One word? When seven would do…

Davies wanted to know how come I can type so quickly. I explained it is lots of practise and that I can actually type faster than I can write now. We tested this theory with them dictating stuff and me writing it then typing it. As I was compiling a blog post anyway I opened another page and did it here. This enterained them greatly so I’ve posted it, just to remind us all one day of what a wild and crazy old time we have when we could be at work or school instead. (I’m joking!)

don’t copy me
ruby ruby ruby ah ah ah ahhh
ha ha ha ha
he he he he
chuckle chuckle chuckle
buckle
send it to Ali send it to Ali send it to Ali
no because Ali isn’t at home and she’ll think I’m mental
do it do it do it
no
Scarlett makes lots of silly noises that don’t make sense and are impossible to write down
Davies says Davies Davies Davies Davies Davies
Scarlett likes this idea and says Scarlett Scarlett Scarlett several times
Davies eats his lolly and laughs a bit
Scarlett is kicking me
I don’t like it much
Davies is tickling me
his hands are cold
Davies is boogieing
Davies is laughing
Davies is NOT acting like a seven year old
Scarlett would like me to say that she is a boogie cracker
Davies and Scarlett find this very amusing
I am less impressed but then my sense of humour is slightly more sophisticated
the end
everyone cheers
except me
but I can be reticient that way

Bloody freezing today. Just being outside made me all wheezy – really must be more adept at keeping my inhaler with me, infact I could do with finding it at all really as I’m still quite wheezy now.

The internet had indeed speeded back up again overnight. A said it slowed down again around lunchtime but it seems fine now, so no real idea what that was all about. Pretty dreadful though, couldn’t bear that to happen regularly.

Ady stayed home with the children this morning and my Dad was here this afternoon. They did lots of arty stuff – painting and drawing, so I was greeted with great piles of artwork to have explained to me and coo over when I got home. Scarlett had managed to fall onto a pen and is sporting what looks uncannily like a bullet wound in her back and apparently made her scream louder than A had ever heard and Davies run to fetch her dummies for her. She is utterly recovered now but I do hate it when things like that happen and I’m not around. Not that I think for one moment I’d have prevented it, or made her feel better faster – far from it, she often doesn’t want me to comfort her when she’s hurt anyway. I just hate knowing that it all happened and I wasn’t aware of it at the time. My issue, I know.

I was off to Worthing library for a course. It’s nearing the end of my set of courses for new starters and due to a restructuring earlier this year in which several posts were made redundant there are some of the courses which are without personnel holding the jobs to do the training and this was one of them – displays. So the council had got in an outside body to run training courses as an experiment so see how it would be recieved. I’ve commended them on an excellent and admirable committment to training before but mentioned that it falls down from not having staff who can deliver the training in an efficient and well executed manner so this was an interesting one for me. Before we started the management who had come along to attend aswell said once again how valuable our feedback would be and as the training session was very expensive they would be keen to know whether it was beneficial or useful or not.

I’d walked in from the carpark with another woman who I’ve met on various courses and then got chatting to someone else who looked and indeed was really interesting and quirky and sat next to her for the training session but the bloke running the course came over to chat and took something of a shine to me. He started off as merely friendly but having cornered me twice, just before the lunch break and again at the afternoon tea break and moving from general banter and chit chat to outright leching, telling me about his first marriage breakdown, being rather critical of his current wife (who was there with him, doing the training) and asking rather more personal questions than I was comfortable with, having twice established that I didn’t mind him ‘having a laugh’ with me (he’d picked me out several times infront of the rest of the group to make lewd comments) I had started to feel a bit unnerved by the whole thing, which probably rather coloured my view of what was really very good training. I certainly didn’t encourage his attention – he was a 60 year old, not particularly attractive man with grandchildren the same age as D and S and two daughters my age, there with his wife to deliver a training session. I’ve gone back over my general behaviour and responses to him throughout the day and can’t see I did anything different to how I would normally act really. I had cleavage out as usual and was probably a bit loud and confident as usual but as neither of those factors normally make me the recipient of unwanted attention I can’t really put it down to that. Maybe it’s just the way he operates but I certainly don’t think it did him any favours in terms of being professional or credible really. I was slightly relieved that the woman I’d walked in with tapped me on the shoulder before the end of the session to say our car park tickets were about to run out and we’d been given permission to leave early so we dashed off before the end.

The actual training itself was pretty good – all done with very low budget stuff like ribbon, paper, posters and material and stapled up. At the end of the morning session we were split into teams and set loose with materials to create our own displays in ten minutes. My team chose some Wallace and Gromit posters and did a great display with them using the ideas we’d been shown. It was fun :). As always with these training sessions there are things which look and sound great but are not particularly feasible to ‘try at home’ such as storing up all sorts of household waste to use as props in displays (we simply don’t have the storage space at the library) or rummaging at car boots sales and charity shops for ‘treasures’ – which admittedly is something we do ourselves but something that won’t be that easily done for the library unless I’m prepared to fund and store my own treasure chest of props.

I spent the lunchbreak sitting upstairs in the library reading. I did try and sneakily eat my sandwiches too but I got told off 😳 :lol:- it was way too cold to venture out.

The afternoon session was more of the same really -arty ways with props, staple guns and ribbons. The company specialise in ‘dressing and staging’ really – window displays and in house retail stuff although they have started these training sessions as an offshoot which they are taking to schools, libraries etc. I certainly got a few ideas and clever tricks from it although a half day could possibly have been sufficient and I could have done without quite such a ‘friendly’ delivery.

Came home to feed the children before running Davies round to Beavers – it was the Christmas party held with the cubs, so no uniform and utter bedlam apparently. Ady went to collect him and it overran by half an hour and was chaos so Ady said. Scarlett draped me with jewels and put many hair decorations in my hair while he was gone.

Tomorrow is an at home day – I have Elmlea and value chocolate gifts to craft 😆

It’s three more days til I get paid.

We have three loo rolls left in the house between two bathrooms – we often get through two a day here (we buy the skinny value ones because a) we’re poor b) we have better things (like wine!) to spend the money we do have on c) the cheapo ones are made from recycled stuff and therefore more environmentally friendly and d) it’s stuff to wipe your arse with – I can think of better things to invest money in (like wine!).

We have half a loaf of bread left. That’s fine though cos we have flour so I can either make bread rolls or cheese scones or other bread related stuff which is actually probably nicer than the white sliced 35p a loaf stuff we normally have anyway.

My watch strap broke yesterday. This is bad. I am incapable of functioning without a watch strapped to my wrist. I do have the watch I was bought for my fifth birthday which I am currently sporting (on the largest hole of the strap) but as it is nearly 28 years old and designed for the wrist of a skinny little five year old it is walking a fine line between retro chic and enhancing further the fact that I am not particularly dainty of wristage.

I’m pretty sure we have another 6 pinter of milk in the freezer – if not I’ll be watering down the half empty one in the fridge to keep us going til Thursday. Or maybe scouting round the house for other white liquid substitutes (tippex in your tea anyone?).

We’re ok for food otherwise – we have stuff for dinners. The only thing I notice we have run out of is peanut butter. I’m hoping the cheese scones instead of bread will mean this will go unnoticed. At least we have full stocks of teabags!

I have still to make my secret santa gift to send to an imaginary internet friend. And it could really do with posting before Thursday to ensure it gets there, especially as they do this whole celebrating Christmas a couple of days early thing. I’ve decided to make handmade chocolates in a handmade box which I think will be charming, thoughtful and the sort of gift I’d be thrilled to recieve. Only problem is the recipe calls for double cream and top quality chocolate. I have Elmlea and value cooking chocolate :roll:. I can either spend the three quid I have left til Thursday on topping up the loo roll supplies, posting the Elmlea and cooking chocolate hand decorated delicacies to get there on time, or I can buy the decent ingredients and wait til Thursday to post them.

Our internet connection slowed to a snails pace last night and hasn’t recovered. Emails are fine and once a web page has loaded it seems fine, it just takes a bloody age to do so. Far slower than dial up would be and sites with lots going on just don’t seem to load at all. I’ve got no joy from our ISP who insist there seems to be no problem with the connection speeds from their checks and despite uninstalling and reinstalling all sorts of things I’ve gotten nowhere in making it any faster. So I’m going to blog and then give up and hope it all magically sorts itself out somehow overnight!

Today has been wonderfully festive. Somehow we found ourselves with no particular place to be, people to see or things to do. The s l o w internet meant I didn’t just install myself behind a laptop. In the morning Davies was doing drawing and sketching and having shown me his latest story in three pictures of Sponge Bob Square Pants and friends, which I am utterly unable to comment on having never watched a single show but can see the pictures are a good likeness of the character I’ve seen depicted in various places, I did some other stuff with him. He does excellent ‘cartoony’ style drawings but often asks for ideas of what to draw next and I think actually he’d be better employed focussing on his actual drawing rather than ever more elaborate subjects and scenes. We did a bit of sketching, me of him (rubbish!) and him of Ady and then I remembered a book I’d seen at first Melrose that I think Merry had brought along about enjoying art with children. I’d been really taken with it and managed to track it down on amazon.com rather than .co.uk and then it sat on the bookshelf ever since (nearly 3 years now then). We sat and looked at every picture, talked about it, read through the notes and the questions and then I read the little biographies and explanations of the pictures out. Scarlett crept over to join in and we all debated our favourites and why. There were a couple of ‘now draw this…’ type suggestions which Davies liked; one was to draw your friends playing on a broken mode of transport – Davies chose a plane and drew that and then I challenged him with drawing a person using the Picasso style of geometric shapes. Must see what other art type books I can get as he really enjoyed a wider range of ideas and inspirations. Scarlett had collected some workbooks off the shelf so we looked at some of the maths ones but she quickly bored of a page of sums. She adores counting and will often pose a ‘maths’ type question to everyone and then say quickly ‘no wait, I’m going to ‘count” and do it herself, which seems much more natural to her than a page of written down fill in the blanks. She stuck with it a while though and I think it was probably the first time she’d written some of the numbers and certainly I was surprised that she recognised 1-9 (not surprised as in impressed that she’d know them, just surprised as I had no idea she did).

I made cinnamon toast for lunch but then couldn’t be bothered to do any of the baking I’d planned and sat on the floor with the children instead and made Christmas stuff. We got out the many pairs of posh scissors and cut out loads of snowflakes, some Christmas trees, snowmen and then in a flight of fancy and over-ambitiousness we recreated my library display of reindeer and santa sleigh. There was glue, there was glitter, there was stick on sparkly bits, there was ribbon and paper and various crimped edge effects but above all there was a good half an hours worth of tidying up at the end of it! 😆 We do now have various little very pretty decorations blue tacked around the walls of the house though so we are, like, totally festived up. 😆

Scarlett – who had got stamping ink on her jeans and foot so had taken her jeans off and put one sock on to avoid spreading more ink onto the carpet then decided to finish off this slightly eccentric look with a long and floaty summer dress over her vest and the single sock, which lent her an odd sort of regal charm, and Davies then disappeared up to his bedroom to play Doctor Who while Ady cooked dinner and I wrestled more with the slowest internet connection in the world (honestly it would be quicker to walk round to everyone for a chat than try and read their blogs).

Ady served dinner up around 530pm – roast beef – and we all sat down to eat and watch A Christmas Carol – (Kelsey Grammer version) which we really enjoyed and coupled with a roast dinner and Christmas decorations made us feel like we’d sort of had Christmas really :). At bedtime I read a pile of library books to the children, a combination of a few story ones, a few silly ones and a couple of festive ones. Then they went off to bed; Scarlett to listen to Amy Winehouse on her MP3 player in bed and Davies to sit in bed and play (loudly :roll:) with some toys.

Oh it’s all been dead festive round these parts today.

First thing my Dad popped round, mostly because he wanted me to wrap up a tin of biscuits for him to take to the nurses on the cancer ward at the local hospital. He has a friend who has had lots of treatment there this year and I’m unsure whether they were on behalf of her or simply from my Dad but it is probably the first and only Christmas gift he’s ever bought himself! He came round all pathetically and asked for Christmas wrapping paper, which once I produced he said bashfully ‘well I don’t know how to do it’ so I wrapped for him too – honestly, to have got to nearly 70 without ever having wrapped a gift probably qualifies for some sort of award – if he were on facebook there would be a group for it no doubt! Of course it’s unlikely that Dad will make it onto facebook given he still thinks the telephone (normal landline) works by some sort of black magic let alone all these internet thingys! 😆

I made a batch of mince pies – I’ve been rather ambitious in my quantities of home made mincemeat this year and have three vast tubs of the stuff to use but it seems to be going a long way. Worse than that I deliberately made it with beef suet (it’s what people would expect of me ;)) so it’s not suitable to give in nice glass jars to most people I know as a present, nor to make vast quantities of mince pies to give out either. If I still have it here next weekend I might do something charitable with it!

We mostly listened to music this morning – Davies loves playing Guess The Intro so I was playing various music saved to my laptop – he is bloody good at it! 🙂 A real ecclectic mix from Beach Boys to Take That to Mika to Neil Diamond. We had lunch and then we headed out to deliver Christmas cards. I post lots of them but keep back a few which are to people that increasingly we only really manage to see annually when we deliver their Christmas cards. So listening to Christmas music as we went our first stop was Bruce and Paula, our friends who married last year and have our three remaining hatched chickens living somewhere on their farm. They have a chocolate labrador called Ellie who Scarlett fell head over heels in love with when they took the chickens over there so the children spent a happy hour playing with her while we drank tea and chatted and caught up. We had a quick walk round the farm and the children managed to track down some of the chickens that live there and once again get the taste for farm life -one day, one day!

We managed to not have to get out of the car for any of the further deliveries with Ady and I leaping out to post them depending on who’s friends they were mostly and either shoving them through letterboxes and dashing away again, stopping for a brief doorstep chat or finding them not in – or in the case of one ex boss of mine discovering that without having written her house number on the envelope I wasn’t 100% sure of which of the row of similar looking houses she lives in!

I popped into the supermarket for a couple of bits of food (we have £6 left to last us until Thursday when I get paid when we’ll do a last minute dash for the presents we’ve not got yet for Christmas and then have to live on toast for January!) and then we came home for tea for the childen, watching The Lion Man on tv, which is so what Tarly wants to do when she grows up (work with big cats, not become a New Zealand bloke!) and frantically bid to win a Crazy Frog DS game that Davies has decided he wants for Christmas on ebay.

The children went to bed, we watched X Factor and ate pizza and now, having consumed altogether too much wine I am off to bed to sleep it all off!

I worked today. It was good, everyone seems to be in that nice pre Christmas but still not quite close enough to be feeling the pressure and being arsey type glow which makes for friendly jolly interactions. It won’t last of course, this time next week everyone will be stressed beyond belief at not having finished all their shopping, knowing when to start defrosting the turkey and fretting about whether they have enough sprouts or how to deal with the fact their son has decided he doesn’t like Doctor Who after all and wants all his presents to be Simpsons related despite the fact you’ve bought all Doctor Who stuff and wrapped it all up already :lol:. But for now it is all very chilly, wrapped up warm, hustle and bustle type stuff. At least three borrowers came in today to get books to take on holiday away with them including a very excited couple off tomorrow to spend Christmas staying with their son in New York. I said I had friends out there on holiday and how we were getting reports of their snow filled days of wonder 😉 and how very envious I was – one day eh?!

The big news is that they have taken on extra staff to cover a couple of vacancies and we have a new Nicola and a new Sarah starting, bringing our total up to two Nicolas and three Sarahs – just like being back at school! They did say there was ‘only one Nicola’ really though and I explained that everywhere else unless I am in trouble with my Mum I get called Nic rather than Nicola anyway so they said they might adopt that now, which will feel a bit strange actually – I’ve gotten quite used to having a work persona with another name, I can see why Annette likes it ;).

Julie, Jack and Maisie were here this morning and my Dad this afternoon and apparently everyone had a nice day although thankfully Ady beat me home by nearly an hour so all evidence of good days on the carpet and in the bedrooms had been cleared up, the children had been fed and there was a cup of tea waiting for me. Ady makes an excellent wife ;).

I took a couple of photos of my display at the library:

and Scarlett wanted to share a video of her dancing to Amy Winehouse with the world so insisted I video it earlier in the week. It makes me smile, particularly the ending (I promise it’s worth watching two minutes of my daughter prancing around for the last few moments!)

Scarlett seemed all but fully recovered this morning but Davies has been very pale, quiet and cuddly all day today. It’s clearly just a cold but seems to be a nasty one.

First thing we needed to pop to the bank so Ady took us there and I just ran in which saved trying to find a parking space and dragging the children through town – it is already busy for Christmas. He dropped us home again and headed off to work. I made the first of many, many cups of tea and we settled down to watch Simpsons Movie for the first time today (Davies managed three times in all). We followed that up with the latest Barbie film – Island Princess, which Tarly got for her birthday. I made popcorn to accompany that one and a very sticky toffee sauce to pour over it which was nice but I ate way too much of.

Lucy and The Rs came round for an hour or so bringing paper chain making with them which Scarlett and Rebecca did, Richard mostly ‘celebrated with’ which largely involved using it as confetti 😆 and Davies watched the dvd extras of the Simpsons film while Lucy and I chatted. They did all go off and play for a while and then Davies did some magic painting (he’d gotten a book in his goody bag from Badgers and I have a stash of them hidden away) while the others played ‘Supercats’ and ate popcorn. Finally Davies brought in the wooden train track which pretty much engaged all of them until it was time for them to go home.

Scarlett carried on playing with the train track while Davies slumped again and came and snuggled up with me on the sofa to watch Miracle on 34th Street (remade version with Richard Attenborough) which had me sniffling much of the way through. I paused it to go and make them soup for tea while they tidied up the train track and then we watched the end of it and Ady arrived home. Davies was utterly wiped out by this point despite doing nothing all day so he went off for a very early night taking the Simpsons and the portable dvd player with him. Scarlett and I watched some Strictly Come Dancing which we never watch normally but we enjoyed all the jazz hands before she went off to bed too.

I’d been in the mood for baking today but only managed the toffee popcorn so I indulged that by creating masterpieces with my toad in the hole and roasted potatoes with bacon and onions which was delicious. 🙂 It’s felt like a long day today with not a lot really in it, other than the whole Annette shocker! Off to work tomorrow for the whole day before enjoying a weekend which rather miraculously doens’t have any plans in it yet. 🙂

The mystery of the Christmas card from Annette is solved. Well I say solved, it’s more sort of explained. Well I say explained, it’s more sort of complicated the issue really. Actually the thing has just gotten all the more weirdy really.

I saw Maureen this morning so I asked her who Annette was. She lowered her voice, moved a bit closer and said ‘ah yes, Annette is Jeannette dear’. I said ‘No, Jeannette added her name to the card from Joyce and David, this is Annette’. Turns out Jeannette has another personality called Annette. Annette is related to the Queen – or Princess Diana, she can never remember which, and likes to send Christmas and birthday cards. This could well explain why she only lives with Joyce and David about half the time – we always understood she had a flat in London still, but I guess she is off being Annette somewhere. Wonder if Annette looks different, wears different clothes etc. Wonder if we’ve ever met her when she’s being Annette. Wonder if we should send her a card back?

Work for me this morning, which was good, plenty of laughs. There is a lovely festive feel to the library which I remarked on lots when I started there this time last year. The staff room is already filling up with boxes of posh biscuits, chocolates and cakes as gifts from borrowers and the counter is starting to have lots of cards on display. Last week was the one year anniversary of me starting there and whilst I’m not going to do one of my sentimental photo blog posts about the job and how much it means to me I probably should mark it with a bit of a mention.

I think the job came at the perfect time for me and for our family as a whole. Financially of course it has eased the burden on us by helping to make proper inroads into the debts and it also gives me a good feeling to know I am actively financially contributing too. I think that although I have had wobbles about the childcare the time was right for me and the children to have more regular breaks from each other each week and although it is *just* 11 hours a week I know it has done me the world of good to go off and be someone else during those hours. I think that while the variety of childcare has not always been precisely what Davies and Scarlett would have chosen their relationship with my Dad has strengthened and grown as a result of him having proper sole care for them one afternoon every week instead of just seeing them when I’m around. It is a very recent revelation but I do think he is starting to get to know them as people and odd things Davies and Scarlett have started to refer to demonstrate that they do sit and chatter to him about all manner of things too, just as I hoped they might. I think Dad, although he would NEVER admit it, has at the very least been reassured that I am not doing any dreadful harm to them with Home Educating them either and several times during the summer he was heard to comment about them positively (things like their enterpreneurial streaks with the lavender selling for example :lol:) and I know he ‘teaches’ them things like fractions and telling the time. My Mum has had them only a handful of times over the course of the year, which is sort of what I expected really but they have enjoyed it when she has. They love having Julie and Jack and Maisie over once a month and over the course of the year, as they have all gotten older and used to the arrangement I think all the children have got a lot out of having Lucy and The Rs here weekly (thanks Luce x). None of the arrangements would work on a higher frequency than we currently have going on but then that would tip the balance away from home education and into a bit of a pillar to post why not just send them to school type arrangement anyway but it all seems to be working out for now, most of the time.

I think the whole role model working parent doing something they enjoy and get a lot out of in exchange for earning money has been great for Davies and Scarlett. Although Ady certainly has his share of stressy days at work he has a very varied job with plenty of perks and mine is pretty similar, I like the fact they see us growing into our job roles, getting training and doing visible work (Ady obviously slightly more visible by virtue of being on telly, but they have been round his workplace several times and both been out on the road with him a few times too, they obviously come into the library lots, have seen me working there myself and are aware of it as a community service provider too) and getting a lot out of our jobs. Obviously the perks of mine in the shape of free films and music are very well received!

About 18 months ago I blogged about having a life plan and thinking about what I’d be up to when I was 40 – Davies and Scarlett will be 13 and 11 and likely to need me around ever less regardless of where we are home ed wise, I will still have 25 years of working life ahead of me and at that stage would have been out of the workplace for ten years aside from odd dabblings. I was pondering on what I could be doing with myself in a low key, very part time basis to ensure I didn’t suddenly have no idea. I considered OU education or similar retraining but really ground to a halt until the library job came up and it all just seemed to slot into place really.

I don’t think I want to work in a library forever, or even full time for a short time as although the work can be varied and interesting I think it is a fairly static environment which I know from past experience doesn’t suit me long term. However, the chance to put on grown up clothes, banter with customers, get to know workmates, have in jokes and a whole new work persona has done me the world of good. I have not been stretched particularly but I am picking up new skills all the time, getting loads of relevant training for all sorts of spin off stuff, getting loads of positive feedback, strokes and appreciation (which can be lacking in the life of a home educating parent short term even if you are confident long term that it will pan out for the best) and having my ambitions for the future stoked up again for something that makes me strive to meet a challenge, do what I am good at and learn new stuff. I’ve a feeling that somehow this little part time job will be instrumental in some next stage bit of my life as and when it comes along.

I came home, got changed, peeled and chopped veg to slow cooker a stew and then as it was ‘bring a plate of food to share’ at Badgers tonight and for the first time I had two attending children I made two plates of food for them to take. Cheese scones and some more of the Pioneer Woman egg yolk glazed Christmas tree biscuits, which this time I even fashioned an icing bag and piped white icing over them – they looked all nice and home-made-y :). Scarlett came and helped with the baking – and the painting the egg glaze – she did rolling out and cutting too which was a first although she added rather too much flour to the cookie dough by having to re-roll it lots so the last bit was too dry and flaky to use. But I did get to explain what had happened though and she seemed to get the idea that the balance of ingredients had changed so it changed consistency too. Davies played with the geomags.

Lucy and The Rs who had been here for the morning looking after Davies and Scarlett went off to the dentist and then came back again so the children mostly played while Lucy and I chatted in the kitchen. Then the children moved to the other rooms when we came into the lounge. They played spies which mostly involved stringing a whole reel of cotton around the downstairs of the house to create laser beams 😆 which was fine until they needed to open the front door to let Ady in!

Lucy and The Rs left and we went to Badgers. Ady came along been as he was home to sit in the car with me and keep me company, but when we took D and S in along with the food and some poinsettias for the Bagder leaders they invited us to sit in the coffee lounge and drink tea and sneak some of the party food instead which seemed way more appealing :). Actually they said we could watch the film the children were watching (Shrek 3) but we knew if we were in there D and particularly S would want to sit with us instead of the Badgers so we declined that offer and sat and chatted instead. Scarlett had a great time although not desperately indicative of what Badgers is all about but she is really looking forward to going back in January properly with black skirt and shoes :). Davies did a fine job of being all watchful and ‘looking after her’ too which was nice. I like the idea they’ll go to this together for the next 3 years, there are a couple of other siblings there too which is great and the badge for next term involves lots of crafty activities which Tarly will adore. She is equally keen to start swimming but a little more apprehensive about Rainbows.

When we got home they both were very shivery with cold hands and feet and very warm bodies and foreheads and both suddenly flopped. Hopefully it was a combination of sugar high from party food, cold night air and stacked up late nights tiredness but they both had medicine and were asleep in minutes (very early for D – before 9pm!). I brought home a stack of Christmas movies from work so tomorrow is a home day with films, maybe some Christmas decoration making, a bit of baking and perhaps a visit from Lucy and The Rs if they are up to it.

We finished our festive film fest and headed off to swimming lessons. We were slightly late anyway and then once Davies had gotten changed and headed poolside Tarly decided she needed a wee so we were later still getting to the spectator area which meant that I didn’t get my usual seat right at the front and we were a few rows back. Behind the three other ‘swimming mums’ all with younger siblings to keep entertained. Two turned round straightaway and were all smiley and said things like ‘now you’re not going to fall down are you?’ 😆 referencing my graceful tumble of a few weeks ago. And then they all kept turning round to chat to me and Tarly, one in particular made about five attempts at proper conversation. I’m a bit unused to this behaviour in after school stuff as normally everyone knows each other and I’m fairly speedily marked out as ‘the one who doesn’t send her kids to school’ which coupled with my own slight aloofness means I rarely exchange more than a smile with most of the other parents. It was quite nice though 🙂 I suspect I will probably return to my front seat watching Davies’ progress so when he dissects the lesson in minute detail afterwards I can speak with confidence back having watched it closely rather than chatting with the other mums but it was nice to feel ‘normal’ for half an hour :lol:. Scarlett was a nightmare for most of it, she gets really bored and I was employing all my very best distraction techniques while trying to peer at Davies and respond to friendly overtures so I felt a bit stretched, but we did talk about the disabled man who wheelchairs to the poolside and then swims with a float between his rather wasted knees, discussed which was our favourite swimming cap of the ones being sported by the lane swimmers, talked about Davies’s swimming – and Scarlett got to see him do two whole widths with relative ease and get given his certificate :), it’s all suddenly clicked for him I think, so hopefully next term should see some real progress, but how lovely that he can actually really swim :). Finally Scarlett and I played a game of guessing how old people were – she was fab with the children, I’d say she got them all spot on and then guessed the mums ages as 32, 34 and 36 which was probably fairly accurate. Then she blew it by guessing the lad of a lifeguard to be 38 when he was probably still grazing his teens and the elderly lifeguard as 89 to which I laughed and said he must have had a very hard life so she swung the other way and said he must be 27 then (I reckon he was around 60ish) :lol:.

Home for bath, tea, Simpsons and bed for them while Ady and I played supermarket tag with me dashing off for a forgotten ingredient for dinner only to realise ten minutes after I got home that we were missing another, even more vital thing so Ady went off to get that 😆 Tomorrow morning I’m working and tomorrow afternoon is end of term Badgers film night which Scarlett is invited along to as her first official Badger night with a proper start in January. She’s torn between great excitement and downright fear!

I was expecting a parcel this morning – in as much as it was posted first class yesterday so I assume it would be here this morning – but it didn’t arrive. We waited in for it though as I hate having to go and collect stuff from the post office, you can never park there and it’s really hassly dragging the children down there.

Davies and Scarlett played with the toy animals for hours really nicely while I tried to think of things to do with myself and failed to get motivated by any of them. Eventually the post arrived (minus parcel – grr) so we headed out to the local post office where I had a parcel of my own to post, a Christmas card to Ireland and needed to buy stamps for a load of UK Christmas cards. It was sunny and bright, if very cold, so we wrapped up warm and walked there. Davies gave us lessons in road safety, Scarlett did ‘very fast running’ and we looked at the various Christmas decorations people had put up along the way. The post office was pretty busy – we were fourth in the queue when we arrived and at least another six people were behind me by the time we left. The post office is one side of a newsagents shop which has a tall central shelving unit running through the middle to seperate the PO counters from the papers, sweets and magazine and the newsagents till. Davies and Scarlett wandered round looking at things and came to ask for sweets. I’d already said before we went that I had no money for sweets so I reiterated that, upon which Davies pulled a couple of pennies from his pocket and said he had enough to buy a penny sweet each for him and Tarly, eliciting ‘ahhhs’ from all the people in the queue. I said that would be ok and he needed to go and talk to the newsagents counter lady to find out where their penny sweets were so they went and queued up there and asked really nicely, to which she came out from behind the counter to show them. I’d found 8p in my pocket in coppers so I gave that to Davies and he split it between him and Scarlett and they spent ages selecting their sweets and then paying for them. Then the woman behind me spotted a penny on the floor and drew it to Scarlett’s attention so she went off to buy another sweet. She started talking to me then and saying how sweet and polite they both were and then asked if she might give them a few pennies each. It was all very Millie Molly Mandy 😆 – she gave Davies 5 pence and so he went off and bought a few more sweets by which time I had sent my parcel and bought my stamps and Scarlett was telling the woman all about her birthday and what she wants for Christmas. All very sweet :).

We walked home, talked a lot about cement mixers when we saw one in action and then tried to get our shadows to do things like hold hands, pat each other on the head and so on. Davies had requested cheese scones for lunch so I got them going while Davies and Scarlett went to visit the bantams. They called me in as the next door neighbour had leaned over the fence and asked for me and wanted to pass me some little Christmas gifts for them :). I hung various loads of washing out, brought some in off the line to air (I’m into the swing of my winter laundry routine you’ll all be pleased to hear ;)) and then we sat down with cheese scones and Christmas films – Polar Express followed by Rudolph and the Island of Misfit Toys then How the Grinch Stole Christmas. We’ve still got the Grinch on but they are playing with geomags while watching it and I am shivering and drinking lots of tea to try and get warm. Swimming lessons in a while and Ady won’t be home so Tarly will have to come out with me :(.

My Dad came round first thing as his van was going back to the garage for a MOT retest so I chatted with him while Davies drew ever more pictures and Scarlett alternated between charming and stroppy 😆

We headed off to MM going via Shoreham to collect a bag of stuff from a freecycler who posted offering craft stuff and scissors. When we arrived I realised it was the same person I’d collected Cube Worlds from a few months ago, I’d just not recognised the address having done a route planner on the postcode last time and come into their very long road via another route. We grabbed a big bag of stuff from their porch and headed over to MMs listening to music and chatting about things all of which escape me now.

MM was in full swing Christmas party mode with festive food being laid out and many children bouncing on the bouncy castle. In my positive view of the session I will talk about how lovely it was to watch most of the children enjoying childlike delights such as bouncy castles, party food, simple wrapped festive gifts and the performance of Mr Pineapple Head which was all about slapstick, juggling, talk of bogeys, bubbles, smashing eggs and whoopee cushions. In an age where most of the children present have stuff like DSs, laptops or digital cameras on their Christmas lists it was lovely to watch them squirming with excitement, giggling and nudging each other and well, acting like children really. 🙂

In my negative view of the session all I can really say is our decision not to return after Christmas was fully cemented for me as the right one. There are children there who are utterly unparented even when their parent is present and there are other adults shouting at them. I felt myself getting close to replicating my rather undesirable behaviour at Kessingland with young Thomas on more than one occassion today and was grinding my teeth with frustration for most of the three hours. The lack of concern for others, lack of respect for others, lack of listening to what people say even when it is a reasonable request and has a very clear reason explained just really pissed me off. The rudeness, ignorance and utter-little-shit-ishness of some of the kids there today was the final straw for me. I’m sure excitement, crowds, noise and added e numbers all added fuel to the fire but I don’t need to make allowances for other people really when I can vote with my feet. For the year or so that we’ve attended MM I think all three of us have got a fair bit out of it and hopefully put a fair bit back in (in the style of Malory Towers ;)) but our suitability for the group and it’s for us has run out and knowing from experience what supportive, friendly, community style environments Home Ed gatherings can be I am not really willing to compromise my expectations.

We left there and came home to tip the stash of crafting stuff out and ooh and ahh over it. There are about 10 pairs of scissors all with different blades in zig zags, curly lines, straight lines and stuff, two magazines about cardmaking (suggesting it was something she started and never got anywhere with) various card topper type bits, a pile of blank cards and envelopes, some stamps, a couple of punches and some sparkly bits and ribbons. Excellent stash of stuff :). I added to it by getting out some Christmas stampers I’d bought and put away and they had a merry hour or so creating festive masterpieces. I also cut out and folded some circles for Davies to work magic on with the crimping scissors and make snowflakes which we’ll hang about the place tomorrow.

Davies had Beavers which he came home from with 3 badges – I really must sew on all the uniform badges tomorrow before I forget the positioning, they all get lost and it is time to go back after Christmas and I forget! He also needs new black trousers for Badgers, new navy trousers for Beavers and Scarlett needs a black skirt and black shoes for Badgers – sigh, more expense. I went in and thanked the Beaver leaders for all their mopping Davies and his vomit last week and then came home and looked at photos with Tarly. Oh and sang Valerie lots which I’ve been driving the kids mad with and now they are both singing it lots too :lol:. Ady went to collect Davies and took poinsettias in for all the leaders.

Tonight I have mostly been putting images onto a memory card to go into Mum and Dad’s Christmas present of a digital photoframe, but it took forever, I managed over 150 and the card is only 1/4 full so that will be a work in progress for tomrrow too :roll:,

Well we didn’t make it to the cinema.

On Friday late afternoon my back started twinging for no apparent reason and has steadily gotten worse. I was worried it might be a problem at work yesterday but actually moving around seemed to loosen it up a bit, but by late last night it was painful and just feels like it is all knotted and seized up. A restless night didn’t help struggling to find a comfortable spot. Clare, the friend we went to see this afternoon has just qualified as a chiropractor and had a quick poke and feel and said it was very tense and she could feel spasming. I’ve had a bath with my bubble mat thing on the hardest setting (and it is hard, you can’t read a book as the splashing soaks it in moments) which gave it a good pounding and helped but it is already stiffening up again :(. Clare said to ring her and pop round one evening next week for her to have a proper ‘go’ at it if it doesn’t improve in the next day or so. A succession of horrible dreams – featuring lots of my friends in odd places and castings made for a shit nights sleep and had me waking late and in a foul mood.

So I did my regular stopping about the state of the childrens’ bedrooms and got them to help give them both a really good tidy up. Scarlett’s room was totally sorted out with homes found for her new stuff, a load of soft toys taken up to the loft so you can actually see her bed again and all her make up sorted and old cruddy stuff chucked out – does seem odd to be doing that when you are barely five :lol:. Davies did a good start in his room and then I went and helped him finish it off, putting all his Doctor Who stuff out ready to play with and generally tidying it all up in there. Between the two rooms we got a car boot full of stuff to take to the tip so we did that on the way to Matt and Clare’s.

We had lunch and I put dinner on for later before we went out (ham in coke) then we headed round to Matt and Clare’s where they were having an open house with a product party of silver fingerprint necklaces, charms and keyrings. Really lovely stuff that I’d already seen elsewhere on a US site and admired but way out of my price range at £40 for a keyring. There were several other people there, most of whom we have met round there before at various parties so it was nice to chat – we were recognised straightaway as the Home Educators and chatted about that very vaguely. I think it was the first time D&S had been with us when we met any of them though so I was really pleased at how well Davies just headed straight off with their son Aydan to play and Scarlett hung out around the woman selling the silver stuff chatting to her about exactly how the whole process worked. I don’t think she could quite believe she was only five as she was asking all sorts of indepth questions about it all and not getting fobbed off at all by one word or simplistic answers :lol:, Scarlett is funny like that, she takes a shine to someone and sticks to them like glue, although she doesn’t give it often, when she does bestow her attention on someone it is 100%.

I chatted to the woman doing it a bit about the business and the process as it is really nice stuff and I wondered on what basis she was running the business. When I got home I googled for the stuff she was using and discovered start up costs could be pretty cheap so after Christmas I might invest in a bit of the materials and see what sort of results I can get for a few fingerprint pieces for myself and if it works well I might think about doing something with it. I like the idea of jewellry making of some description and did a bit in my teens but the thought of just stringing beads onto thread isn’t really creative or personal enough to keep me interested. Bit of market research though – check out these links here and here and let me know what you think of this sort of stuff – would you buy it? How much would you pay for it?

Home for dinner and watching Ice Age 2 :The Meltdown at the childrens request – they are resisting all of Ady and my suggestions for festive films :lol:. At bedtime Davies got out his pastels and sketch book and brought me down a whole series of pictures he’d drawn including one of the characters from the film – he’d done this with no visual aid up in his bedroom, just from memory of watching the film – I think it’s pretty great 🙂

As I took him back up to bed to tuck him in and remove the heaps of crayons, charcoals and pastels that were strewn all over his bedclothes he said to me ‘Mummy I really want to be an artist’ to which I had to reply ‘Davies darling, you already are!’. He wants to book display space in the library next year to put up some of his work so is going to plan what he wants to put up, whether to go with a theme, original or copies and if he should try and do something like a giant storyboard to tell a story with pictures. 🙂

with abundant tinsel (fa la la la la, fa la la la!)

Back to work this morning which was all very jolly and good to be back. I emptied our house of library stuff and managed to only come home with a couple of cds, but I did sit for nearly an hour at the enquiry desk looking up books on fantastic fiction and ordering loads to read over the next few weeks to make up for not getting loads of lovely new books for Christmas (always used to be one of the things Ady would buy me).

Home for lunch and then we made a start on the Christmas decorations. We’ve managed to get trees up in the lounge, Scarlett’s bedroom, Davies’ bedroom and the playroom. The one in the lounge is bedecked with cookies, candy canes, chocolate santas. The children went crazy with tinsel so the bannisters on the stairs are twined with it, there is some draped round the kitchen sink taps, various bits slung around every surface (curse the surfaces Ali!) and the ceiling is fully dangling with foil decorations. The house feels tiny, but very festive :).

A few Christmas cards have arrived already but I’d stashed them til after Scarlett’s birthday so once we’d got the tinselly barbed wire type stuff dangling from the ceiling to hang them off we opened them. The usual snow covered church scene which arrived on 1st December from the elderly woman who Ady used to do gardening jobs for years ago, a medium-nice one from a boxed set of cards from an ex work colleague of both Ady and I from B&Q days. Do you remember doing that with boxed sets when you were at school? I used to get a box of 40 and sit and catergorise them into the 20 or so really nice ones, the 10 ok ones and the 10 crappy ones. The nice ones would have cute cartoony penguins, snowmen, santas or robins, the ok ones would be nice nativity scenes with smiling Baby Jesus, peaceful looking Mary etc. and the crappy ones would be things like a Christmas bell, or a single bauble or a robin (not a cheery cartoony one, a real looking one) perched on a branch, or three kings on camels. I’d then catergorise the people in my class I wanted to give each type to – the politics of giving the nice ones to the cool girls first, then the girls I actually liked got the ok ones and finally the people I didn’t like much at all but would rather make the point of giving them a single bauble card than no card at all got the crappy ones. Usually because class sizes then were around the 32/33 mark I’d be left with about 7 crappy ones which I’d issue to teachers. I still size up cards that have come from box sets (which most Christmas cards do although I now know them by their proper name of ‘packaged goods’ having done two Christmasses in card and gift retail – it’s a recent loss of skill that I can no longer ‘read’ the codes on the back of the cards and tell you how much they cost :lol:) to see how we fare in people’s Christmas card standing but suspect it is not the science it once was in school days and is altogether more a random thing based on our surname and people’s address book nowadays. The other thing I check is the order in which our names are written, whether people have used Ady or Adrian and Nic or Nicola and I award special bonus points to anyone who manages to spell all four of our names correctly and they move up the list next year. Although everyone we send cards to gets the same festive photo of Davies and Scarlett card mentally I know whether that is the cartoon robin version or the single bauble one.

Which leads me to the etiquette of exchanging cards with neighbours. The Thankyou Neighbours (and while I mention them could we all send a wave and a smilie to the Thank You Neighbours actually who I have not seen since speculating that they read my blog and know when I am about to leave the house, thus perpetuating my theory!) posted 3 cards through the letterbox last week – one to Davies, one to Scarlett and one to all four of us. There were stickers and different coloured pens used to write and adorn them and they do indeed feature cartoon reindeers, robins and snowmen. Posted on the same day was another hand delivered card which I assumed was a fourth one from them – perhaps thanking us for Christmas, or addressed to the cat or something. But no. It is not. It is addressed to the four of us (Scarlett is spelt wrong) and signed from ‘Annette’. But we don’t know anyone called Annette. I’ve never known anyone called Annette actually. I’m quite chuffed that I do now and not only do I know one I am on her Christmas card list because it means I can add real warmth to that joke about what you call a woman you can catch fish with. Except of course I have no idea who she is. I’ll ask Maureen, she’ll know.

Then tonight, while we were watching X Factor, and my, what an X Factor that was, I sobbed along with Barbie from Same Difference when she lost it at the end of that S Club 7 song, bless her, a card came through the door from Carolyn and Owen. They live opposite us, have done for about 10 years. We see them often and always hail them with ‘Hi Carolyn’ or ‘Alright Owen?’ depending on which one of them it is we see. We’ve been addressing Christmas cards to them for at least 8 years and actually it was in that first Christmas card exchange that we learnt their names. Both of them are ususuallish in that I don’t know any other Carolyns or Owens in real life. But it’s signed ‘love from Carolyn and Owen – your opposite neighbours’ which highly entertained me. And if I hadn’t already written their card I might be inclined to put in some identifying details about us in brackets after our names (‘man, woman, boy and girl with white and silver people carriers’ perhaps, or maybe ‘the family in the white loft conversion bungalow on the corner’).

Davies has been doing lots of charcoal and pastel drawings, he really is very good. He’s been doing lots of Shaun the Sheep pictures and they are utterly recogniseable, very animated and full of character. He tends to draw a series of pictures and use them as props to tell a story so he’s been bringing me lots of sets of three or four pictures and ‘telling me all about them’. He is very good at caricatues of people and things and adds in lots of incidental details like movement suggestion marks, musical notes or sound indicators etc. He has a real skill for taking a mental photograph of something and being able to manipulate it into other poses or situations. I don’t draw like that at all, I can do a very passable copy of something but wouldn’t be able to change it’s pose for example. Scarlett is the same, she can do a good portrait or copy of something by refering to it like still life but if you then asked her to make her cat (for example) sit instead of stand she would struggle with doing that, Davies would find it an almost effortless challenge. Interesting to watch and indeed chart the progress of things like full colouring of pictures with background details etc rather than endless sheets of paper with one or two main things. I think creating art from photos would be something Scarlett would enjoy lots whereas Davies likes to be given a theme or idea to interpret in his own style.

Everyone has been late to bed tonight (me included, but I’m about to go now) so although we have a plan to go to the cinema in the morning I’ll see what time we all get up rather than setting an alarm. In the afternoon we have an open house invitation round to some friends who are hosting a Lasting Impressions party, not that we have any intention of buying (I really like that stuff but it’s way out of my price range) but it’s a good chance to see our mates before Christmas :).

Scarlett was desperate to do her glass painting kit today so once I’d drunk copious amounts of tea, done three loads of washing and spent about 20 minutes hanging it all out (and I might as well have done a bloody rain dance because despite it looking all clear and bright and blue skied it was raining within the bloody hour :roll:) and got everyone dressed we did indeed break out the glass painting kit. It’s one that has a gold pen to draw outlines and then fill in the spaces with the (very thin and runny) glass paint. I did try and explain about planning out and having an idea but the lure of splodging gold paint onto glass was too strong so she did several circles before asking me to pull off the underwater design for her so she could do the filling in bit later :lol:. Davies had got out the lego so she played with that with him and they did some dancing round like crazy folk to the music on her MP3 player.

I’d been reading Pioneer Woman’s blog which in turn was linking to her Pioneer Woman Cooks blog and seen some cool Christmas cookies. We’re putting our tree up tomorrow and we usually have mostly edible decorations (you know like chicken drumsticks, strings of sausages, cubed steak seasoned with pepper and edible glitter, that sort of thing) and I usually do the stained glass window style cookies. I thought something with the whole more is more ethos of decoration might be fun though so I decided to give them a go. I have strayed from my own tried and tested perfect cookie dough recipe before with universally dreadful results so I stuck with that and just went with the egg yolk and food colouring wash on them before baking. Her’s looked great, it’s a novel idea and over and above anything else festive, worthy or culinary the chance to paint food really appealed to me 😆 Baking and art – almost worth bolding! 😉

Scarlett came out to help me make cookie dough and then having checked Ali’s ETA and ascertained we had time to get there we put the cookie dough in the fridge and dashed off to the butchers. He was in the middle of another big meat order so I left my list with him and we came home again. Ali and Freya arrived not long after we got back so the children played while I did my cutting out and painting. They had a game of snakes and ladders which despite Davies’ rather unorthodox ‘speical’ way of rolling the dice which seemed surprisingly lucky for him in getting the exact number he needed 😉 seemed to go very smoothly and be much enjoyed. We all ate, there was some hoohah (to borrow a term from Ali) in Tarly’s room with getting things down from high shelves which were on high shelves for a good reason and then I agreed to some X boxing. That kept Davies and Freya very happily occupied for the duration and as Ali and I popped into the kitchen to ‘escape’ and to finish my cookies Scarlett joined us for a while before going back off to do some drawing. There was some voice changer fun (Scarlett does an excellent dalek impression ‘The Doctor must die, exterminate, Daleks are supreme!’) and then Ady arrived home in time for me to run Ali and Freya back over to Lewes for F’s Little Ninjas session – and enjoy half an hours peace in the car on the way home again ;). I popped in to collect the meat from the butchers on the way home and am currently in the kitchen putting chicken to good use with a good old Friday night curry.

Back to work for me tomorrow after two full day shifts off (last Friday and yesterday) and I’m rather looking forward to it. It’s not always easy and I don’t always love every second of it while I’m there but it was a year ago today that I started there and I really miss it when I’m not there, which given jobs I’ve had in the past is a very rare feeling I think I might be onto a bit of a winner really. 🙂

Way too early a start this morning due to a very excited to be five after all little girl :). She opened all her presents with gasps of delight, exclamations of how much she loved everything and a real savouring every gift sort of style. No idea where she gets that from, I’m far more of a rip all the paper off quick sort of gift recipient ;). She did some further examining of various things and came and nicked loads of strawberries while I was decorating her cake.

My Mum arrived at about 10ish bringing a T shirt, premium bonds and the pink MP3 player and docking station I’d chosen and ordered from Argos from my parents and brother. Ady and I had debated the pros and cons of cd player versus MP3 player and docking station thinking as she loves music she would get more out of the MP3, still be able to listen to audio books in bed and not have to have the piles of cds that a cd player would require. I found this one online and was slightly dubious about it’s quality etc. but it’s fab! It is indeed very pink (always goes down well here!), tiny but with excellent sound and dead easy to use. It has headphones for ‘on the road’ which she tested out in the car earlier and proved excellent, is easy to put in the docking station and has a little remote control for operating it which she loves. She is over the moon with it :).

Having scoured ideas of places to go locally in crap weather we went with the Sea Life Centre in Brighton, mostly through lack of other inspiration. It wasn’t cheap, despite finding a 20% off voucher code online it was still nearly £50 for the five of us but I’d say was worth the money as we all spent the whole 2 hours (and could easily have been there for longer) walking round in awe inspired wonder at everything. We’ve done sealife centres before – the one in Hunstanton, Blackpool Tower, a big one near Chester and the one in Southsea (not Sealife centres trade name but that sort of idea) but actually this was great. I reckon D and S were the perfect age to actually get something worthwhile out of it. The moody blue lighting that is a bit murky, crap for photo taking but very atmospheric helps a lot and they played lots of oceanic music to aid the mood too but it was all really good. There were crabs, seahorses, the usual variety of fish but the highlights were the (small) sharks, the rays and the GIANT turtles. Lots of pics on but here are a couple of faves:

And from a ‘hands on’ point of view the open tanks where we were encouraged to touch anenomes so they closed up round our fingers were just fab :). We finished there with a simulator type attraction of a submarine ride.

We exited out onto Brighton seafront where we blustered along back to the car before heading to the Marina for Traditional Birthday McDonalds 😉

We had a wander round the marina too ending up in the FREE Santa’s Grotto where Davies and Scarlett talked to the Big Man In Red about whether they had been good this year (yes), what they wanted for Christmas (DSs although I urged them to ask for world peace) and it being Scarlett’s birthday today. They got a gift each too and then we headed back for home.

Dad and Frazer joined us for the birthday cake:

along with much listening to the music I’d hastily loaded onto the MP3 player and getting the Fur Real cat to do stuff. They all left, the children had a bath, we had lots of cuddles and thanking for a fab birthday and then the children went off to bed.

It’s been a great day, Scarlett has had some fab presents, none of which will need to have large amounts of space made in our already overcrowded house to accomodate them, she’s had a day out, a huge great cake and well over 100 photos of the whole day taken to continue to mark her childhood milestones. 🙂

She seems to quite enjoy five 😉

She’s loving her watch from Davies,

Her fairy and trinket box from Eve and Rei,

her make up kit and bag from Ros and co,

her pens and pony from Richard and Rebecca,

her hat and bag from Layla, Si, Claudia and Jasper,

she also has a musical Barbie box from Jack and Maisie, a voicechanger from Eira, Lula and Tialys (which we’ve not put the battery in just yet ;)), a fab glass paint kit from Ali and Freya which she can’t wait to get started on and various other make up, perfume, trinkets and bits from Ady, Davies and I. But her favourite thing so far is her Fur Real cat. So far she has four names ‘Sparkle, Star, Miaow, Malice’ which seem to be interchangable – typical Tarly ;).

Oh and of course she loves her cake 😉

We’re still debating where to go today – thinking Sea Life Centre might be a good option.

Call me repetitive, but sometimes, like the chorus of your all time favourite songs, some lines are worth hearing again. On Saturday at Scarlett’s birthday party I moved myself to tears by gazing round the wall at the 100 or so pictures of her we’d stuck up. There was the photo of my very pregnant tummy, the picture of her and I gazing at each other moments after her birth, pictures of her chubby little baby face smiling, images of her toddlerhood, snapshots of her climbing, running, jumping, painting, sleeping, laughing, smiling, living.

Today, as is customary the day before a birthday I have asked her how old she is many times – ‘four!’ comes the reply and as it is the very last time she’ll be giving that answer I didn’t tire of it today ( although I suspect she did!). She insists she’s going to miss being four, she says she’s really liked it. 🙂 I’ve liked it too, she’s been one hell of a four year old! In the style of TV show montage I’m going to mark the occassion this year with a selection of snippets of my own birthday posts for her from the past and some of my favourite images of the last year.

2nd birthday

So here we are two years on and that helpless little bundle is a raging two year old. In two short years she has learnt to walk, talk, wind me up beyond belief and is more of a person already than some people ever become. She is fiercely independant and will give affection – but on her terms, which makes her hug you till you burst cuddles and push your hair back from your face before kissing you all over kisses all the more precious and special. Her ‘ove oo mummy’ is always well timed (middle of the night when she has asked for juice again, when she has driven you almost to tears by emptying the sudocrem out over the stairs again). She adores her brother to the point of hero worship, and will stand up for him against any child who crosses her, she is charming, bewitching and adorable as well as naughty, cheeky and completely unphased by me shouting!
She has left her mark everywhere – she has added to the crisscross pattern of pregnancies on my tummy, she has scribbled on walls, stained the carpets, emptied perfumes, broken lipsticks, changed our lives, completed our family.

3rd birthday

This year Scarlett’s personality has developed even further, she has likes and dislikes (and hates with a passion!), she is fiercely independant, challenging, adorable, loving, charming and bright. She is the little girl who receives compliments from strangers 🙂 . She loves me and her Daddy, her big brother and our cats. She loves Dora and Barbie Girl, she loves to sing and dance and climb, she loves babies and pink, she loves to sparkle and twinkle, she loves to play in muddy puddles. When she grows up she is going to be ‘just like you Mummy!’ she likes to have her nails painted and then she picks it straight off, she likes to wear pretty clothes and then take them off and run naked. Every moment I spend with her makes me wonder how someone so much a person in their own right can stay so much a part of me. She makes me laugh a hundred times a day, she melts my heart with her kisses, she’s a princess, a minx, my biggest ever challenge, my biggest ever success.

4th birthday

Whilst there are still many obvious traces of the toddler you have been the glimpses into the past to see the baby I once cradled are more fleeting, more rare and more precious. When you sleep the shadow cast by your eyelashes onto your cheek is still the same, when you curl your fingers around mine although your nails are painted and your hands are so much bigger it is still the same grip as when you were hours old. Although your legs dangle way down to my knees when we cuddle you still fit in my arms the same, although there is frequently an overtone of Barbie spray about your scent, when I bury my face into your neck you still have that same Scarlett smell about you that you did when you were a newborn, and when I look deep into your eyes I can still see into the same soul I gazed at seconds after you were born.

They say you don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone. I also believe you don’t necessary know what you were missing until it came along and completed you. And that’s what you did Tarly. You completed me as a mother of a son and a daughter, you completed Davies as a big brother, Daddy and I as a family rather than simply parents and all the generations above us.

You are bold, beautiful and brave. You are reckless, feckless and fearless. It’s been a rollercoaster of a four years and far from you being born a blank canvas I feel I have barely scratched the surface so far of who you are. I hope that everyone who is honoured enough to have you in their lives realises how priviledged they are but most of all I hope you continue to be aware of how wonderful you are.

And just before bedtime tonight, last picture of her being four!

It’s been great sharing four with you Scarlett, I can’t wait for five. Happy birthday darling xxxx

Dear Diary, what a day it has been….

This morning saw Scarlett finally getting her head round the xbox controls and playing Barbie Wild Horses or Crazy Ponies or whatever it’s called. She is a bit rubbish at xbox doing that whole body leaning the way she wants to make stuff happen on the screen but failing to manage to get the controls to do it with her fingers. Davies was being all patient and lovely with her and she was doing very well indeed with it. She kept saying things like ‘I’m really getting the hang of this now aren’t I Mummy?’ in a pleased tone :). Very cute.

We headed out into Lancing where I wanted to get her a mug as I broke her fairy mug a while back (cutting my hand in the process) and promised her a new one for her birthday and the latest Barbie dvd that she’s been eyeing up the adverts for for ages. Also I wanted to get some candy canes ready for Christmas tree decorating at the weekend. So we trailed round various places but failed to get candy canes as nowhere seems to be selling them this year. Davies spotted me picking up the Barbie dvd and with a knowing nod at my hissed ‘can you help distract her please?’ did sterling work in keeping her busy while I paid for it. He was great – real sitcom style ‘Let’s look at this together Scarlett!’ and ‘come and see this with me, quick!’ all with comedy winks and nudges at me – very sweet and most amusing :).

Then we drove to the MOT place and left the car with them. We’d talked earlier about what MOTs were and why we need to have them. When we left it started to pour with rain but as has been the case all day (it’s like bloody April round here!) it didn’t last long and we walked back to our last hope shop in Lancing for candy canes – to find none there either. On the way back we talked about how old you need to be to drive a car and how the driving tests have changed over the years and why you need to be tested and what driving lessons are like and people I know who had to take and retake their tests several times. We arrived at Lucy’s for lunch and playing. I left D&S there while I walked back to collect the car and get the verdict on the MOT and literally as I stepped out of the door the rain suddenly started and poured down all the way meaning at the end of a couple of minutes walk I was sopping wet. I took this as an omen of bad news to come and having already decided if it was less than £200 worth of work I would be accepting of it’s fate given it has passed all it’s MOTs with just the odd changed bulb for the whole 6 years we’ve had the car I was shocked, stunned, amazed and rather thrilled when the guy said ‘oh yes, it passed fine, that’ll be £30 for the test then please’ 😯 So I paid hastily incase they changed their minds and skipped back to the car as the rain stopped :).

A nice afternoon back at Lucy’s again with the children mostly getting on with playing letting us chat a bit before we left to have tea before Badgers. It was presentation night tonight – next week is just a dvd and sharing festive food (and Scarlett gets to go along to meet all the other Badgers before starting properly in January) – and they were showing off all the art and craftwork from the term, serving mince pies and mulled wine and then presenting the Badgers with their badge and certificate and a few special awards. As we arrived – first – Julie, the leader came over to say how well Davies has done this term, what a pleasure to have around he’s been and how in the last half term she has noticed a real change in him, he’s grown up, really started to participate more and just given, and gotten loads out of it. I was beaming and said to her how lovely it was to hear that. She then talked a bit about working in groups and stuff and I said ‘well you know he doesn’t go to school so obviously the group work he does at Badgers is a big part of his limited stuff like that’ and she agreed and then I said ‘I expect that is more obvious when he is with other children who all go to school?’ and she laughed and said ‘No, far from it!’. She said his imagination, cooperation and levels of understanding were all excellent and we agreed that his seventh birthday really seemed to be a turning point. I thanked her for saying it all sort of expecting that she was doing a bit of a parenting evening style walk round all the parents but didn’t notice her doing it for anyone else. We walked round and admired the art work – they’d made models of their bedrooms, designed a playground, designed a uniform for whatever job they wanted to do when they grew up, made a friendship flower which was a flower with them in the middle and petals with all their friends on. The younger ones had just drawn pictures of their friends and the older ones had written the characteristics of their friends too. I was pleased to see Davies’ name featured on several of the other children’s flowers :). Finally we saw sheets where they had interviewed each other about things like favourite colours, hobbies, siblings and things. All very impressive work and creative ideas for activities. I like Badgers for that, it’s really well run :).

We then took our seats and the Badgers came in a lined up and were presented with their badges and certificates and then various additional awards were given out to long serving Badgers etc. Finally they brought out the Badger of the Month cup. Now Davies won this back earlier this year and privately I was slightly sceptical about the whole thing, considering it to be something they handed out on rotation but Julie pre-empted the presentation by saying that sometimes some children won it more than once because they kept on demonstrating their effort or outstanding contribution and because of that it would be again going to Davies! 🙂 :). I won’t pretend to be dazzled by the awarding of a shiny metal cup but I was truly proud that his effort and achivement had been recognised. On the way home Davies said ‘you’re not proud about the cup, you’re proud because I tried aren’t you Mummy?’ which pretty much summed it all up :).

In many ways Davies is set aside from the other children there; he has his unusual name, his not going to school status and his mother who sits in the car outside every week and doesn’t participate in the other mums’ chatter at picking up time, he doesn’t know any of the other children there through school and he is somewhat afloat in the whole being dropped off and getting on with it-ness of that environment. Yet despite all this he has gone in and made his mark, built his own personality there, been someone utterly independant of the rest of the family and succeeded at it. Julie doesn’t read my blog, know what I consider Davies’ strengths to be or see him through anyone’s eyes but her own, held up in comparison to the other 10 or 12 children there – but she’s commended him to me for his thoughtfulness, imagination, ability to put in loads of effort and be part of a team – some of the very skills I see in him but wonder if I am looking through rose tinted mothers eyes. How lovely it was to have it all validated tonight. 🙂

You’re gonna hate this! 😆