is what it has been really. Much as I love having Ady home I always realise towards the end of a holiday for him just how much I like my own little daily routines. Not that I am particularly routine driven but somehow having someone else around tends to mess stuff up. It doesn’t help that the children inevitably act differently when he’s around so he gets a skewed idea of what happens when he is at work 🙁 Also feeling a bit unsocialized as I have tried to stay off the computer while he’s home, not met up with any real life friends because he’s around and parenting style in general is always slightly different when there are two people ‘in charge’ instead of just the usual one!
So today Rachel came over with Amber and brought a present of Battleships for Davies – which I am itching to get out and teach him to play as I think it will appeal lots to him. I have spent literally hours on the phone today in connection with our local HE group so I was on the phone for about the first 20 minutes she was here. The kids ended up going out in the garden with Ady while I talked about our holiday and got a brief catch up from her – have not seen her for weeks and feel like we didn’t really talk properly so will see her again the week after next for a proper catch up.
I then spent more time on the phone and then had to send a couple of emails before heading into town to pick up a few bits and to Sainsburys for a bit of food shopping.
Got home to find the kids watching Robots, followed by Chitty Chitty Bang Bang which we got on dvd last week and is proving to be popular (bizarely mainly because it has Bert from Mary Poppins in it!). Ady is systematically working through each room in the house doing an Ady style tidy up (which is another thing I will redo when he goes back to work 😉 !) and the kids had been doing some drawing and some playing with the musical instruments.
Davies then asked to get out his cement and mini bricks set I got him for his birthday so we mixed up some cement and made a start at building a house. His technique was a little odd to begin with but he picked it up quickly enough and seems to be enjoying that – another thing we need to have Tarly otherwise distracted for really.
My parents then arrived for a couple of hours. My Mum had been to select the flowers for the funeral and I have agreed to write and say a little at the funeral so she wanted to talk about that.
So, group. Well we have reached a bit of a cross roads type point really, we seem to not be providing very well for anyone’s needs, we have a steady stream of people who come once never to return again and I have steadily been feeling that I am doing a hell of a lot and getting very little back in return for either myself or my children. We have a newish member who is very keen and eager to help and I am sure will be the aid to getting it either back on it’s feet and off and running again, or to changing it to something which meets the needs of many more than we have managed to do so far, but may mean it is something we as a family decide does not work for us any more. Jenny and I had a long chat today on the phone and re-enthused ourselves with our original plan and dreams, came up with some ways forward and ideas for improvement, but they will require committment and agreement from the rest of the group. We have a meeting arranged for an evening next week where I will put them forward and see what response we get. I have a distinct feeling that our ‘helper’ is somewhat after reinventing the wheel and cannot decide whether I am struggling to accept help simply because I am a bit controlling and crap at accepting help or whether she is after moving things in a direction I don’t want them to go and I am just being a bit precious about ‘my’ group. We’ll see.
So I am feeling somewhat in a limbo at the moment. Waiting to reclaim my children and get our days back on track to how I like them to run, waiting to start implementing a few educational ideas I have fermenting and waiting to get started with some of the other pursuits I have semi planned, waiting to see what happens with Home Ed group and also aware that I have a mental to do list which is stacking up a bit.
Stuff which is pressing:
writing the funeral speech;
seeing what I have in the wardrobe suitable and which fits to wear to said funeral;
getting a plan together for Halloween party;
further planning on educational stuff;
getting the thank you cards finished with Davies;
probably taking lots of cold and flu remedies!
*so* kwym about having both parents at home!
Comment by Sarah — 23 September 2005 @ 6:44 am
Ungrateful bints 😉
Comment by Chris — 23 September 2005 @ 9:20 am
that’s us 😉 she types as Ady runs the hoover round having got up at an unearthly hour to sort Tarly out as she wet her bed!
Comment by Nic — 23 September 2005 @ 10:46 am
Lemsip now do a blackcurrant flavour 🙂
Comment by Heather — 23 September 2005 @ 8:32 pm