I’m supposed to be at work all day today, but it’s the every other Friday morning that I have a childcare problem with and having thought I’d sorted it out between my Mum doing the morning and my Dad doing the afternoon over the weekend I went off to Nuneaton not worrying about it. Until my Dad rang me late on Tuesday to say he could do the morning but my Mum was working all day, which left this afternoon not covered. I had three possible friends who I was planning to beg for help but then Scarlett spent Wednesday night throwing up so I decided I couldn’t ask anyone to bring their children round and look after vomit-ridden children. I was still feeling pretty delicate myself from over indulgence so it didn’t feel too dreadful to ring work yesterday and explain we had some sort of bug which was laying us all low and that as a result even if we were better today I couldn’t run the risk of passing germs onto my childcare providers. Work were fine about it, very understanding, I guess I’ve proved myself enough in 8 months of reliability to not raise any suspcions. But it does mean I feel obliged to stay in all day today, although we are all now totally fine, just incase I bump into someone from work.
So we’ve got outfits ready for tomorrow – gold princess dress for Tarly – she was going to wear her pink one but a quick trying on session revealed she’s grown out of it, along with her blue one and actually the gold one is very snug fitting, and it needed sewing up too, so just as well we tried it on first, Knight outfit for Davies, made a hama bead frame for some pink material to make a Cassandra which Davies drew a face on, spent ages looking at Doctor Who toys on ebay and amazon trying to decide what he wants for his birthday, which led to me starting to make some plans for his party. I want to make sure we have enough games and activities to keep everyone occupied, particularly given there is no guarantee about the weather being ok and three hours to fill with lots of children.
We then spent about 2 hours in the playroom trying to tidy up a bit and get rid of some stuff. We were fairly ruthless – Scarlett and I more so than Davies, with some things put into a ‘holding bay’ status with Davies getting upset at the prospect of getting rid of them but me knowing full well they’ve not been played with for months. So the compromise is them going into the cupboard under the stairs for a month and if they have not been missed in that time then they can be sold on ebay. I refuse to spend loads of money on bigger boys toys for his birthday if he weeps at the prospect of selling his sticklebricks! 🙄 toys are something I am not remotely sentimental about, I welcome the idea of them getting shot of the towers of plastic tat and moving onto compact little electronic things ;). I’ve been expecting him to ask for a DS for his birthday but he hasn’t mentioned it at all – maybe he will at Christmas.
I did get several loads of washing done and the tent stretched out to dry but it has since rained on everything so it’s all still wet 🙁 Getting really fed up of the weather now, we have a camping trip planned for the week after next which we’re not even going to attempt unless the weather forecast is good, I can’t face another week of sitting under canvas with the sound of rain hammering down on the roof.
Davies has a wooden fort and a wooden colleseum both of which are pretty big and unwieldy so I was reluctant to bring them to castle day tomorrow as they would need dismantling and reassembling once we arrived too. So with two Grolsch boxes about to go in the recycling we made a castle each for the children to bring instead. Davies’ is the reverse of the cardboard box festooned with toilet roll turrets, a drawbridge and Davies’ own decorations, Scarlett’s is pink with pointy turrets and flags and big double doors. Davies is bringing a couple of figures from his fort, Scarlett is bringing ponies :roll:. I had planned to do some castle inspired baking but with no ingredients and too scared to go out and risk being seen to buy any I’ve made double the pizza dough needed for our dinner tonight and will make some pizzas to bring and pick up some alcohol and other bits on the way. I then sewed the material onto the hama bead frame for Davies’ Cassandra by which point all I really wanted to do was sit down and drink wine.
My mood today hasn’t been great, the children have been shouted at a fair amount and I think not having either of my stints at work this week (I was off on Wednesday as we were away) hasn’t been that good for me really, I do like my few hours away from the children as much as I miss them, and of course being in the house for two solid days yesterday and today is never good for any of us. Really looking forward to catching up with friends tomorrow and pleased that next week is filling up so we’re not at home again for a while.
Have a lovely time tomorrow – you will be missed where I’m going.
See you next Friday.
Comment by Ali — 27 July 2007 @ 6:54 pm