to (and expects) praise from me for repeating stuff like that back to me and demonstrating his knowledge and understanding. Some of his vocabulary on this was beyond the other children and certainly the logic which was apparent to him was lost on them.  This is probably casting him in a bad light – he laughs constantly and is in no way being hothoused or pushed academically by me, indeed him and Teeny spend much of their fay chasing each other round the house and giggling like maniacs – he does know how to have fun and has a great sense of humour, but again slightly more targeted towards older company… So back to Rachel’s theory.. E feels threatened by his ability to vocally and mentally ‘outwit’ him so he resorts to the one chink in Monster’s armour which is that Monster will never, ever hit him back.

Now I am actually proud of this. In our house we have a total non acceptance towards violence. The children are not smacked, Ady and I are not violent towards each other, the children do not watch, read or are otherwise exposed to violence, there are no obviously violent toys, of course they are sometimes rough with each other in their squabbles but they also ‘know’ that I do not find it acceptable behaviour. In the past people have told me I am naive in my attitude here and that violence is a part of everyday life, well it isn’t in my life. I have never been hit and never hit anyone else and sincerely hope neither happens in the future. I would not tolerate violence towards me or my family from anyone. I am aware that it exists and when I feel the children are of an appropriate age to comprehend it they will learn about it, and of course Monster gathers sticks from the garden and pretends they are swords and he is Peter Pan and Captain Hook, but he does appreciate it is pretend, not real. Hence the shouting in people’s faces defence mechanism.

So as a theory I guess it makes sense. Rachel told E that her and I are friends and while she doesn’t expect E to have to be friends with Monster he does need to act towards him in an acceptable manner, and aside from the odd minor hiccup once they had settled down today they all played really well, including about an hour after EL has left when E, Monster and Teeny played really nicely together digging in the garden.

However, Monster did a few things I was not happy with and can’t help but blame ‘the company he was keeping’. Very minor stuff, he threw a bit of a tantrum when E started playing with something – small stuff but a bit overdramatic, he did not come and get his shoes on when I asked ( I even counted to three which has never failed before!) and then although it went unseen he pinched me (not hard) when I picked him up and plonked him down to put said shoes on. I could sense huge sighs of relief that he is normal after all from Kerry and Rachel, but did feel a bit let down by him. We had a chat about it at bedtime and he apologised and we left it there

When I watched Wife Swap this week I was both appauled at the behaviour of the ‘naughty teen’ and also a bit concerned at the too goodiness of the other two, and would not want my two to be without a bit of spirit. I am not overly strict and don’t feel I enforce too many rules and regulations but am not sure whether I am relieved he can be a typical nearly 4 year old and disappointed that he seems to have seen another child getting away with behaviour he himself does not like to witness then  done a bit of it himself. I think my biggest problem with E is not the way he reacts to Monster, its the lack of respect for Rachel when she tries to modify his behaviour, and that is what I don’t ever want to witness in my two.

Anyway, enough musings, still reinforces so many of the reasons why I know we are doing the right thing HEing them. tomorrow we are spending the morning at Chris and Julie’s and will see where the afternoon takes us!

Books, books, everywhere books (said in the manner of Roly Mole)
 
Walked into Lancing this morning and did a quick charity shop spree, but only got one board book on shapes for Teeny (sure Monster knew his shapes and colours by her age – need to spend a bit of learning time with her!) and a Thomas book for Monster which he begged for! Then went into Woolworths and got a few bits – have been longing for a shredder for a while now – we have started being all consciencious about recycling as the council here has a great blue box scheme where you chuck all your tins, bottles, cans, papers, magazines, junk mail etc into the blue boxes they provide (we have four – what does that say about our alcohol consumption eh?) and they collect it on the same days as the bins – its really inspired us to be better about what we use / chuck etc. But I have heard so many horror stories about people ‘stealing your identity’ with no more info that your name and address I really wanted to get a shredder so I can shred anything with personal info on and then blue box the shreddings – also thought that I am about to start producing a bit more paper waste with the magazine – printing off test prints, messing with ads etc and that will be something I won’t want to throw away ‘whole’. So in Woolies they have a 3 for 2 on all the stationery type stuff and a special offer shredder for a tenner, so for a bargain under £15 I got the shredder, some blue tack, some wrapping paper for a pressie for EL, a memo block for my desk and a new notebook for making notes of ideas for the mag – I love stationery!

Then we went to the library for storytime, but as its school hols it was totally packed – there must have been 30 odd kids there with assorted parents – almost like a classroom 🙂 so we gave up on that idea and were just about to leave when I found a rack of ex library books for sale at 30p each – so another £3.00 was invested in the following:

Experiment with senses
My Science book of senses
How do I know its yucky – and other questions about the senses
The way it works – electricity
Hands and Feet – all about how us and other animals use our bodies as tools
shapes, structures and materials science experiments
my science book of machines
how floating machines work
my wonderful body
the body book (this was the one Monster borrowed recently, renewed twice and still didn’t want to return!)

what a stash eh? Tidied the playroom a bit more yesterday and now have a whole out of reach of children shelf of encyclopedias, atlases, books on science, biology, maths, languages and loads on dinosaurs which I will find some time to go through and work some ‘lessons’ or ‘themes’ or ‘projects’ around for Monster to start in September. I am going to take the ‘summer holidays’ off to kick start my mag and think about how we are going to play this whole thing but my plan is to spend a couple of hours each morning setting the kids up with fun but educational stuff to do (no tv!), for Monster following some sort of Nic-designed curriculum which he will likely be unaware of but will allow me to start gauging what we are doing and where his strengths and weaknesses lie – and for Teeny stuff like puzzles, shapes, colours etc. They can do that in the playroom while I work next to them and then after lunch we will go out most days – I’m going to try and build in something to do each day – the HE group meets again in September every Thursday, there are loads of Activeo meetings and lessons we could think about attending and I am determined to start meeting some other like minded folk too so that I feel a bit more supported – maybe even thinking about doing some childswapping once a week if the kids are ready for it.

Right , this was supposed to be brief and now it isn’t! So I’m off to make some lunch, wake Teeny from her nap and we are off to Rachels for the afternoon. Monster is looking forward to it cos EL will be there, and as it was E’s birthday on Saturday and EL’s on Tuesday there will be birthday cake and we have got EL a little gift of some girly glittery makeup (E has his pressie at his party).

Oh, and have just tried my new shredder and its FAB!

argh blood! and why its hard making business phonecalls with small children in the house!
 
Finally got the call back from the office I have been ringing all day to sort out some training and mid call Teeny (who had been going up and down the stairs bringing me assorted items of make up from the stash she had not previously found and will now have to be hidden!) suddenly did a quite spectacular fall down the stairs. I was mid conversation and watched in horror as she went totally head over heels before landing face down at the bottom (in the hammed up manner of Sue Ellen falling down the stairs at Southfork), I scooped her up quick and just as she began to howl said ‘I’ll have to call you back’ and hung up.
 
Lots of blood coming from the mouth so we soaked a teatowel and sat down in the playroom, Monster came over all big brotherish and was fab (bless him!) finding her toys to distract her and wiping away her tears. She stopped crying quite quickly and her lips have swollen massively. She thinks she bumped her head too (although no bump to be found) and she has cut her finger although as she hasn’t noticed it yet it doesn’t hurt yet (isn’t it funny how that works – Monster is the same, until you show him a graze he does not realise its there so it doesn’t hurt!). The blood stopped fairly quickly and I think all her teeth are still present – will have a quick countup when she lets me but she is tottering about as usual so clearly no lasting damage done. It’s such a relief when they reach an age they can tell you where it hurts and nod to say yes they are okay now isn’t it? 
  
While we were mopping her up Monster found a pack of Winnie the pooh stuff – a pencil, sharpener, ruler and rubber and Teeny had the ruler and rubber and he had the sharpener. He started to sharpen the pencil – something I have never shown him – and when I asked how he knew he said Lynda had shown him when she used to look after him when Mummy and Daddy were at work. I asked him if he prefered it when Lynda looked after him sometimes or when Mummy is here all the time (if you’re reading Chris, yes I did say Mummy is here not when I am here! I think its because initially small children learn names before the concept of you, me etc – so we say stuff like ‘Davies throw the ball’ and ‘Mummy throw it back’ instead of ‘you throw the ball and I’ll throw it back at a far younger age than they would maybe understand if we said it correctly – and then it sticks!) and he said he prefers it when I’m here all the time so when he needs a great big Mummy cuddle he can have one anytime he likes instead of having to wait for me to come home. Oh and the thought of someone else being there to mop up Teeny is horrid – so I guess there’s my answer to the previous blog!

Bored, bored, bored!
 
I’m not very good at staying in and not spending any money! I’ve been doing it now for at least two weeks and I’ve had enough!
 
Not a lot happening here today really. Up earlyish, more washing done, sent lots more emails to potential advertisers, got loads more info printed off to plough through for advertisers, ideas for articles, free listings of toddler groups etc I need to contact to check details are all still correct and so on. Also been trying to arrange three offices for Ady to do H&S training on up north, have sorted one out, one is calling me back and the other I have emailed – so we wait!
 
Children have been pretty good today really, both are suddenly into doing jigsaw puzzles – we have got stacks as Monster used to love doing them but they were all put away and not played with for ages. Last time I tried Teeny with one she had no idea what to do with it, but today she made short work of a couple of two and three piece ones (aimed for 18 month olds) and a pretty good go at a larger one for 2 years +. As ever she wanted to do it with me and Monster was not keen on that idea – can’t the older children be annoying when they hover over smaller ones all the time under the pretense of ‘helping’ but actually just demonstrating that they can do it better, and aren’t smaller ones irritating when they keep running off with and hiding pieces of the older ones puzzle as soon as the older one starts getting some mummy attention too!
 
Monster has spent all day naked (I persuaded him to get dressed at 2pm so we could walk round the shop to buy some magazines and post a letter) playing with his plastic trainsets and watching the Thomas the Tank Engine DVD which appears to be at least 8 hours long as its still going and Ady put it on for him before he left for work – grrr hate the scouse narration, the theme tune every four minutes and the phrase ‘very useful engine!’.
 
Teeny is just generally making a mess! The Katy recipe playdough had been left on the playroom windowsill where it was slowly going hard and she worked out that if she put her dolls house under the window and stood on it she could reach the playdough and tear it into tiny pieces to scatter all around the playroom and the hall, we have a dinosaur puzzle book which having cleared up for the seventy fifth time at lunchtime I thought I had put out of reach but I see pieces of it scattered amoung the general mayhem too and the new layout of the playroom means a previously hidden corner of wallpaper with Teeny’s crayon artwork now takes pride of place and needs removing!
 
Feeling a bit as though I don’t quite know why we are on this journey today – having done some playgroup research for the mag I find the one round the corner takes children every morning from aged 2-5 for about four quid a session – so for £40 a week come December I could have both of them out all morning enabling me to do a proper part time job, and they might even like it… Monster has started to not want to go out at all recently – he prefers to stay in and play, he would rather I played with him but if not Teeny will do, his games are complicated, noisy and highly imaginative – am I holding them back keeping them closeted away with me here, am I holding myself back by not being out there career chasing, will I end up some lonely old looney when they finally leave home having dedicated all my time to them and their needs????? And all of this self pitying whinging is brought on by not being able to simply go and spend some money when I feel a bit down
🙁
 
HE groups are all very well but as Monster does not mix in too well in large groups they can be quite tiring and as they are not anywhere near school age yet often the focus a bit beyond them too. What we really need is a network of other HE families who we can spend time with so Monster starts to build some proper friendships with other children in similar set ups – we see E every week but that is not always fun for Monster anyway if E is in one of his terrorising moods and as he will be starting school in September that will be drawing to a close anyway (well we’ll probably still meet every week as Rachel will have the baby by then, but it will make the contrast even more obvious if we meet when E is at school!).
 
Anyway enough of this, time to make a cup of tea, give both my babies a big cuddle and back to work with my magazine!

 
Edited to add – don’t know why I bother! Monster (suddenly all clock conscious) says he’s too busy for a cuddle and to come back when the big hand is pointing straight to the top (another 45 minutes – humph!) and Teeny who was very busy making two of her little people kiss each other (surely she’s too young for such games, is it cos i let her wear nail varnish!?) allowed me to cuddle her while she kept playing whereupon I discovered a poohey aroma and had to change her nappy…

Mrs Jekyll and Mummy Hyde
 
Seem to have alternated between a model mother and a screaming harriden today! After the early morning flurry of activity I spent the day sending emails asking people to advertise in my mag – a couple of responses already – not booking any space or throwing money at me, but a couple who are interested in sending me stuff for the general whats on which will have to be free listings but will provide something of interest for readers, which will appeal to advertisers in the future… have sent about 20 emails and feel quite productive on that front.
 
The car did need a new rad and still don’t have it back as the one delivered to the garage was damaged, so should get it back tomorrow – not too fussed as not intending to go out tomorrow anyway, and the bill (sharp intake of breath) £579 – erk!
 
Kids have benefited from newly rediscovered toys as a result of the remodelled playroom, so much time spent dressing up, doing puzzles and playing with the ‘crap box’ of toys which consist of happy meal giveaways, freebies from the front of magazines and various other assorted nonsense which never made it into their own box before but languished at the bottom of other toy boxes! Both were very tired, Teeny was super whingey – my biggest pet hate in a child, and wanted everything Monster had, she spent ages playing with her leappad and DeDore (Dora) book but really wanted me with her all the time which was not practical with what I wanted to get done, or an older brother who materialises every time I start giving her some one on one attention, she’s got this new cute habit of taking me by the hand and leading me wherever she wants me to be which is currently being indulged, but will likely wear thin quite soon! The upside of this is that Teeny was asleep by 6pm and Monster shortly after 7 – the earliest night he’s had in months! It probably helped that I went off to Sainsburys when Teeny had gone to sleep to do the week’s food shop and without me in the house to beg for another story, another cuddle, another ‘teach me about something Mummy’ he just gave up and went to sleep!
 
Tomorrow the intention is for more work, some more fun stuff for the kids – perhaps some messy play of some description – oh and I got an email from the (very) local scrap store to say that as a HEer I am eligible for membership and they are sending me information – who knows that could be a source of some fab resources at knockdown costs!

Teeny being ‘a lady’ note cute floral dress, string of pearls and painted toe and finger nails! The pose is to show off pretty nails! 

Monster being Captain Wizard – what do you think of his ‘mean’ look – he does a great scowl! 

mad green rug thing, well is it what you were expecting? 

other unit and assorted mess! 

playroom showing one unit and new desk 

swings, slides and merry-go-rounds…
 
Not much to report really, a fairly quiet Sundayish Sunday. I was up early with the kids while Ady had a lie in, but when I woke him back up at 9ish I was so tired and still not awake that I crawled back into bed intending a quick 1/2 hours nap to wake me up – at midday Teeny came upstairs calling ‘Mummy, Mummy’ (a new word, I’ve been Mama for the last few months!) and horrified at my slatternly slovenishness that I leapt out of bed and frenzidly got dressed, got the kids dressed (yes under the rule of Daddy, nobody was dressed and Teeny’s nappy was hanging down past her knees so heavy was it!), put two loads of washing on and was ready to leave the house within twenty minutes!
 
We had arranged to go and cut my parents hedge so arrived to be told (after it rained like buckets being chucked all morning) it was too wet but if we left the hedgetrimmer there Dad would do it one evening. We had some lunch and just sat about really till Mum suggested we go to the park which we did for an hour, then home for tea and bath and bed for children.
 
A friend has just arrived and is staying for dinner, so in the interests of redeeming myself for sleeping in till midday, and not wanting to get myself a reputation for behaving like a teenager I am off to be social and make sparkling, witty, entertaining conversation till Big Brother is on!
 
Tomorrow they are collecting the car for its overhaul and although they are dropping off a courtesy car I can’t be doing with the kerfuffle of changing over all the kids car seats so either walking distance excursions or indoor type stuff will be partaken of in the newly revamped playroom – photos soon, honestly!

sausages, piri-piri chicken and french bread with sparklers in it!
 
A nice weekendy day today really (aside from the car, which with a fair few glasses of wine inside me now I am apt to throw a virtual glass upwards in a cheers type motion and mutter about ‘s’only munnny, ooo needs it eg? we got our ‘elf and our ‘appyness and all the love in th werrrrld, frankleee we is milllllyonayres!’), did a trip up the dump with various playroom clearing generated tat, then made some of Katy’s recipe playdough (it’s sooo nice! I’ve always made salt dough before which is so gritty in comparison – we went to a car boot sale earlier while waiting for the car to be condemned and Ady is all for making our fortune by car boot selling and has decided we should make huge batches of playdough and sell it on at a car boot sale – bless him!) which the kids loved making and playing with, then on to the barbecue!
 
And a nice time was had by all, kids were very well behaved, as always in public they are a pleasure to be with and make us very proud! They both ate well, Monster especially was most excited about sausages (they’re my favourite!) and just had to supervise the cooking of them! I got quite merry on cheap rose wine (I am strictly a very dry, very chilled, very white wine type o lass in the normal way, but co-ops finest rose was all that was on offer!) so I initiated Teeny into womanhood by dancing round with her to ‘I will survive’ when they put the party megamix cd on! I was asked about playschool for the littlies so bit the bullet and said ‘oh they won’t be going to school, I’m going to teach them at home’ (I know thats not HE PC terminology and not really my intention either but it was the best way of making it a comprehensible description) and was met with disapproving raised eyebrows, till the hostess spirited both kids off to play with some jigsaws before coming back and asking how old Monster was? ‘Two months of his fourth birthday’, ‘oh, he’s very clever isn’t he?’, smug smiles all round and no further questioning of my ability to groom my offspring into hothoused baby geniuses taking A levels within the next five years! (again not really my intention but more socially acceptable within that circle!).
 
I am now debating whether to come down from my rose high and face cooking dinner all sober (me and Ady didn’t really eat at the barbecue before you all start muttering about it being no small wonder I look like I do in the photos! Way too early for us!) or top up the alcohol level with some cold, dry white….hmmm, a lush enhanced bath beckons (from before when we were poor and I used to have a full bag of bath bombs and bubble bar bath slices), so think I may sucumb to just a splash of wine, and a quick dip before BB starts.

we’ve just lost around 400 pounds – and without the need for faddy diets, strenuous exercise or painful and expensive surgery…
 
That’s right, the radiator on the car had gone so its booked in on Monday for a new one, while it was up on the ramp they noticed both front tyres are bald and we have been meaning to get it serviced since before we moved so they are doing us a deal and I reckon it will be in the £400 region 🙁
 
Wandered around the local charity shops while they were looking at the car and nearly bought a set of 50 books about human bodies (a childrens educational series) for £15 which was a bargain, but still quite old for our two, and we really need the space (and the money!) so didn’t. Narrowly missed  a very heavy rain shower and are about to start loading the car up (with regular top ups in the radiator to keep it going) to take all the rubbish from the grand playroom clearout to the dump, and still havn’t decided about the barbecue this afternoon.
 
Will blog again later tonight about the rest of our day…

fish, peas (please), yeah, nooo, Mama, Daddy, Ayvisss(Davies), cat, fish, ankoo (Thank you), De Dor (dora), juice, kiss, and assorted animal noises!
 
No not part of the google game, but a round up of the words Teeny can say quite clearly now – she’s really coming along with her speech and can blatantly understand pretty much everything you say to her. Funny how they suddenly seem to click with stuff like that – and how much easier it starts to get when they can articulate themselves, and how much harder when they can start to ask questions!
 
Well the party went pretty much as expected really. Monster did not want to play with, near or within vision of any other children, which is always tricky at a children’s play centre 🙂 . So Ady and I took it in turns to clamber up slopes, down slides, through holes, across rope bridges and in ball pits with him, whilst the other parent did similar stuff with Teeny. Best exercise I’ve had in years – they really should open those places late nights for adult aerobic workouts, or naked chase for singles or drunken lunacy for stag nights! (wonder if the google ads will go all X rated now – so glad you saw the kites Jax, was beginning to wander (even more) about my sanity!) We had a small chat about why he didn’t want to be near the other children and he said it was cos he was scared they might hurt him, which frankly is fairly reasonable! He has never been hurt by another child, or even bullied and I do worry (although its a bit late!) about whether these fears are the ones I have had for him and he has picked up on – he does seem to have a bit of a victim mentality and shies away from other children, which regretably can make him all the more attractive to be picked on to the wrong child. I think the solution is to keep chipping away, every time going a bit further but always within his own comfort zone until one day he will run off without a backward glance and I will be wondering where my little sensitive baby has gone (let’s just hope he is not in his early thirties before this happens!), on the plus side I was very proud of him and his behaviour – he was full of pleases, thankyous and no thankyous when he got his food, drink, goody bags etc. He also was told to choose a couple of chocolates to take home, which he did and came straight over to Teeny (who was at the party and played, but as was not actually a real guest did not sit at the table and have party food or a goody bag) and gave her one of them, which made all the other parents give a collective ‘ahhh!’. He did get braver towards the end playing there and he is not the only nearly four year old I’ve ever heard of who is a bit slower to get started, so I am trying to be relaxed and carefree about it and celebrate his stacks of good points and positive character traits instead of focusing on this one, which is not bad anyway.
 
We then went to my parents for an hour or so which was nice and then home to continue sorting the playroom / office out. Its now assembled but still messy as I have to work my way round the room sorting the shelves and clearing rubbish from work I thought I might be doing for BossLady but am clearly not going to be now. So will take some pics when its all gleaming and lovely and looks like a room Flylady would be proud to call her playroom!
 
My mum has just phoned to say there was a big wet patch in the road where our car had been parked and sure enough it appears to be leaking antifreeze / water so a trip to the garage is first priority tomorrow – fingers crossed its a hose or connection come loose instead of the whole radiator gone – but as we all know when you are short of cash everything seems to go wrong and incur more expense so I am prepared for the worst 🙁
 
Today saw the kids playing with all sorts of long forgotten toys as they can now access pretty much all their toys quite easily in these new units, so Monster tried on every single dressing up outfit – Buzz Lightyear, Woody, fairy wings and wand, wizzard (complete with pointy hat and wand), spaceman, rudolph the red nosed reindeer, pirate (well hat and hooked arm), santa hat, pixie outfit, police man – he was a one man version of the village people! I can think of a few additons which would be nice for the dressing up box actually – might check ebay – I know he would love Peter Pan and Captain Hook, but I’m not paying the £25 each they are for in the Disney Store, would be nice to get an indian outfit and maybe some more stuff for Teeny too – oh forgot the la-la outfit although Monster didn’t try that one on! And we also had a musical instruments session at about 8.30am too – recorders, xylophone, drums, rattles and tambourines – great fun! We seem to have an over abundance of crafty stuff which we really must start using too – I have found four plastic sheets so we can sheet out the whole playroom and run riot with glitter paint and glue! Have also emailed the local scrapstore to see if I can get membership as a HEer so a trip there to supplement our supplies may also be imminent.
 
Not much planned for the weekend really – if the weather is nice we have been invited to a barbecue tomorrow evening, which we will take the children to and arrive and leave early, hopefully Chris and Julie and the twins are coming over at some point, I want to get some work done on the magazine, there is more playroom tidying to do and of course the car to sort out – so although its not planned to be busy it may end up that way anyway!
 
Hurrah for Ahmed going! Vote Victor next.

I’ve got flatpack fingers!
 
Ady came back from work yesterday having been into Ikea – and like everyone who ever goes to Ikea he managed to come home with stuff we didn’t know we needed until he went there! He bought two huge freestanding kitchen units with slidy doors for the playroom. We have put one up and it is fab – the other one will be sorted tonight and then I’ll blog a picture of our new organised playroom and office! He also bought this huge green furry rug thing with two blow up inserts which create big hills in it to lounge about on or in the kids case bounce about on – doubt anyones mental image is anything like the actual thing so will blog a photo of that too later! The units were reduced from £100 and something each to £15 each and the rug from £50 odd to a fiver – so well within even our paultry budget! Now we are not going to be able to build Teeny a new bedroom upstairs and make her room into an office for me we will need to make this room as dual purpose as possible so my ‘close the doors and you wouldn’t even know there’s a computer in there’ type unit is going in favour of one of our (three!) dining tables from the old house as a desk which I can sit and write at as well as use the computer – this is our task for the weekend and will lose some crap, tidy the rooms and remove a table from the garage too which is all good! We also have this one day play to make the cupboard under the stairs a sort of playhouse for the kids. Its in the playroom and is pretty huge with a door on it – currently it houses a freezer, the chiller and assorted crap we intend to one day sell on ebay! If we took the big door off we could make a smaller one, add a couple of windows, put some lights in there and it would make a fab playhouse – of course by the time we actually ever do this the kids will be teenagers with no want or need for a playhouse, but the idea is nice!
 
So yesterday… well there was the locking out incident obviously but what else did we get up to? I managed to tick some stuff off my job list – Jax now has some logos and images which her DP is going to do clever stuff to, and some initial text for the website – so thats now in hand. I have finally set some advertising rates with built in discounts, series rates, early payment reductions and so on which are sort of cobbled together from a couple of competitors rates and some basic maths about how much it will cost to print. Today’s task is to get some more print rates and send some initial emails to gague interest about advertising in it, and a list for Monday of places to contact to see if they will take copies to distribute – like doctors surgeries etc. I might actually try and produce a daily joblist for all of next week, with very small managable tasks for each day to make me feel all good about what I’ve achieved – a grown up version of a star chart if you will!
 
We only left the house very briefly to buy bread for lunch from the corner shop yesterday, the rest of the time was spent with the kids building train tracks – they had wooden and plastic sets out. I am always amazed at how good Monster is at building tracks with curves, bridges and all sorts which actually match up and can have a train run round them, must take photos of his next efforts. The funny thing is once they are actually built he seems to lose interest – for him the fun is in the building them and getting it right, not the actual playing with the trains once they are done. Teeny is quite good with the wooden (brio type) one too. They also did some water play – which involved Teeny asking for water in some of her stacking cups and then they used it for all sorts of stuff, drinking, pretending it was a picnic, then they found a paint brush and painted things with it too,  good fun for them and lots of small puddles to be dealt with for me!
 
Late in the afternoon I decided to make some numbers to go up the stairs (an idea shamelessly stolen from someone else’s blog – I think Kirstys – really good one, thanks!) so I drew the numbers and coloured them in, both kids wanted to play too so they did some colouring in and the watched me laminate them. They are too big really so halfway though I stopped and will try again another time with some smaller ones as I really want Monster to start recognising numbers.
 
A good day really, I was very tired from a bad night with Teeny but did not really shout at the kids and they seemed to enjoy playing and be a bit better at getting on with it themselves. They are being quite good this morning too, although the current game is climbing the stairs with small toys then throwing them back down and squealing with laughter – wrong on so many levels – shouldn’t play on the stairs, don’t like throwing in the house, noise level is irritating and its only a matter of time before someone gets hurt! So off to make a cup of tea and maybe do something a bit calmer and quieter with them – E’s birthday party this afternoon and Ady is coming too so they probably need to conserve a bit of energy!

Just got locked out!

Have been in and out today pegging out washing and normally shove the keys in my pockets as I go out the door although Monster lets me back in the house again. This time I forgot the keys, but had shouted to Monster that I was going to peg the washing out and to let me back in so didn’t worry. A couple of minutes later saw me hands and knees alternatley shouting and peering through the letter box at Monster who was shouting back that he was in the downstairs bathroom (very specific that child!). Teeny was peering back at me through the letterbox and helpfully trying to post shapes from her shapesortet through to me. I did for a moment think she actually understood what I said when I asked her to pass me the keys which were tantalisingly close on the table but she ran off and came back with a piece of wooden train track.

Eventually after much yelling back and forth and begining to fear what Ady would say if he arrived home at 5.30pm to find me in the garden having been there for three hours while the kids ran rampage inside Monster came crawling round the corner into the hall with his pants and trousers round his ankles. He had been having a pooh and waiting for me to wipe his bum, which was what he had been shouting back but I could not make out! Not sure exactly what the lesson here was but it looked very funny with me on hands and knees outside and him on hands and knees inside (I refrained from the same state of undress as him, naturally!)

Ooh and my kite google ads are back!

And ooh look…

my google ads have changed! but curses I have been foiled in my bid for an irrelevant link – so PETER ANDRE, JAMIE LEE CURTIS, DERREN BROWN, TOM CONTI, KEITH CHEGWIN, DISCO, ROCKCLIMBING, HORSE RACING, TESCOS, LIVER PATE, PLEASURE, BRAZIL, BANANAS, BRIEFS, MANGO CHUTNEY.

cake decorating, banished from the bedrooms and shouting at other people’s children!

Yep, that was my day! This morning’s blog entry ended quite abruptly as the children were doing their usual act of not letting me be on the computer. A serious discussion ensued with talking about why mummy has to be on the computer (okay i said i was working not blogging but they don’t need to know that!) to work if I am not going to go out of the house to go to work like Daddy does because I look after them. I think it sunk in but as ever with Monster one of his most amazing abilities (and annoying!) is his ability to contruct a decent argument and his sense of what is and isn’t fair. He said that when he wants me to play with him I should stop working and play with him and then I can do my work when he is okay to play on his own and doesn’t need me. I think compromise on both sides is called for and tomorrow we will give that approach a go as the current one does not work!

Due to all that we were very late eating lunch – Monster insisted on grated cheese sandwiches (had to be grated, sliced was not acceptable!) and then they both proceeded to just eat the cheese out of the sandwiches and leave the bread! Earlier in the morning we had made some dinosaur biscuits and fairy cakes for the afternoon. Both kids sat on the worktop and helped with added ingredients, mixing stuff, licking bowls and spoons and general mess making! The dino biscuits were first and they cooled down while the fairy cakes were being made, we then went into the lounge and they both sat at their table and chairs with a couple of biscuits each and a bowl of various decorations (sugar flowers, silver balls, orange and lemon jelly slices, jelly diamonds, chocolate sprinkles etc) and a couple of tubes of icing each. Teeny ate all her decorations but Monster was really good at being all creative and good with the fiddly little balls too. The fairy cakes were left too late to ice and decorate so we left them on the side.

Kerry and EL and baby K arrived while we were still (not) eating lunch so it was swiftly cleared away and tea made for Kerry (with sugar, I’m having a bad day!) before Rachel and E arrived. Rachel was full of trepidation as E has been really playing her up and sure enough within minutes she had him in the hall by the front door threatening to leave. She has been reading Toddler Taming and thought she had made some headway this week but once he was with Monster he played up again. We talked about whether she talks E’s behaviour through with him once its all calmed down, whether he likes Monster and wants to come and play with him, in what other circumstances he acts like this etc. I feel really sorry for Rachel as she is a really good mum, and its so easy to see where I think she is going wrong but its not quick fix stuff. Whilst she popped over to the doctors (opposite our house) for a midwife appointment Kerry and I talked about how when we all first met when E, EL and Monster were weeks old we both felt Rachel was by far the better mother (she was a nanny for years before having E) and how its really odd that our children seem so much better behaved and we only have normal niggles with them as opposed to the trauma Rachel is facing with E at the moment.

I had put a ban on all rooms except the playroom and the lounge as there were four children running about today and everytime we have children over they seem to run rampage throughout the house which means I end up tidying four rooms of toys and dealing with traumatised cats and hyper children and I don’t think its fair that the children’s rooms get trashed, especially Teeny’s. It was quite hard to enforce, particularly as Teeny’s room is downstairs and I chased them out of the bathroom, the kitchen, my bedroom and Teeny’s room until finally they all dashed in the kitchen (which is too small for four children anyway!) and shut the door, so in I went, guns blazing and shouted. I took two dinosaurs off E which he was using to terrorise the other three with and he suddenly changed his behaviour and cuddled up to Rachel. In a fit of genius I slapped some icing on the fairy cakes, brought in one each and a couple of bowls of decorations and the four of them sat really nicely and with lots of praise for being clever, creative and making pretty cakes they sat and decorated and ate them.

I then had a private chat with Monster about standing up for himself. I reminded him that this is his house, they are his toys and whilst I expect him to share and play nicely he does not take anything he doesn’t like off anyone, that means no shouting, no snatching, no intimidating or bullying and he stands up for himself by shouting and telling them loudly that he doesn’t like it / doesn’t want it etc. EL overheard and suddenly the two of them decided they were going to be ‘tough’ and stood up to E. The change was dramatic and fairly instant and they all played really well for the rest of the afternoon. On Friday we are going to E’s birthday party at the local ball pool kids loony run around place and there will be 12 other children there so it will be interesting to see how they all behave and interact there. Ady is coming along which is great as it means one of us can be with Teeny and one with Monster if he wants the support – those sorts of places are not really his scene.

Tonight there was a knock at the door and it was our friend who has moved to New Zealand, he has come back for two weeks for his fathers funeral and to sort out the sale of the house and although I knew he was over here I didn’t really expect him to make it round to see us, so that was lovely.

Tomorrow we currently have nothing planned, we need to get a birthday present for E and I really, really want to get some proper preparation work done, but I think I might employ Monster’s suggestion of playing with them when they ask and sneaking off to do work when they are okay – last Friday worked well when I sat on the floor with my laptop all day so was accessible and on their level but actually got a fair bit done.

I am going to blog a ‘to do’list so that I have a real idea of the stuff I keep intending to get done but not getting around to and imagine the sense of satisfaction if I can actually start ticking some of it off:

Work stuff – in no particular order
email Jax a couple of logos for my website template
work out some content for my website – write some copy, think of the various links and stuff
get some more printing costs so i can work out some realistic ad rates
send emails to potential advertisers for the website
send emails to potential advertisers for the magazine
send letters to potential advertisers for the magazine where emails are not appropriate / suitable
make phonecalls to follow up letters or cold call adverts for the magazine
write some articles, collate some info for the content of the magazine, perhaps some interviews, reviews of parent friendly places such as restuarants etc
contact local info services to ensure there are no issues with copying information about toddler groups etc
business side of stuff – find out what i need to do from a legal point of view – do i need any sort of insurance, do i need to declare myself as self employed and at what stage, do i need a business bank account and if so where is the best deal for it
draw up a list of deadlines for booking ad space, copy & ads, getting to printers, collecting from printers etc and decide how frequently and when the issues will go out over the next year, building in some seasonal stuff such as christmas focus, back to school etc to help with selling ads, writing articles etc
write a press release about the mag for the local papers / radio station
start to create a proper distribution plan including the advertisers, doctors surgeries, health centres, schools / pre school etc

wow thats loads!

Childrens stuff / educational stuff

write up a new educational philosophy updated from the previous one to take in all we’ve learnt and how the children have changed
draw up a plan for the summer and the autumn of stuff we want to cover with Monster. This is likely to take the form of a series of projects or topics which he has shown an interest in and tie in with resources we already have, more I can get from the net, trips we can go on and the focus for them while we are there.
a bit more structured reading, writing and number work available for as and when he does show an interest
make contact with more local people with same aged children to ensure he is getting contact with his peers and gets exposed to a wider amount of children in different situations.

wow, thats gotta be one of my bigger blogs, hope theres something in there worthy of a google ad change from pickfords (whoops, mentioned them again so thats the end of that hope!)

Vote Ahmed!