One word? When seven would do…

In the shape of spending money on face creams, PMT treatments and sleep inducing sprays and temple balms 🙂 A jumper for Davies (his choice of pressie 🙂 ) and a bathtime marble run for Tarly which I will bring out tomorrow.

In the shape of spending a couple of hours in the company of other normal, Home Educating mothers talking about the state of our mental health in direct corrolation to our sleep deprivation levels, the time of year and a challening few weeks post Melrose euphoria mixed with pox anticipation and quarantine, snow but not enough to play in and several other businessy things to give head space to.

In the shape of Ady arriving home early and a brief snatched chat deciding to give some sort of sleep thingy a go (neither child in our bed, once in bed they have to stay in their bedrooms even if we end up staying in them too). A slight tricky moment when we debated how it was going to work;
A: I have to drive each day, I NEED to sleep
N: I have to look after the kids each day – unless I get sleep I will be one of the stories in Take A Break about a seemingly happy everyday woman who one day lost it and my neighbours will all have to be interviewed about how I always seemed to cheerful when they saw me with the kids
A: OK – maybe I can go in to work late if I am up in the night and shift my day around a bit.

So that’s our plan – not sure who will be doing what yet and maybe the kids will sleep through anyway now we have a cunning plan but I do at least feel we have taken positive action.

Wednesday I am going to meet with Boss Lady – which will be a nice day out and will also lead to some paid employment, there is a job in the paper I am going to apply for too and I am feeling positive about getting back into some sort of career somehow this year.

Education? We watched the schools programmes and Davies did really well with the look and read type shows – maths went a bit over his head and I think we need to dig out the Exeter Maths books to start some sort of structure on that one. Feel quite relaxed about HE though – last of my worries 🙂

Just getting it all back in perspective, having a plan and the promise of a child free few hours has made the sun come out again 🙂

Of this endless self pity – I am boring myself and I am not by nature a wallower (although I do have the figure for it 🙂 )

Giving myself a shake of the shoulders and a slap round the face and a bucket of cold water over the head and an urge to count my blessings not my whatever the opposite of blessings are? Misfortunes? dunno, anyway… am risking turning into my mother (Dad’s stock impression of her ‘if we didn’t have bad luck we wouldn’t have any luck at all’) am risking making my eternally patient, kind and loving husband running off with someone else who is capable of cracking a smile (well probably not actually but I do have a flair for the over dramatising so I may as well use it), kids only education has been to learn not to bother asking me for anything and to frantically work out how to use the phone so they can dial Childline and get someone to rescue them, I am not a comfort eater by nature and can normally take or leave chocolate but have been troughing tonnes of the stuff and it simply has to stop!

So.

Another truly crap night last night – I am totally sleep deprived and although I don’t have any sort of master plan I do know that we can turn this around somehow – will chat to Ady later about what we are going to do to prevent the nightly rendition of musical beds, ranting mother, hysterical child screaming for a mummy who really just wants to be left alone and is rapidly finding the neediness of said child completely overwhelming – aside from anything else I can’t even see what there is attrative about me to be wanting to spend time with me at all – let alone 24 hours a day. I think we need to install a total bed ban on any children in our bed for now – not saying they can never come in it again but I think we need a ground rule that extreme for now so that in that middle of the night, only been asleep for about half an hour mental wooliness we don’t keep falling into the trap of letting them share our pillows in the silly misguided hope that we and they might get some sleep. I know what a different place the world is the right side of a decent nights sleep and that is the world I want to be seeing.

Back in the loop again today socially too which must surely help – seeing Jenny, Julie and various other HE folk at Jenny’s later (inlcuding cheap book buying opportunities 🙂 ) seeing Rachel tomorrow and have Twinkle Tots and Tumble Tots on Friday. Parents have in theory agreed to the day trip to London next week (not an overnight trip – just me saying I need a whole night where I indulge in sleeping not being Mummy!) and I have decided we are not seeing anyone on Saturday but I might sneak off either alone or with Davies (the worst victim of my mardiness this week, bless him) for a few hours somewhere . And then of course it is Mother’s Day on Sunday – lol what a week to be wishing I wasn’t one eh!

So that’s it. I think far from helping by getting it off my chest my blogging this week has made me feel slightly worse, so sorry to all those who have bothered to read it 🙁 I’m sure it has been dreary and depressing – rather like Eastenders but without the cliffhanger at the end 🙂

Will probably be back later – off to make lunch then off to Jenny’s via a medicinal trip to Boots ( feel the need to stroke cosmetics and either get a quick hit by buying something or a feeling of immense self satifaction for resisting the temptation – win/win situation!) 🙂

that endless daze, that total daze you gave me.
I’m thinking of the daze, I woun’t recall a single day believe me
daze I could be in all my life
daze where I don’t know day from night
I bless the sleep, I bless the sleep you give me…

dedicated to Davies and Scarlett 🙂

Yep, feel like I am wandering round in a perpertual daze really – only broken by occassional low points (several rants coming up) and the odd highlight (some examples if I can think of any!)

Feel really bad complaining really as Ady gave me a full nights sleep last night by attending to any wandering small people – I did wake feeling much better but within an hour of getting up I am feeling like someone has left the cellophane wrapping on me and I am just not working properly. Not helped by the fact I am wearing my glasses today – I have worn all day all night contact lenses for the last 2.5 years so had almost forgotten that I have crap eyesight as there is only the split second between whipping one out to be replaced with a new one once a month when I am not wearing them. Cannot believe how bad my eyesight is without them actually – or how trippy wearing glasses is. I’ve never really worn them before and it feels like being drunk – looking straight ahead is fine but the smallest sideways glance or look down at the keyboard without moving my head aswell makes me go all spinny.

Kids are acting like the ADHD boys in Desperate Housewifes due to neglectful parenting of only giving negative attention, the list of stuff I really should be doing is piling up and I have no motivation to do anything other than eat chocolate really.

Took the kids to Tescos this morning as needed a few bits, Scarlett fell asleep in the trolley which required a lot of odd trolley pushing on my part to keep her head supported by me somehow instead of letting it loll on the metal bar to be walloped every time the trolley went over a bump or collided with an old person’s trolley, spent much more than I should on tat and junk food. Home for lunch and we had a brief period of peace while we all played with geomags. Have snuck off to find something I can do with them which won’t require much brain power, mess or negotiation skills on my part.

Should be doing my online learning course – only one assessment and I have completed the first half – the second half looks much more interesting and is new stuff instead of rehashing bits and pieces I already half knew and covering the theory side of stuff. I also need to be reviewing a website for Boss Lady and thinking as to what I can offer her in terms of workload for a meeting we are supposed to be having in the next couple of weeks. Oh and I need to grovel to my parents to have the kids while I go to said meeting (which will be a trip up to London – so an all day longer babysitting grovel). Also have at least two other businessy things I should be doing – both of which answer all my dream job requitements but also require me to be getting off my arse and doing something about them, and the monthly juggling act of robbing Peter to pay Paul is sitting in my to do pile too.

Kids have won a reprieve from boarding school as even I can see that their behaviour is a reflection of mine, not the cause of it. What I really need is a day pass to freedom – just one day (well and one night too) to be Nic again instead of Mummy. Hopefully the trip to London, the need to wear something other than jeans and the idea that people looking at me wouldn’t necessarily know I had two small children hanging off me for most waking (and sleeping) moments might just be enough to pull me back into where I should be.

So, a rant or two –
I forgot to cancel the church hall we use for group the week we were at Melrose – totally my fault and if you’d asked me whether I had made that phonecall I would probably have assured you that I had – I just didn;t actually do it. Got home from Melrose to a very snotty answerphone message to say someone had waited an hour for me to turn up and they had had the heating on too 🙁 I rang straight away and apologied profusely, explaining it had been a total oversight on my part, nothing to do with the group and that if they fowarded the invoice to me personally I would cover the cost. The woman (who only takes care of the bookings of the church hall and does not actually own it and frankly could do with being a bit friendlier given the fact I am a CUSTOMER as in I am paying money in exchange for goods or services) did not really accept my apology well anyway and today the bill has arrived for the last three weeks and they have charged full price for the hall for that day including use of both halls and the kitchen when the weeks either side of it we only used one hall. So that leaves me £45 out of pocket 🙁 I have sent a cheque from the group for the two weeks we used the hall and a covering letter asking for a revised invoice for the group and one for me personally and very nicely saying that I felt it was slightly excessive to charge for two full hours and for all the halls but if they sent me a new bill I will pay it. Arse! Will not put an anti religious rant although I am sorely tempted to.

So to end on a happy note – while I was on my hands and knees picking up the crayons (for at least the 14th time in the last two days) Scarlett literally leapt on my back yelling ‘Fun. Horsey!’ which had all three of us helpless with laughter. I love them both lots, I would just like the chance to miss them once in a while…