Open fire crackling and roaring, full tummy of roast dinner, second glass of wine having heart warming and softening effects, lights twinkling on the tree and a long and world put back on it’s axis chat.
I’ve wrapped some presents and am enjoying a box of liqueurs.
Pre Christmas Christmas over at my parents today.
It was a crap night last night, Davies woke about an hour after I went to sleep crying with pain about his ear hurting (cue guilt attack about taking him to noisy concert and standing a bit near the speakers for a short time) so he ended up being calpoled and coming into bed with me, Ady went into his bed, and then Tarly woke at about 5am and stood at the bottom of the stairs yelling for Ady for about 20 minutes being ignored!
I went and shouted at her to go back to bed, she shouted back that she didn’t want me, she wanted Daddy and her milk so I went back to bed. Ady eventually did get up and so we had a row about him giving in to her too much as I flatly refuse to get up with them before 6am unless they are ill – if he wants to then he can!
Dad came over to go logging with Ady so I made some mince pies with Scarlett while they were gone and then shot off to get the week’s food shopping from Co-op in further cost cutting mindset. It probably was cheaper but I bought a few Christmas related bits and pieces so it came in just on budget.
Back home to unload the shopping, attempt to get the children dressed, rescue some washing that I had turned to tumble dry thinking it was the washing I had left in there only to discover it was actually a new load that Ady had washed and was not suitable for tumble drying, wrap my Granny’s Christmas present and generally slam about the house, yelling at the children, plotting to leave Ady and run away from home to Mexico without telling anyone!
We arrived at Quinta (which is my parents house and I am going to start refering to it as on here as it is far easier to say than Mum and Dad’s all the time) a mere hour late! Had lunch, sat around while Dad, Ady and Frazer watched football, Granny played with the children and Mum put the decorations up in a very half hearted manner. Sometimes Mum is excellent with Scarlett and other times it is just so obvious she favours Davies it is uncomfortable to watch – today was one of those days. 🙁 Everything Scarlett did caused a sigh or rolled eyes and she was quite sharp with her a couple of times. Having been pretty sharp with the world and it’s wife myself the last couple of weeks I didn’t feel in the right to say anything so I just kept out of the way really. On the way in Davies and I spent a few minutes looking at Dad’s pond which had a layer of ice on one half. We talked about why (one of the areas has a pump with a waterfall so the water has a fair bit of movement, the other side is mostly still, also the sun was shining more on one side due to shadows from the trees) and dipped our feet onto the ice to see if it floated and how thick it was.
Children are now both asleep, Ady (poor downtrodden Ady) is cooking dinner and I’m about open a bottle of festive cheer and start wrapping the children’s Christmas presents so I can make a list of anything still to sort out / get this week and feel like I have myself organised. Very odd feeling not buying any presents for my family due to not having any money – for a while I felt quite relieved, now it just feels a bit hoilow.
The perfect gentleman!
He almost fell asleep on my shoulder, perked up immeasurably for the price of a cornetto, came down the front to dance with me near the stage, held my hand in public and chatted to me all the way home. 🙂 He also totally unprompted told me that some words on a recycling bin said ‘No’ and ‘Glass’ while we were queuing to get in. Apparantly he’d looked at the letters and spelt them out – he didn’t actually realise that that was what reading meant! 😉
The concert was at The Assembly Hall in Worthing – a venue I frequented fairly often in my youth. I did at least two carol concerts and one other choir performance there with the school as a child, it was the venue for roller discos where we used to skate round in a big circle, in the dark with disco lights listening to Wham! and I went there for a Christmas party when I was about 17 which was ticket only organised by my sixth form college where I drank snowballs all night! Ah, happy memories!
I shared all of these with Davies while we were waiting for Shaky to take the stage – not at all sure how interested he was really, but the couple infront of me were quite clearly listening and seemed fairly enthralled! 😉
Weird old collection of people there tonight. I hadn’t previously realised what a high percentage of Shakin’ Steven’s fan base had special needs! They were all there tonight, the aisles were lined with wheelchairs, there were all the wannabe Shaky’s with their sad combover quiffs and their shoestring ties with collar tips on their shirts, there were the Fleetwood Mac style ladies caught in the 80s in their flouncy skirts and bubble permed hair, the denim era Shaky fans with their stonewashed jeans, jean shirts, jean jackets, white trainers and studded patterns on the back of their jackets spelling out ‘S H A K Y’. There were a smattering of people who had been lured there by watching him on ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’ and then the hard core die hard fans who clearly run Shaky tribute websites in their spare time, feel like they know him personally on the strength of a signed poster from the fan club and were wearing hand customised clothing to show their love. Frankly it was like a bad day on 5p listing on Ebay exhibition! 😉
I felt slightly embarrassed actually when Shaky – who’s age I believe is officially undisclosed but has gotta be over 50 was up there giving it some pelvic thrusts to You Drive Me Crazy. FFS I adored him when I was about 8 so I cannot possibly see him in any sort of sexual way without feeling all shy and blushing!
Anyway, Davies did really well. He was starting to doze off just before the interval (no mean feat given it was probably the loudest concert I’d ever been to) but perked up as the lights came up at the propect of ice cream. During the second half when all the woman of a certain age wearing sequins stood up to dance and clap their hands above their heads thus rendering all of those seated behind them unable to see anything other than their gyrating arses, creating a mexican wave effect of others standing up until there were just the odd reluctant pockets of people still sitting down, watching the arses of those infront of them and half heartedly tapping their feet (aside from the wheelchair bound of course – even Shaky couldn’t perform that sort of magic!), we decided to venture down the front too – so we saw This Old House within spitting distance of the man himself. We then moved back slightly to watch the grand finale of Merry Christmas Everyone. Davies had wanted to go home about 10 minutes before the end but we were both glad we’d hung it out really.
For me, all comedy value of Shakin Stevens playing the Assembly Hall in Worthing some 20 odd years after I had his poster on my bedroom wall aside there was a real magic in standing close to the stage, my own child resting on my hip with his cheek next to mine, a week before Christmas Eve listening to him singing Merry Christmas Everyone. We’d been commenting earlier – as it is actually quite traditional to do as an adult – that it didn’t feel like Christmas yet – well this, coupled with coming home to watch When Harry Met Sally – my all time favourite film and a very Christmassy one to boot, I am feeling pleasantly filled with the festive spirit now. 🙂
In other news today we whizzed round a couple of Ady’s friends (and mine too I guess) delivering Christmas cards with the usual promise of getting together in the New Year being trotted out and exclaimations made at how D & S have grown! We then spent the afternoon at Chris and Julies, drinking spiced apple juice and catching up on the last couple of weeks. Julie also was on a Christmas crafts roll and had some beeswax sheets and wicks to make rolling candles and some slabs of silver birch which Chris drilled holes in and the children decorated with connifer clippings, red berries, gold leaves and red feathers to make candle holders. Very pretty and an excellent idea for presents for the grandparents! 😉
Tomorrow we are over at Mum and Dads as my Granny is flying out to America for Christmas on Wednesday. She has friends who live near Hollywood and more often than not ends up going there for Christmas. Ady is going chopping logs with Dad in the morning to stock up for the next couple of weeks firewood and I’m planning to bake some mince pies with the children while they’re gone before heading over to my parents at lunchtime.
Next week is already pretty much filled up with various pre Christmas get togethers with friends and sitting here with the fire slowly dying, the tree lights twinkling, the tinsel catching the last of the fires flickers and reflecting the light around the room I can still hear the echoes of Shaky in my ears and I am finally feeling quite excited that in one week and five minutes time sleigh bells will be jingling far up in the night skies.
Tis the season of love and understanding, Merry Christmas Everyone xxx
I’ve had the verdict from the insurance company about my ill fated laptop. I’ve been offered £900 worth of PC World vouchers to replace it.
They’ve recommended a HP one as the same spec wise or I can go and choose a different one if I wish.
Have no extra money to put towards it, obviously 😉
Was wondering about a mac but I do use MS Word quite a bit – the CV work has to be in that format so I need to have it really. I use my current laptop for storing pictures on although I could use the PC for that instead, it obviously needs to pick up the wireless connection at home or away and blue tooth would be nice. My current laptop is fairly large which was fine at the time of purchase but a smaller one would be nice I think.
Anything to avoid / particularly look for would be much appreciated advice 🙂
Just wanted to come back to the fact that by this time tomorrow I will have been in the same room as Shakin Stevens briefly.
When I was a little girl he was my first case of hero worship. I had two Shakin Stevens cassettes which I played over and over again, rewinding and replaying each line then writing it down until I had the lyrics to every song. I remember watching Jim’ll Fix It when they had three kids on there dancing with Shaky to This Old House and wishing so hard that it hadn’t already been on there because now there was no chance of me writing in and asking for the same thing and it happening again. I had a life sized posted on my wall of him which I used to clamber up the bookcase every night to offer a goodnight kiss to. The bit of poster round his nose and mouth wore away in the end!
For quite some while I was convinced that Elvis was actually a Shaky impersonator 😀
Anyway, tomorrow night I’ll be there, in the front row, with my small child in tow, singing along with him for all we’re worth and loving every minute of it!
I *think* I caught up on some sleep last night – I know I was in bed before 10.30 and I know I didn’t actually get downstairs this morning til 9am, but I am also pretty sure I was up at least twice in the night to Scarlett and I don’t feel particularly refreshed and revived. I do feel the best I’ve felt in a couple of weeks though so I’m hopeful I am finally out of the other side of the GirlFlu.
So first thing before I even switched the computer on I had a hissy fit about the state of the house generally. The Christmas decorations felt like they were simply drawing attention to the mess and clutter rather than being all festive and cheery so I went into the playroom, dragged everything out of the cupboards and off the surfaces and then tidied it all away again. I would imagine that Ady has already filled the cleared surfaces again having been home for nearly 3 hours but for a brief time it looked quite crisp! I also cleared and chucked in the recycling a fair amount of stuff from the lounge although it still needs further sorting. I think as Ady is off work between Christmas and New Year and we have no particular place to be with no money to spend there if we went we might well do a sort of grand house tidy really. There will be (admittedly smaller than usual but still here just the same) new piles of plastic to find homes for and we have plans to redecorate at least two of the rooms early in the new year (lounge and Davies’ bedroom – we already have the paint) so that would be a good time to blitz the whole house really.
Anyway I felt fairly industrious and worthy about doing a good hour and a half housework and also making a small but definite inroad into the laundry mountain threatening to eat us in the night, so that was good. Davies still has no clean long pjs though, so I think a Davies pj wash must be tomorrows priority ;-).
The children did lots of TV ed while all this was going on, Scarlett came in and ‘helped’ me tidy for a while which was probably more of a hindrance if I’m honest ;-). She did do a good job of at least moving stuff from one room to another when directed though, even if I then had to go into each room and sort them afterwards. Davies played with the geomags and made all sorts of things – I really like the geomags actually, they both play with them for ages, learn all sorts of things accidentally about shapes, magnets and so on and are forced to be quite imaginative when limited to straight line shapes. Tarly made me a necklace with two different ‘charms’ to hang from it, a diamond and a triangle, and then demonstrated how I could change them whenever I wanted and how the ‘necklace’ undid at the back. Which for some reason put me in mind of a present I had bought with birthday money one year which was a watch with 7 different coloured plastic circles to change it to match whatever you were wearing – I *loved* that watch!
I had intended to walk along with the children to the post office next – I’ve got a couple of Christmas cards to post to Ireland and New Zealand (have prob missed the NZ deadline actually) but as they were not dressed and were not really interested in going I decided we’d do it tomorrow instead so had my half hour online time while they tidied up the geomags under my direction!
Lucy then surprised me by arriving about 15 minutes earlier than planned. I am so used to all my friends being late for everything I tend to allow half an hour after the stated time before I even attempt to shove stuff under the sofa in preparation for them arriving! 😉 We had a really nice couple of hours with them although I ended up sending Davies upstairs to his bedroom to play for a bit. Rebecca is 3 in March so Tarly is her obvious playmate and indeed with Davies out of the way (he was playing with Scarlett in one of their noisier games which simply scared Rebecca off from playing with them at all, made them both fairly boisterous and was drowing out me and Lucy trying to talk) the two of them went off to Tarly’s room to play with the dolls, the dressing table and glittery make up and be thoroughly girlie! Not something I’d normally do and indeed one of the things I usually celebrate is that they don’t tend towards their stereotypical obvious friends, but I thought Davies had done pretty well for friendship and socialising at Okehampton where Tarly had maybe missed out a little so it was nice to see her really enjoying playing with another little girl in a way she rarely gets to do. Davies was actually far happier playing alone with his castle and micro machines for a while uninterupted by Scarlett in the end so it was a bit of a win:win as it turned out.
Lucy had her usual saved up load of questions – I feel like her guru! 😉 She took away a couple of books I had on parenting with more than one child and sibling relationships and we talked through a few things about that and feelings about not having as much time as before for the older child and at the same time worrying that the younger one never gets that individual time and attention. All of those frets which I’d pretty much forgotten I’d ever had but I know I spent lots of time thinking about when Tarly was small. Also had further chats about HE. She is feeling very much at crunch time and getting pressure from other friends and family to get Rebecca at nursery in the new year. She is very convinced by HE but not confident enough to feel she could convince others so she’s planning to join EO and a couple of the local groups in the new year to meet more people doing it so she doesn’t get accused of doing it on the basis of only knowing me – which in fairness would be quite accurate atm as she’d never heard of it before we got back in contact again although it did answer lots of her questions when she did hear about it. I’ve directed her at the blogring too so she can see that other ‘almost normal’ people do it too!
Anyway, they left and we had a post visitors and pre visitors tidy up then we sat and read some library books together I’d found in my earlier tidying frenzy and then finally got round to reading some of the books in the advent calendar with books. So we did some number spotting, read the first seven books and chatted about them (they are just miniature books with 3 pages each, so far we’ve met Scrooge and learnt a bit about him) and then hung those on the Christmas tree – which look good as it was a little bare now most of the chocolate decorations have been swiped off it and I’ve still not got round to making any biscuits to put on it! We should catch up to tomorrow’s date with it tomorrow and then I’m pretty sure we’ve got a dvd somewhere with some version of the story on it which I can see being a hit with Davies at least.
Mel, Liam and Lily arrived as we found book 8. Mel and I managed a fair bit of catching up while the boys went upstairs and played and Scarlett introduced Lily to the joys of her dressing table and glitter make up and painted nails!! So they had some sort of beauty salon going on while the boys were particularly rowdy. They all ate most of their tea and then all leapt all over Ady at once (poor man!) and finally left after a very boisterous game involving all of them and most of the contents of the dressing up box around 7pm.
Both of our two are now in bed fast asleep, all socialled out! I’ve been fairly impatient and shouty at the children inbetween visitors today, Davies in particular has been doing attention seeking silly tricks and then getting yelled at. I’m quite happy to put it all down to tiredness, illness and general ‘stuff’ but I’d still really rather not have him showing out and me reacting badly. Tomorrow night we are off to see Shakin Stevens just the two of us so that should help to get us back on track again. Funny how I never feel the need to rebalance my relationship with Tarly – she’s so much more resiliant about being told off! 😉
By the rather good Spin Doctors. Of which even a very good one would have had difficulty finding the highlights of today from, but never mind. Onwards and upwards and all that.
Yesterday was fantastic, we had a really lovely day. It was festive, beautiful, fun and very possibly one of the best days ever. I love you all very much, thank you. 🙂
Scarlett did not go back to sleep last night at all, she spent some time in bed with us which we thought was cute for about an hour top whack. After that we sort of took it in turns to return her to her bed and try not to shout at her. She asked for (read demanded) orange juice which she promptly spilt in her bed and on her pjs. She managed to get a clean nightie out and get changed all by herself and then realised the bed was all damp and stood there hollering 🙁 So I feel fairly zombiefied today through sheer lack of sleep the last two nights and a very long day.
This morning the children played with hama beads for a while, both of them did fairly well on patterns and designs but it degenerated into squabbling as they are both fairly tired and grumpy too and were deciding that whichever board / bead the other one had was the one they could not live another moment without. Sigh. I abandoned them to go and get dressed and they followed me so they could continue arguing about the fort in Davies’ room within my earshot, they paraded round the house after me while I made a couple of Important Phone Calls and I have told them both at least four times each that the sound of their voice is driving me insane today!
On the plus side Davies did some very creative stuff with a print out of the Backyardigans and a cat food cardboard box, some paper, some scissors, some pens and a roll of sellotape. He made a theatre complete with scenery and curtains and put on a show for me and Scarlett which was actually pretty impressive in terms of having a bit of a storyline, some character recognisable distinguishments in voices and the high drama of the five minute curtain calls and the lounge lights being lit and then dimmed. He also did some dot to dot – although me losing my temper as he kept asking me what came after six was a further source of disharmony! He then made a little purple robot for me which was very cute and fired by my praise on that turned himself into a robot by cutting out shapes and sellotaping them to his clothes then walking round the house robot style. He also made me a little remote control so I could make him do stuff – didn’t have a mute though ;-). He’s fast asleep already so I am quite happy to have put it all down to tiredness and hope tomorrow brings a cheerier child.
Scarlett has been very clingy and cuddly, we’ve done some playing with make up, some drawing and some playing with Christmas stampers and ink pads, tried to get her to copy her name but she was having none of it. She got a birthday pressie in the post (thanks Karen B and Emma 🙂 🙂 ) which was played with a fair bit too. She’d also had another late pressie yesterday while we were away of a princess bubble bath and some fairy wings and tiara so that was proudly showcased to me. She was also asleep before 7 and my fingers are firmly crossed that she’ll stay that way for at least the majority of the night.
Tomorrow we have two sets of visitors – Lucy is coming round for lunch with Rebecca and Richard (much photographed baby at Halloween party) and then Mel is coming round with Liam and Lily (also at party, in Skeleton outfit and red devil!) for tea when they finish school. Not really deliberate to have them both on the same day, just the way it panned out but it should at least end the week on a high note :-).
Why I missed my children so much yesterday?
Cos they sure as hell can’t manage to remind me today. Today I would rather be in France, Belgium or perhaps even Margate than be in this house, with these children, making the phonecalls and getting the emails I’ve gotten today. 🙁
We all know they don’t really exist! 😉
and it’s past midnight and therefore is tomorrow now 🙂
Happy Birthday Abbie of Just Another Morning Here 🙂
have a lovely day darling, lots of love from Ady, Nic, Davies & Scarlett xxx
A quickie as Davies was up for most of the night, which meant we were too, which meant the 5am start with Dad arriving at 5.30 and Davies sobbing for me not to leave him was a less than desirable start to the day. Have not seen my daughter awake at all today – she was still asleep when we left at 6am and she was asleep when we got home just before 11pm. I did hear her in the background when I phoned but she refused to speak to me.
Will explore my feelings about my first ever full day away from the children and having been to two other countries without them another time.
We had the best day though. It was just perfect in every way 🙂 Thanks to the six of you for everything. 🙂
Photos uploading to flickr right now, and then I think I might just reaquaint myself with my pillow!
edited to add – both of them have now awoken just long enough to kiss and cuddle me and tell me they love me and they missed me. Am now off for a bath and am hoping they love me just enough to have gone back to sleep ’til the morning!
but I guess I’m autonomous or on Christmas holidays or something – well anyway I can forge my mum’s signature and get a note from her to excuse me on account of being poorly. 🙂
Ady’s been off today using up end of the year holiday days, we’re off to France tomorrow on an adults only trip which we’re really looking forward to – no doubt reports and photos will be available sometime on Thursday. My parents are having the children for the day and Dad will be arriving at about 5.30am tomorrow, so that will be a nice long day for everyone 😉 Actually I am secretly hoping that the children wake up before we leave really otherwise it will be the first time ever I don’t see them all day as it will be almost the next day before we get home again and I sincerely don’t want them to be waiting up!
So today we went into town for a few bits and pieces, the children needed their feet measuring – pleased to report that making them smoke to stunt their growth seems to be working and neither of them need new shoes yet ;-). Also popped in to see my Mum at work which always scores stacks of brownie points as she gets to show off to all her colleagues what a close family we are ;-). Finally I wanted to sort out an upgrade on my mobile phone but the high street shop couldn’t do it, so I’ve done it online instead and my new one should arrive here tomorrow. 🙂
We came home and Davies slumped on the sofa all tired and floppy for most of the rest of the afternoon. I nipped out to the library to take a couple of books back and then we played a few educational online games on my laptop and signed back up for yet another free trial with educationcity. Tarly is excellent with the laptop mouse pad and it was very interesting to watch their different approaches to the matching games – Tarly was very structured in her method and Davies was far more about luck than judgement! Did some of the science stuff on educationcity and Davies was really good at and enjoyed that lots too.
Both children were asleep by 7pm again, tired and worn out although Ady has just rushed into Tarly who has awoken coughing, which is not a Good Thing as we were about to head off to bed ourselves. 🙁
Sorting out a couple of copies and it really was very entertaining. So come on everyone, clap your hands together and join with me:
Come and join the celebration,
It’s a very special day;
come and share our jubilation,
there’s a new King born today!
See the shepherds
hurry down to Bethlehem;
gaze in wonder
at the Son of God who lay before them.
Come and join…
Wise men journey,
led to worship by a star,
Kneel in homage,
bringing precious gifts from lands afar, so…
Come and join…
‘God is with us’
’round the world the message bring;
He is with us,
‘Welcome!’ all the bells on earth are pealing.
Come and join the celebration,
It’s a very special day;
come and share our jubilation,
there’s a new King born today!
there’s a new king born today!
I know it’s technically a carol – well that’s what it said on the lyrics site I got the words from, and I know I don’t have any religious beliefs. But every so often I can feel moved and a weeny bit spiritual about why the world still turns and whether we do have all the answers and if there truly is a way to make it all better. Seems to me that if there is then the answer will lie with a child really. In the style of Pay It Forward it is children who have all the answers, they just don’t know the questions yet. And grown ups? Well they have all the questions but they are asking the wrong people for the answers. Think I’m crazy-bonkers? Go and ask the child nearest to you the deepest question you can think of and report back what their answer was…
A ray of hope flickers in the sky
A tiny star
lights up way up high
All across the land dawns a brand new morn
This comes to pass when a child is born
A silent wish sails the seven seas
The winds of change whisper in the trees
And the walls of doubt crumble tossed and torn
This comes to pass, when a child is born
A rosy hue settles all around
You got the feel, you’re on solid ground
For a spell or two no one seems forlorn
This comes to pass, when a child is born
And all of this happens, because the world is waiting.
Waiting for one child; Black-white-yellow, no one knows…
but a child that will grow up and turn tears to laughter,
hate to love, war to peace and everyone to everyone’s neighbour,
and misery and suffering will be words to be forgotten forever.
It’s all a dream and illusion now,
It must come true sometime soon somehow,
All across the land dawns a brand new morn,
This comes to pass when a child is born.
Everything is through a fog today and seems to be happening in s l o w m o t i o n . Think we’re going out to the town and will see if a bracing walk along the seafront clears the clouds away. If not I might just have to go to bed this afternoon and stay there until the 5am start we’ve got tomorrow comes around.
Grabbed one of the plethora of Christmas cds we own as I left the house this morning in order to fill my car with festive spirit on the way to Ali’s house, well to try and drown out the sound of coughing from the back anyway. So there I was, driving along, singing as I went without really listening to what song it was until I found myself singing along to Wombling Merry Christmas. I (and I imagine at least a couple of you did too) had the Wombles album as a child and loved it, so I’ve spent odd moments today trying to recall as many of the odd and frankly probably slightly disturbing to an adult listener’s tracks from it. I might have to go and google in a minute but if you did have the album, can I just take you back with me to the 70s and remind you of a Chinese Wombling Ping Pong Ball, Remember You’re a Womble, Orinoco Kid and of course Underground Overground.
So, I’m feeling quite a bit better today, with the odd peak and trough it has to be said, but better overall than yesterday. Big shouts have to go out to Ady a.k.a Wonderhusband for dealing with our younger offspring who might well have been awake for most of last night as I was utterly incapable of doing anything other than lying very still and occassionally moaning. 🙁 . Rest assured I made dinner tonight, have full intentions of showing my gratitude and he is off work tomorrow so will be getting a lie in as well. 😉 Davies slept from 7pm last night to 8.30am this morning which was obviously a catch up from last week and a sign of his general unwelliness too, Tarly rose sometime after 9!
I’m fairly sure we did some stuff this morning but what it might have been entirely escapes me, at 11 we headed off to Ali’s. Ali was her usual wonderful hostessy self and allowed me to indulge in my odd way of not sitting easy until all felt tips had lids back on them and even smiled indulgently at my slightly insane parenting style with Tarly (she was doing a puzzle, I had a bash at gentle assistance and kindly guidance but what she really wanted was for me to actually do the bloody thing. Given my intolerance and impatience generally, coupled with feeling tired and fairly crap in a mid afternoon slump my response of ‘Look at the box, what does it say on the box? Age 4 and up. Do you know how old I am? 31. What educational value do you think I am going to glean from doing a puzzle designed for a 4 and up child? None! That’s right. I’d gain a great deal more from sitting on this sofa drinking tea and talking to Ali’ was fairly measured, if not text book perfect!), she brought me pesto pasta and didn’t make me eat lentils and even offered me medicine. So I will happily overlook the lost jelly tots! 😉 Davies did a really good picture of Freya in her stripey jumper, Scarlett and Freya played all girlyly for a while – which was nice to see given how little Tarly seemed to bother with other children last week and as usual they both came away full of chatter about Freya who they both adore.
We left around 3pm when it became clear that the children were not going to improve much beyond Freya hiding the hall because the Backyardigans episode Ali had put on was too scary, Davies and Scarlett arguing over every mortal thing either one of them picked up or looked at and the jellytots really were not going to be found. Participating in what was possibly the most tedious game of I spy with my little eye all the way home ensured we all stayed awake (and I do include myself in that statement!) and then we returned home where again I’m fairly sure we did something I just can’t recall what! I know Davies spent some time on the pc and I know Tarly watched him for a while, I know they played with Buzz and Woody for a while and I know I’ve made a fair few phonecalls none of which resulted in talking to anyone with any sort of command of the english language beyond what was written on their little scriptboards that I assume they have infront of them, phonetically spelt out :-(. Two details which did make me laugh as a result were being passed through to a customer satisfaction survey where I inadvertantly pressed 1 for very dissatisfied instead of 5 for very satisfied only to be passed through to a further menu where you had to say why you were dissatisfied and the voice said ‘press one if the person you spoke to could not speak english’ 😀 . The second one was when I was informed, by a very nice oriental sounding lady that the spare part for my laptop had been ordered but would be delayed due to the fuel explosion at the weekend! 😀
Tomorrow I really must sort out some thank you cards from Scarlett to various birthday gift givers, finish writing the Christmas cards, maybe even deliver some local ones oh and ponder why the words of ‘when a child is born’ nearly reduced me to tears along the A27 earlier today!
I’m having a relapse today and feeling really quite crap 🙁
I think I probably staved it off last week by drinking and now it’s come back to bite me on the bum! Still, I’d rather be ill now than have missed out on last week so I guess I’m OK, and at least I’ll be recovered for Christmas 🙂
Consequently I have done very little today. I made about 100 mince pies with several periods of going to lie down on the bed inbetween batches; Tarly has not bothered to get dressed all day – she shed her pjs around lunchtime and stayed naked until putting pjs back on to go to bed again. Davies has zoombinied all day 🙂 and Ady has mainly kept the fire burning since about 9am and is now putting the finishing touches to a roast beef dinner.
The children were both asleep not long after 7pm, Tarly had her dummy for less than a minute before falling fast asleep so Ady whipped it back out again – that sort of dummy usage seems to have no downside really ;-).
Right off to go and be sociable with my parents who are downstairs and my diary says we’re off to Ali’s tomorrow so providing she is still expecting us and happy for us to bring our lurgy with us I will be catching up with Where The Days Go and she will be catching up on all the Okehampton gossip tomorrow :-). Night all, splutter, sniffle, groan!
to do before I die:
1 – Go Christmas shopping in New York
2 – Drive a HGV
3 – write my name in the sand on a beach at every ocean
4 – see my children fully grown and happy
5 – Renew my wedding vows in the same chapel, hopefully with all three of the original witnesses and even more family and friends.
6 – See my name attached to something printed and selling
7 – watch my husband grow old and see my own face in the mirror with a hundred lines and wrinkles
I cannot do:
1 – rest easy with chipped nail polish
2 – practise restraint!
3 – fail to look on the bright side
3 – go a whole day without laughing
4 – take myself – or anyone else seriously
5 – worry too much about tomorrow
6 – cartwheels
7 – speak a word of Portugese
That attract me to my spouse:
1 – his eyes, the colour, the shape and what I see in them every time he looks at me
2 – his tenderness
3 – he makes me laugh
4 – his ability to see the best in everyone
5 – his ability to see – and bring out – the best in me
6 – his belief in me
7 – his hands!
I say most often:
1 – Love You
2 – I’ll be there in a minute
3 – I’m going to count to three…
4 – That is NOT acceptable behaviour
5 – Thank you Darling (I live with Ady – he is always bringing me things!)
6 – Is anyone actually watching this television?
7 – I’m proud of you.
films I could watch over and over again: (I have very shallow taste in entertainment!)
1 – When Harry Met Sally
2 – Mary Poppins
3 – Falling Down
4 – Four Weddings and a Funeral
5 – Grease
6 – Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971 version)
7 – ET
Songs that make me travel back through time:
1-Head Over Feet – Alanis Morrisette
2 – Yesterday Once More – The Carpenters
3 – It had to be you – Harry Connick Jr
4 – Who wants to live forever – Queen
5 – New Year – Sugababes
6 – Blue Eyes – Elton John
7 – When I need love – Leo Sayer
People I would like to join in too:
1 – Kirsty
2 – Ros
3 – Chris P
4 – Joyce
5 – Heather
6 – Layla
7 – Ali
It’s been a quiet day here today really, which I think was pretty much all any of us were up for.
First thing I took Tarly off with me to Sainsburys to brave the crowds and do the weeks food shopping. I’m sure it’s just having her alone without Davies to wind her up and whip each other into a state of small children frenziness or Ady to remind her that she has a very clear favourite parent but I quite like to celebrate the fact that she is also very much my little girl and we have a very special and very unique relationship, seperate from that I share with anyone else. 🙂
So she sat beautifully in the trolley, we chatted, we laughed and she was just a joy to be with.
While we were gone Ady and Davies worked some more on the Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory creation that Davies came straight home and started yesterday. There are all sorts of scenes drawn out and made 3D with sellotape and then he’s drawn all of the cast and made us cut them out and laminate them. I will try and take a pic when it’s done but I fear it will not be very impressive by photo really – I’m impressed with it in real life though – I love watching the process of him knowing exactly what it is he wants to create and then methodically going about doing it. He has endless patience with it and enjoys every step of the process too, he is a perfectionist and will discard anything not meeting his high standards and go back to the beginning again quite happily. He gets far more out of his projects than I ever used to with my similar childhood creations.
My Dad was here when we got home so we had a bit of a catch up and showed him the photos of the week on the laptop. I think of all the weird life choices I’ve made going to Youth Hostels with other families is the one my Dad struggles to comprehend the most really. In pretty much every other way I am *so* my father’s daughter, we share all sorts of opinions, character traits, faults ( 😉 ) and ways of thinking but what would have been a living hell for him last week was a fantastic experience for me, so he smiled at the pictures, cooed over the vast quantity of small children we shared time with and listened with barely disguised horror over things like communal cooking, shared bathrooms and evenings spent with large groups of people getting inebriated and silly! 🙂
He stayed for lunch and then Ady and Davies went outside to put up the Christmas lights in the garden round some of the bushes while Tarly and I made some constructions with her ‘girls lego’ (pink, purple and mint green) and cuddled.
This afternoon we watched Hook on one of the children’s sky channels, the children ate popcorn and I finally did my blog of the week’s events.
After the kids ate their tea we went for a 20 minute walk round the neighbourhood to look at all the Christmas lights and decorations which felt very festive. I’m very aware I am banging on about this a bit but when I was a little girl and imagined growing up and having a family of my own it was always with children the same sort of age I was myself at the time – I loved my children as babies because they were my babies – I’m loving my children as children because of who they are as people. I adore the forming of new traditions as a family, I adore learning their likes and dislikes and every day is like those heady days of falling in love in a new relationship – there are discoveries to be made about each other, a passion for learning as much about each other as possible, a sharing of ideas and dreams. I’ve loved them telling me what they enjoyed about last week, hearing about what they did when I was not watching them every second and seeing how their personalities are forming yet further before my very eyes. I will never mourn for their past babyhood – much as I adored having my babies still inside my own body, cradling defenseless newborns and tending to their every need I am getting such huge pleasure from walking alongside them hand in hand all I feel is excitement at what more is to come.
Tomorrow we’re seeing my parents – who I imagine are not getting quite so much pleasure from me at the moment watching me make my mistakes! – and next week is already shaping up to be a busy one. We are as ready for Christmas as we can afford to be really, I have in mind one last minute gift each for the children in addition to what they already have if finances in the week before Christmas allow, otherwise we are done.
Now we can return to normality! We took Tarly’s dummies away last weekend. She’s managed really well without them all week despite being a bit poorly and away from home but the last two nights she has still be asking for the same thing while half asleep ‘I want to go home’ – obviously while away we thought that was a genuine request, now we are home we realise there is slightly more to it.
Tonight it took her well over an hour of being fairly distressed to get to sleep, within a further hour she was half awake and asking for all sorts of things like to leave this world and for me to ‘make it all stop’ – she has not actually mentioned the dummy since the first night but having felt vaguely uncomfortable about how she was managing – taking away something which is important to one of the children really doesn’t sit well with my parenting style unless it is actually harmful to them or someone else – tonight I have relented and given her the emergency one stashed in a hidey hole. She is now fast asleep, having fallen upon it like a starving man on a crust of bread and despite being fast asleep she is still sucking it for all she’s worth.
A year or so ago I would have been proud of reaching a week of ‘breaking the back of it’ and felt that it was another of life’s lessons – now I am just wondering why we kept it up for a whole week when she clearly wasn’t ready for giving them up just yet.