One word? When seven would do…

For Davies’ fourth birthday among other gifts (hey remember this was way back when we were still extravagent with our spending 😉 ) he got two goldfish. He called them Fred and Albert and for quite some while they lived in his bedroom. Thing is, his bedroom’s fairly dark and Malice (one of our cats) used to drink the water from the fish bowl too. So we moved them to the bathroom which is much lighter and put them on the windowsill out of the cats’ reach.

After about 9 months or so one of them died. Now one of the main reasons for getting him pets and specifically fish was so that he could learn about things dying and also the responsibility of being a pet owner. Which he took very seriously and was very consciencious about. So when one of them died, unexpectedly the day after he’d watched an episode of The Bobinogs about how pet owners have to make sure they look after their pets properly and had been refering back to it for the whole day about how he looked after Fred and Albert carefully and made sure they were fed etc I simply couldn’t bring myself to tell him, knowing the timing couldn’t have been more wrong and he would see it as a reflection of his own pet care. So we did the classic flushing it down the loo and replacing it with a Fred-alike from the pet shop when he wasn’t looking.

Anyway Fred 2 and Albert have thrived, are actually quite beautiful as goldfish go. One (Fred2) has a beautiful long swishy tail and Albert has deveoped white patches koi carp stylee. They are way too big for their bowl now and have been for some time so Davies was persuaded by my parents that once the weather is warm enough they will go and live in their pond and they will replace them with smaller new versions. Davies has been slightly unsure about this but tonight all that changed.

I was putting Davies to bed and Ady – oh master of parental tact and diplomacy suddenly yelled up the stairs from the bath ‘Nic, where’s the other fish?’. Davies imediately alert was only a few paces behind me as I went downstairs again to find him standing up in the bath peering into the really very small bowl as if to suddenly find him ‘oh there he was, behind that piece of erm, water’. He was found, very still, on the floor behind the laundry bin, underneath the window sill.

He looked fairly dead expired to me but upon being bunged back in the bowl and poked a bit he started to thrash about again. Ady then changed their water and de-fluffed him as he was rather liberally coated with dust (oh the shame of my poor housekeeping in the corner by the skirting board behind the dirty laundry bin :oops:). He is still slightly inclined to float on his side and stay near the top but insterspersed with regular bouts of swimming around wildly with a ‘look I’m fine, I’ve been to the outside and made it back to tell the tale’ way about him. Not at all sure he’ll still be around in the morning of course, but fish can be pretty resiliant I believe.

The upside is that Davies has agreed that if Albert is making Finding Nemo style bids for freedom then he really should be relocated to Grandad’s pond – Albert’s ocean. And we’ve promised to go to the pet shop and get two far smaller and better suited to the size of bowl fish to replace them. Not sure what he intends naming them but he’s cool about it all now at least.

Ady has also prepared him for the prospect that Albert may well be floating by the morning and he plans to bury him in the garden with a piece of paper, with a picture of Albert on it and the words ‘Albert. Davies loved him very much’ if such an occurance comes to pass. But he says he hopes it doesn’t.

All of which led to a lengthy discussion about why tadpoles die in such great numbers, which led to discussions about natural selection, why mammals have less offspring per pregnancy than fish for example, why metamorphasis is such a tough thing on bodies (people take years to grow from babies to adults and pretty much still look the same but bigger, frogspawn becomming tadpoles becomming frogs and caterpillars becomming butterflies are far more taxing). We talked about giving birth to live young and feeding with mothers milk being characteristic of mammals, why sometimes lambs and goat kids are bottle fed instead and how this cheats the natural selection slightly.

This moved on to talk about multiple births and the difference between fraternal and identical twins, and how siamese twins happen (he saw some once on a programme), touched on how if a woman is pregnant and ill then the babies inside could become ill also and somehow ended up with him asking how water is made.

Which brought us back to the very beginning, quite literally 🙂 At which point I sent him back to bed with a promise to read a couple of Eric Maddern books to him again tomorrow.

Tarly and I spent ages today playing with this little electronic book thing. We got it from Boots years ago when Davies was about 18 months old and it was a car toy for ages then sat in the bottom of the noisy toys box. It’s got letters, numbers, pictures, shapes etc on it and has five settings for games to play, like spelling words, finding the letters etc. Davies plays with it every so often now but today Tarly found it and we had a lovely half hour or so cuddled up playing with it finding letters and pictures. She’s still remembered the first five letters we covered when we had a couple of 100EL months ago so I really should pick that back up with her again and carry it on.

Anyway worth a mention as it was lovely, educational and completely out of the blue and Tarly-led with her bringing me the book and initiating both the beginnning of it and then getting more interested in something Davies was doing and slipping away to play with him instead.

Had a really crap night’s sleep last night. I was late to bed anyway but trying to stay up until I was ready to fall asleep, while keeping half an eye on the A Team programme and the BB love stories show after that. Around midnight I finally called it a day only to lie there for a good hour or more listening to the wind howling and with a hundred things whirling round my head (which is so not like me).

I had a really disturbed night for no reason other than the wind and the children woke at 6am. Ady was up with them but once awake my nose was running, my cough was coughing and the rest of the people I live with are so bloody noisy it’s pretty impossible to sleep anyway. Yes, I am grumpy today 🙂

Got a batch of bolognaise sauce cooking in the slow cooker and decided I’d chance the weather and cleared the washing basket (wise move – it’s all dried and brought in just before the rain started mid afternoon). The children did some drawing – Davies drew Scooby Doo, then Scooby Doo with skin but no fur and then Scooby Doo’s skeleton, cut them all out and then tasked me with putting them in order (as in skin on top of bones, fur on top of skin) and then in order after he died (as in fur falls off to reveal skin, to reveal bone – I know, very cheery!) – and there was the rest of the blogring all making cute little animated versions of themselves and their children with fairy wings 😉

Then we made some birthday cards for my brother – 30 today HAPPY BIRTHDAY FRAZER! (not that he reads this obviously 😉 ). Scarlett did a sort of random swirling pattern and Davies drew a picture of Frazer all dressed in black (he usually is) with a really splendid birthday cake on a table next to him and the chair knocked over where he’d been so excited about his birthday cake. Really good picture. 🙂 Then he wrote ‘Happy Birthday’ on the front with me just telling him which letter to write next. Then we did inside. Davies wrote ‘To Frazer love Davies’ with me just telling him the letters, Tarly copied ‘To Frazer love Scarlett’ from my writing – very good pen control and she seems to be learning slightly as she goes on the writing. Davies has decided he really likes writing now apparently so that’s nice :-). We cut them out and stuck them onto folded card and then they both lost interest in that and started playing with the circus toys.

I sat and coughed and sniffed and drank tea and read my book and wished I could ring in sick for the afternoon 😉

Luckily Ali and Freya arrived and we managed to chat inbetween dealing with very noisy children who’d found the box of instruments, siblings who both wanted whatever the other one had, a major meltdown from Tarly about something both her and I had forgotten the cause of long before she’d come back out of her room to say sorry and get a cuddle – but I’ve been expecting some sort of fall out from her all week after everything she’s been through so was almost pleased to see it – almost! She’s also had a few bad nights with nightmares and has spent lots of the week sleeping curled up in my arms, refusing even Ady’s cuddles. Doubt very much I was on top form today, but Ali was functioning on even less sleep than I think I’d had so we did some BB first impressions chatter and general gossip and then Ady got home in time for me to run them to the station.

Ady fed the children and then played snakes and ladders with them (D’s current fave) and now one is asleep and the other fairly close. I’ve got experimental wine to try one glass of and see if it perks me up or at the very least helps me to sleep and I’ve not intention of getting up in the morning!

When I undid the washing machine door and soapy, dirty water trickled out over my toes.

NOT MY WASHING MACHINE, ANYTHING BUT THAT!!!!!

But no, Ady, who has a habit of turning the kettle, coffee machine and washing machine which all share a plug point off at the mains when not in use had turned them all off together mid cycle.

The relief! 😀

Get Happy!

You Are 92% Happy

It’s unlikely that you know anyone happier than you. You know how to be happy, no matter what life throws at you.

The A team show is slower than I was expecting it to be, but I do want to see if he can get Mr T!

Your Extroversion Profile:

Assertiveness: Very High

Activity Level: High

Excitement Seeking: High

Cheerfulness: Medium

Friendliness: Medium

Sociability: Medium

And sodding weather!

There is clearly some law somewhere that states that if I hang out washing and crow about doing so it will piss down with rain solidly for the following 48 hours. The same law clearly works in even more irritating ways to decree that when the weather forecast is for ‘severe weather’ including heavy rain and gusts of wind making me think ‘aha I will not be caught out in the same way again. I shall not do that pile of washing in the hopes of getting it dry before the weather turns again and end up with all of the metres and metres of washing line full of soppy washing for days’ and therefore not do the washing in a smug manner it will be the most perfect drying day for weeks. The severe weather so far has been no greater than lots of wind in an otherwise sunny day. Ah well, the previous lot is all dried now at least.

So today we’ve done loads of reading aloud. I went and sorted out both the childrens’ bookcases – although I could probably do with further sorting at some not too distant point but at least all the books are in the bookcases the right way round again now. And I found all the library books and have got them all together in one place again now. So we sat and read most of them. In the pile was ‘A diffendoofer day’ which I just adore. I’m sure I’ve linked to it before as it’s so HE suitable – it’s about a school where they don’t teach anything conventional – stuff like laughing and thinking. We also did some messing about with a little kit of plastic meccano-alike stuff I’d got but it was quite fiddly so when it turned into me doing it all and them watching TV over my shoulder we packed that away and turned the TV off! They then played with the geomags and the pretend food. Oh and had several games of Kerplunk too.

I made flapjacks (most of which have gone now :oops:) and we had lunch. After lunch Davies wanted to do some writing so he copied lots of various words and we spelt them out together (don’t get excited, his contribution to the spelling out was minimal 😉 ), they both drew a series of drawings each to tell stories with – Davies’ was very good, logical and had an introducing the characters bit with a bit of background about them both, a middle bit with some plot and then an ending. Scarlett’s was slightly more random and she then filled sheets and sheets of paper with folded flicker pictures, not quite grasped the actual how to do them so they are animated but I’m not correcting her on that yet as she is loving drawing two versions of something so she more than grasps the basic idea. 🙂

Then I remembered a competition I’d got details of with with our Film Education screening details for next week (we’re seeing Curious George on Monday and The Wild on Wednesday – it’ll be Tarly’s first time at the cinema and we’re really looking forward to it. Hope any soundtracks are not too dire as I imagine I’ll be hearing them lots! 😉 Oh and Davies already seems to have achieved movie critic before seeing the film status as off the back of two trailers and a poster for The Wild he’s decided that it is ‘just Madagascar with a different name! 🙂 ) .

So we talked through the rules of the competition and Davies decided he wants to do W&G (I could pretend to be surprised but you wouldn’t believe me 😉 ), Tarly is still thinking. He was slightly fazed by having to write the title out and checked several times if ‘that was the law of the competition’ I agreed it was indeed ‘the law’ and showed him a quick sketch of a poster I’d do for Madagascar – movie title, a made up tagline, some pictures of the main characters and lots of background so the whole page is filled. Explained that was my sketch and I’d then do the proper poster. I can’t find anywhere on the entry form which states a size of entry so we are planning to do one on our big poster sized paper which should be cool.

He started doing the writing first and made some excellent progress with that. We’ll no doubt continue with that over coming weeks. Good project I reckon 🙂

The plan was that Ady would be home for 2.30pm so that I could take Tarly to the docs at 3pm to get her stitches out without Davies. Not sure how strong of stomach D is having never injured himself and always been fairly traumatised by Tarly doing so, and also wanted to focus on her rather than worry about him at the docs. But at 3pm he wasn’t home so I had to take him with us. They went into the waiting room to play with the toys while I tried to check in. Turned out the giddy bloody receptionist (have I ranted before about doctors receptionists? I’m sure I must have done 👿 ) had booked her in for June 1st rather than today. I just stood there with a patient look plastered to my face while she muttered and mumbled and said ‘erm well we’ll have to fit you in somehow’ and got all flustered. I agreed that indeed June 1st might be leaving it a bit late and I hoped she would have healed completely by then so removing stitches at that stage may be a little tricky! We were in within five minutes 😉

The nurse was cautious when she saw Tarly and asked how old she was and looked quite doubtful about how easy a job it might be, but Tarly just asked her if she could keep her stitches to take home in a jar and happily hopped up on the couch and jutted her chin out. Davies climbed up on a chair next to her and was all interested. Don’t think she quite knew what to make of us really! She had to call another nurse in in the end as she was struggling to see the stitches – apparently they were very small – the smallest she’s ever seen. As they are the only one’s I’ve ever seen I can’t really comment either way. 🙂

Anyway, it took ages as they were really embedded in her scab which has healed so well I think they could have come out a day or two ago even. They smeared loads of cream on and told me to keep it moisturised so it doesn’t pull as it heals and finally got them all out and in the little jar.

Tarly laid there, without moving at all, said it ‘tickled’ when I asked her if it hurt and was proclaimed the ‘bravest three year old ever!’ they said it would normally have been a nightmare to get stitches out of the average three year old – guess I always knew Tarly wasn’t average really ;-). So she got a whole sheet of stickers again and the nurse actually put on her notes ‘three very tiny stitches removed from a very brave three year old indeed’ which she said will stay on her record every time it gets pulled up. So when she’s there in X years time having a home birth with no assistance they’ll read that and say ‘ah yes…’ 🙂 She loves her little ‘spider stitches’ in her jar and will no doubt be showing them to everyone we meet along with her scar. The scab has already started to come away a bit and it looks pink but healthy underneath so hopefully it will continue to heal well and she’ll have a minimal scar – picking not withstanding.

Ady was outside the surgery on his phone as we came out, very apologetic that at the last place he’d been to before coming home he’d walked into a crisis to do with million pound customer threatening to stop ordering given the quality of the delivery he’d just receieved. Ady feeling bad that he couldn’t justify his daughter having stitches out as reason enough to leave anyway, but it was fine, Davies was fine and I can think of many instances when neither parent would have been around to take a child so I’m sure neither of them will need counselling about this particular incident 😉

And that was pretty much our day. Some cleaning out of tadpoles (about 50 remaining according to Ady but he said that a week or so ago and has been fishing dead ones out daily so somewhere his maths is wonky – clearly counting them twice as they swim around 😉 ) – they are now in a shallower water with rocks for climbing available. We’ve not made as much of the whole tadpole rearing experience as I’d semi planned to but sometimes that’s the way things go and they have clearly learnt as much as they would have done even if I’d had them drawing life cycles and making lapbooks about it – we’ve fished out dead ones at every stage and had them under microscopes, they’ve held live ones at every stage and gauged ‘wigglyness’, we’ve watched them at length and observed the changes in shape, colour, size and movements and we did read one book right at the beginning detailing how they change at each stage. We also have plastic versions of each stage of development which Davies could already name and order so it’s been cool to have the real life version to watch go through it’s metamorphasis just like we did with the caterpillars last year.

So, tonight, lovely dinner (tacos and fajitas), Big Brother launch night, my cold is feeling better and tomorrow Ali and Freya are coming over, and even better that that IT’LL BE FRIDAY!!! 🙂

Totty 🙂

Davies’ dragon picture from the other day:
Front

and back

Efficient morning with us taking three parcels from ebay to the post office, returning one book and collecting two from the library, getting bread and milk and home again before 10am.

That was about the sum of it mind you 😉

No point in doing washing as the last lot is still swinging wetly on the line 🙄

The children had started a game with some wooden blocks before we went out so they carried on with that. Davies built a pyramid and I showed him how to make it 3D with some cube blocks – a bit of guessing numbers as it decreased toward the top – starting with a four by four layer moving to a ??? sort of thing. All very low key but sometimes I like to offer not remotely challenging things which set him up as excelling so next time he is prepared to stretch himself a bit more.

Scarlett brought me a pile of books so we sat and read through them, with Davies listening from his pile of blocks on the floor and occassionally coming over to join in, see a picture etc.

I was in the middle of all this trying to write a blog post about autonomy but it wasn’t happening so I think I might start that one again as having read the draft back it is quite disjointed with the points I was disturbed while writing it very apparent in the flow. Ros texted to say she wouldn’t make it to us for lunch due to technical faults so we had lunch and headed off to HE group, grabbing a jigsaw puzzle about space on the way out of the door.

Although I was five minutes late I was first there with Julie arriving shortly after me. We sat on our own for over half an hour with Davies, Scarlett, Jack and Maisie fairly occupied by drawing a communal picture about all things space related. At 1.30 I spoke to Ros with proper directions and she arrived soon after, followed at nearly 2pm by Lucy who had also had a stressy morning. So just as well I have friends and a sister in law really as all three attendees this week were already well within my first degree of seperation. 😉

We’ve booked the hall for the next two weeks which takes us to the end of May and with some helpful input from Ros have decided to break from hiring venues through the summer and decamp to a local park (which is handily nearer to me anyway) for three hours every Wednesday bringing picnic lunch, ideas for games, maybe some Kessingland style outdoor crafts and general running around in the (ha!) summer sun. We’ll charge reduced subs to start building funds for the Autumn venue hire again and hopefully return with boosted numbers again. I am still confident there is a need for a Worthing group and I don’t think 3 weeks is anywhere near long enough to gauge success so I am really happy with that plan. 🙂

As it happened we had a really nice group today – the adjacent nursery had left a box of sporting type toys (balls, cones, hoops, skittles etc) and after Julie checked we were OK to make use of them Davies led a set up of some sort of game involving throwing a dice and rolling a ball to knock cones and skittles down. They were all involved in it, taking turns and it seemed pretty well set up. Davies also thrilled himself (and I confess quite surprised me) by managing to throw a ball through a basketball hoop not once but twice too – normally his aim is very shaky so that was good. 🙂 In the car on the way there and back Davies played a xylophone he’d brought with him. Despite the fact it was quite annoying and distracting he played it quite well. We had the tumble tots action songs cd on too and he was hitting quite a few of the right notes trying to play along to some of the songs. Must think about some sort of musical instrument for him at some point.

Ros came back with us for very late lunch, chat and ‘Nic’s sewing salon’ – she brought her sewing machine in from the car and finished off her brothers curtains and I started on a small Wallace I am making next for Davies (Totty finished last night, will take photo later). Nice to see you darling, Happy Anniversary and hope you have a lovely romantic night tonight 🙂

Scarlett managed to fall at least part way down the stairs while they were here (that child!!!!) and when asked where she hurt she sobbed ‘everywhere!’ but no blood, no broken bones and no chin split back open, just a small scrape on one leg and her back 🙄 The community nurse had only just rung to say she’d had the discharge form from A&E and was phoning to check she was OK and healing well. She asked if I was at all worried and I reassued her she was fine and I was not worried at all. Slightly concerned that it would take anyone the prompt of such a phonecall to realise they were worried and take further action really but I guess she was just doing her job…

Ady arrived shortly after they left with yet another charity shop find Gromit to add to Davies’ rapidly growing collection – we’ve decided that once he outgrows them we can probably sell them on ebay to fund his university education however so that’s fine 🙂

Football tonight so I have very lovingly said I’ll cook dinner (even though it’s not my turn and as it is one of my speciality dinners tomorrow he won’t even get to swap with me!) but he has done every Wednesday for weeks so I can watch The Apprentice so it only seems fair, and I do have my new Jodi Picoult book to read in a week so I’ll happily read that.

I woke up with the kids’ cold this morning and felt pretty rough first thing, slightly better through the day but increasingly shit again now so I think comfort food of toad in the hole and a large glass of warming red wine should have me in bed fairly early too.

Tomorrow Scarlett is having her stitches out in the afternoon – we’ve talked about it and she knows it might hurt a bit. She wants to have the stitches to keep after I told her sometimes people do that and I offered for Daddy to go with her instead of me (he’s coming home so Davies doesn’t have to come witness it too) but she wants me – quite chuffed about that actually 🙂 So a quiet day in otherwise planned.

So before I freecycle / bag up for the charity shop wondered if Isabelle / Josie / Alys / Rachael (think that’s all the smaller girls) would like any of the following outgrown Tarly stuff:

12 pairs of knickers aged 2-3 years.
size 7 wellies, sparkly with flowers on
plum coloured velour Laura Ashley top and trousers
four long sleeved tops
two pink vest tops
denim pinafore dress (muffin stylee!)
floral Next short sleeved top

Can bring to Kessingland if definite takers for them. Will probably add more to the list if any of my next load of ebaying doesn’t sell.

And the verdict on the book was unanimous that it was crap 🙂 So that pleased me!

Felt a bit lightweight again tonight when they started talking about a group outing to the theatre (theatre, surely you can’t do cleavage in a theatre. Doesn’t sound like my sort of place at all 😉 ) but I’m definitely getting more discerning in my reading choices so my own agenda for attending is being satisfied.

Both the children were still / infact are still awake so sitting watching endless films all day has far from worn them out – not surprising really, but nice to know they can amuse themselves for all but a whole day every so often. They have had plenty of educational opportunities in the film watching with lots of conversations with me about various things and stacks of imaginative play inbetween, along with plenty of drawing and writing while watching. The repeated previous viewings of all of todays films have meant they were able to just keep half an eye on the screen and get on with other stuff anyway.

Not the sort of day I crave having all the time by any means but it’s been nice enough and tomorrow we’re back to out and about-ing with HE group (Ros, you coming here first? D’you want lunch?) and I noticed the library had a few copies of the latest Jodi Picoult book on the way out this evening so I plan a dash there in the morning to grab one.

And now, it is my intention to have a bath, eat my lovely dinner and get Lost!

children ate their tea watching Madagascar (film fest a go-go here today!), Ady’s home and I’ll be off to reading group in a while.

children have finished Nightmare before Christmas and are now watching Corpse Bride.

I’ve just put their tea in the oven and they are about to start clearing up their colouring stuff.

rain’s set in 🙁

Children doing dot to dots and colouring while watching Nightmare before Christmas.

but it’s started to rain 🙁 I’ve grabbed everything dry off the line but I think the rest will have to stay there til tomorrow now.

Just realised that this time last year we were at Hesfes – seems a hell of a lot longer than a year ago that…

Happy Birthday Simon 🙂

Have a fab day with lots of love from Ady, Nic, Davies & Scarlett xxxxx

last load of washing has just spun to a stop so off to peg it out.

Children have been eating snickerdoodles so unlikely to require any lunch, I’m going to make myself something to eat, brew some tea and start speed reading the book for tonight’s reading group. Currently on page 241 of 373….

Ebay hotting up 🙂

last load of washing about to go on….

Rest swinging merrily on the line 🙂 Loving my washing blog!

Children have had a banana each, watched The Upside Down Show and are about to watch Cat in the Hat (animated, not Mike Myers).

I’m part way through the first CV and have just checked my ebay auctions about to end after lunch – out of 14, 6 are selling and most of the others have watchers.

Just read through the first CV and have been pmsl at some of the info the person has filled out. Without giving too much information here are some of the answers:

Since you were last working what have you been doing with your time? (so that we can plug any gaps in employment with details of how you have continued to develop skills – most people talk about DIY, computer or study skills, travelling, raising children etc)

“I have had three years off work as I was beaten up outside a nightclub”

What did you like about this job and what did you do well there? (in reference to each job, so we can praise their achievements)

“Not much as I found it boring and only stayed for a year. I felt like a Joey”

and for another of the jobs:

“It was a good laugh working with the lads who worked there but I didn’t like it much as it was hard work and rubbish money. It taught me that slave labour is still alive and well though”

Did you get promoted at all while working here?

“no, but the boss did used to disappear for hours on end leaving me in charge”

I’m thinking honesty might be one of the skills and qualities I play up in this CV! 😀