One word? When seven would do…

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.

Blimey that was a good week 🙂

Monday – Had a really good journey all the way down to Devon and arrived a full hour early. Ady had been worried that the person driving the car behind us might be pissed off with his erratic driving as we swerved left and right following our route finder directions up a steep hill, but we needn’t have worried as it was actually Sarah!

We went in and helped allocate rooms and then brought up our stuff while others arrived. The YH is lovely, very pretty with nice rooms and a very nice kitchen. The one downside is the flimsy floors which create a herd of elephants style effect when even the lightest of children walk down the corridors with fairy footsteps!

Monday evening is a bit of a haze now, I know we had jacket potatoes cos I helped make the tuna and sweetcorn (OK, I opened a couple of tins) and that I spent most of the evening sitting next to Layla drinking though. 🙂 We also had the story of St Nicholas from Kath and the children all left a shoe out to be filled with chocolate buttons.

We listened to the speaking clock announce 1.51 am on Tuesday morning which was the time Scarlett had been born three years previously and then I think I went to bed!

Tuesday – Scarlett’s birthday

Tarly sat like a princess in the dining room while people showered her with gifts for about an hour first thing – which was lovely 🙂 Thank you all!

Tarly and I then went down into the town to get the supplies for stew for the next day which was lovely. While we were gone Davies and Ady went off for a walk which they really enjoyed too. It’s not often we split up with the children and when we do it tends to be the other way round so it was lovely for me and Tarly to do some stuff just the two of us on her birthday. With that in mind we bought some mince meat, flour and butter too.

When we got back to the hostel we spent a very happy hour or so in the kitchen baking lots of mince pies. Without the aid of a set of scales or a safety net we artfully streaked our cheeks with flour smudges and used old fashioned ideas like level spoonsfuls and so on. They actually came out rather well, described by Layla as ‘looking like they’ve been baked by a buxom wench!’ and they were all eaten over the week so that was flattering. We also managed to smash that myth that Ady does EVERYTHING.

Layla brought ‘wine for the chef at about 3.30pm’ so I started early and managed to do the whole cake candle lighting for Scarlett having eaten fish and chips for tea as none of my lot wanted macaroni cheese. Scarlett’s face with all those people singing Happy Birthday to her was a picture (just like Davies’ when he had a whole restaurant singing to him at Centerparcs earlier this year, public birthdays are SO cool!) and even if not all of the vibrantly pink cake got eaten all of the sparkly pink balls and other decorations did! We also did Jax and Alison’s birthday cake a day early and Layla’s baking was much admired on that one.

The children went off to bed and a full evening of fun and frolicks commenced. We sang along to The Pogues (including a bit of Kirsty worship thanks to a picture being supplied by the official supplier of photographs of dead celebrities, which we sang Thankyou for the days to until we all welled up 🙁 ), Shakin Stevens and various versions of Band Aid. We discussed initial plans for a Kylie Camp at some future point (and don’t think I didn’t make copious notes of all of the committments made to that one 😉 ), we watched some nonsense with blokes in leather in horses with much FFing and rewinding to get to a two one word sentences which apparantly are about the only reason you’d choose to watch the film. Then with slightly depleted numbers (I can’t imagine why anyone didn’t want to stay up and join in though 😉 ) we sang all the songs from ‘Grease’. Desperate for further singing we turned to a My First Christmas Activity dvd which had a fair amount of comedy value but very few ‘real’ carols apart from a thrash version of Twelve Days of Christmas.

I think we had a brief moment of courtesy for other, sleeping people at that point so we adjourned to the other end of the corridor to the games room where the only sleeping people were related to me and another of the carollers and we sang some beautiful Christmas carols complete with descant versions and angelic faces :-), then we played some Who Wants to be a Millionaire before learning the Oompa Lumpa dance.

It was a lovely day all round, I got to see in the actual moment of my baby’s birth with friends, I had quality time with my daughter during the day, she celebrated surrounded by friends and then I spent the evening celebrating my baby not being a baby or even a toddler any more and a fully fledged little girl by reclaiming some time to be a silly giggly grown up with slightly less responsibilities than a mother with tiny babies is allowed to enjoy! 😉

Wednesday – Alison and Jax’s birthday

Back to the kitchen again for me as I was doing communal cooking of beef / veggie stew for the masses. I enjoyed the company of various visitors as I chopped copious volumes of vegetables and meat and splashed wine and stock cubes all over them. Ady did a couple of runs into town for various bits and pieces and I had a quiet day drinking tea, stirring stew and gossiping with Layla and Kirsty. Alison helped with dumpling making, once again without the aid of kitchen scales! We did two sittings of stew, one for children and adults who usually eat early and one for those who wanted to pack children off to bed and eat with the grown ups. Steve and Chris had arrived so Wednesday was a bit more coupley, I was feeling very tired and perhaps ever so slightly hungover and as it was James and Kirsty’s last night Ady and I spent some quieter time playing pool with them instead of joining in the birthday Who Wants to be a Millionaire in the main lounge. Layla, who alleges she’s never played pool before was surprisingly good despite using the wrong end of the cue! 😉 An early night – 12.30 – for me! 😉

Thursday – The Nativity at Pennywell.

Predictably D & S were not up for joining in with the dressing up but we really enjoyed watching all our friends being nativity stars, particularly the innkeepers and Joseph! Layla and I were key participants in the audience participation and singing and the most touching moment was surely Sarah the shepherd :-D. I was very proud that despite not wanting to be Mary or even an angel Scarlett really did join in – she listened to the narrator announce the three wise men and called out (that’s by James Blunt) and then watched the assembled nativity scene being names ending with ‘and the baby Jesus’ before pointing and saying ‘it’s not a real baby, it’s just pretend!’ – still didn’t really trump Claudie on the night of St Nick though really! 😉

We thought Pennywell was excellent actually, well worth the money. The nativity was fab, the animals were lovely, the mulled wine was more than acceptable and the Santa gifts were very good quality – most impressed 🙂

Tilda came with us to the next stop which was House of Marbles and was excellent, both for entertaining D & S by drawing little faces on their fingers and for making me laugh at her Tilda-ness with some of her comments and stories. Lovely child 🙂 Marble place was really good actually, despite being a really quite mental place to take a group of marauding children and we managed to not break anything which I felt was quite an achievement! 😉 Liked watching the glass making in action and the children liked the animatronic Christmas tree.

We came back across Dartmoor, sadly stuck behind a learner driver, so at a very slow pace but enjoyed the views until Tarly announced she needed a bowl 🙁 She never actually was sick but we all sat the rest of the journey in anticipation!

Thursday night, turned into Friday morning in something of a haze of drinking. I know we sang some more, I know Sarah made some wild and surprising statements ;-), I know we played a game of asking the most outrageous questions of each other and everyone answered them honestly – wish I could remember what some of them were really! I think I had almost a whole hours sleep – I know Alison and Barbara didn’t even manage that. So Thursday never actually ended, it just blended into the packing and tidying up that was Friday morning really. I’d like to think my ineffectual sweeping and chucking away excess leftover food was helpful but I suspect bringing Ady along who was rarely without a tray of drinks in his hand, a plate of toast or a ready willingness to whip a messy room into shape in moments was by far the most helpful thing I did all week! 😉

The children had a great time, Scarlett – as predicted – didn’t manage to infiltrate the Lulah/Ammi friendship but she did spent time with Alex and Elinor. Davies hardly ever made it to the X box room so hardly saw Lije at all but played lots with Ben and Marcus. By the very last day he was visibly at the very end of his own personal comfort level and was displaying an impressive level of facial ticks which is always the marker of him having had enough. He was also involved in some face offs which as anyone who knows Davies will already be aware is far from his normal range of behaviour but he really enjoyed watching his favourite films in groups of friends and unfortunately for people behind doors he also quite liked running up and down the corridors ‘roaring’ with his little band of lads!

The journey home was fairly uneventful – Davies watched Willy Wonka three times, Scarlett slept (she was severly sleep deprived having given up her dummy last weekend), I might have snoozed a little, we stopped for McDonalds and when we arrived home around 4.30pm the children ran around the house so pleased to be home it was lovely to watch.

I have flickr’d, there is a video of the nativity which we’re hoping to get up on the net if our technical support team is able – it won’t be the rest of the video – I think that is only suitable viewing for the people starring in it – private viewing night for that tba if you are one of them ;-). It was a lovely week, I had a fantastic time, I’d like to apologise to anyone who was offended or awoken by my late night antics but frankly I’m not sorry so I won’t ;-), it was lovely to share Tarly’s birthday with friends and be there to share other’s birthdays with them and I want to know in advance who will be bringing karaoke to Melrose so I can brush up on my Britney! 🙂

Thanks Sarah! x

Happy 3rd Birthday Scarlett for Tuesday 6th. Have a wonderful day darling 🙂 xxx

Happy Birthday Jax and Alison for Wednesday 7th. Looking forward to spending your birthday’s with you 🙂

As we’ll be away for Tarly’s birthday next week. We’ll be sharing the occassion with some of you, which will be lovely 🙂

Tarly was born at home at 1.51am on Friday 6th December.

Davies slept through the whole event and woke at about 4 am just as the midwives left. He was pleased to meet his new sister, but slightly more excited about opening the next door on his chocolate advent calendar!

From the very beginning Scarlett was part of the family, as though we couldn’t quite remember what life was like before she was with us. She was your classic second child, easier and calmer than her older brother had been and probably the product of more relaxed and confident parents. She did the nappy ad baby thing of lying under an activity gym and kicking and gurgling for ages.

On her first birthday my parents came up to stay for the weekend and we went to the local working farm for a very very cold Christmas event. There was a choir, a Father Christmas and icicles forming on our eyebrows! 😉 Her birthday pressies included lots of FP Little People stuff like a dolls house and a train set.

During Scarlett’s second year we moved back to Sussex and she got to know her grandparents properly. She’s always been a Daddy’s Girl and now she became a Grandad’s Girl too 🙂 She also spent lots of time with her cousins and was a huge mix of girlie girl and utter tomboy!

Throughout she and Davies have always been best friends 🙂

By the time Tarly was two she was hugely into Dora The Explorer. It’s been an enduring obsession! With the exception of a playhouse from my brother I think all of her pressies had a Dora theme, including the much laboured over birthday cake!

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. Happy Birthday Scarlett Teeny. I love you very very much xxxx

I’m fairly confident that today has been lovely, I just don’t feel like I’ve been participating in it much in spirit, although I was there in body.

Crap night with Tarly who arrived in our bedroom before 1am. 🙁 After about 15 minutes of her trying to engage me in conversation I snuck off to her bed and left her with Ady, which I believe meant she gave up and went to sleep too. I didn’t sleep well in her bed and Davies woke me about 7 I think. We had a cuddle and then decided to make her some birthday cards, so we did some drawing, some writing and some cutting and sticking. Quite pleased with the results actually and Davies’ writing was really good.

Tarly appeared downstairs then too so she joined in and decided what she wanted a picture of on her card – her choice was herself and our cats, so that’s what she’s got! I’ve left the sentimental wording inside to Ady to complete, feeling I’ve done enough of it with my blog post, making the card and the two cakes really ;-). I ran them a bath as they were both fairly grubby and Ady appeared downstairs so I left him to bathe them while I went and got dressed.

We headed over to my parents where I made a party food type lunch, looking back, rather dismally helped or supported by anyone else really but never mind! Then Chris and Julie and the twins arrived, followed very shortly by my Granny. The children all ate and played really well with only one accident or spillage (which was not down to either of my children so I had not part to play in clearing up or apologising for!) then they headed off home again. It was Julie’s birthday yesterday and her Mum arrived from Germany as a surprise so they were keen to get back and spent time with her.

The weekend before Davies was 3 we came down to stay with my parents (we were living in Manchester at the time) and Davies threw all his dummies in ‘Grandad’s’ dustbin. Not sure why we decided on that cut off point really although I know it had been delayed from being 2 because of Tarly being born, so we have talked for months about Tarly doing the same. She has duly repeated, like a little blonde parrot that she will be throwing her dummies in Grandad’s bin when she is 3, so this morning her and I collected them all up and when we arrived there we had the dummy chucking ceremony, exactly the same as 2 years ago for Davies. She threw them away, we all clapped and cheered and because the official line is that she is ‘not a baby anymore she is a big girl’ I had brought out a sparkly pink box with various bits and pieces of Big Girl stuff in it (some old nail varnishes of mine, a sparkly bracelet, some lipgloss, some body glitter etc) so she got that in honour of being a big girl now. Her and I sat at the kitchen table and she painted my nails, rubbed glitter on both our cheeks and smeared lipgloss on anyone who came within lip smearing distance (including my Dad!) – I’m probably the only Mummy (with the possible exception of Ros) who rejoices in such huge girliness but I loved it! 🙂

So Chris and Julie’s present of further lip gloss and sparkles was very well recieved. And Frazer’s present given when he got home from work of a dressing table and stool was fallen upon with true delight!

We had a pleasant enough afternoon, I played on the piano with Tarly for a while, we made up a story about a giant (left hand keys) stomping around trying to find a fairy (right hand keys) who was flying around and hiding, then Ady came in too so I played chopsticks and they had to dance according to the tempo. Everyone else watched Willy Wonka which was on one of the kids channels and then Mum brought out some dominos which her, Ady and the kids played with. That reminded me and Dad of the set of dominos we used to play with when I was a child which had been made my his father for him when he was a child, so Dad went and got them and we had a match going on too – all very Sunday-ish. Finally we had some jigsaw puzzle activity with Mum doing them with Tarly and me doing some with Davies. In all the day had a real feel of Christmas about it.

We hung on for Frazer to come home from work, by which time I was fading fast and was only really capable of watching football with Dad and Ady (I quite like watching football on TV, I find it very lulling watching the ball sail up and down the green pitch, I used to love watching it when I was a child, although I don’t actually follow the game as such, otherwise I imagine the lulling would be nullified if I cared about the result!). The kids had some tea there and then we came home.

Ady’s got out dinner on, I made the dressing table up and the children played with that for a while and now they are both in bed. Tarly did really well until Ady said ‘do you want to take your dollies to bed with you?’ she misheard, said ‘I don’t have my dummies anymore’ and then her little face crumpled and she started to tell me that ‘I’m not ready to be a big girl yet Mummy.’ with the saddest little look 🙁 I can hear her still downstairs although she doesn’t sound upset she is obviously going to take longer than usual to get to sleep without it. I do of course have an emergency one but as we’re away for a week and she won’t be having any sort of bedtime routine anyway this is an excellent chance to break the habit as by the time we come home she should have gotten over it. I know it was really easy when Davies stopped so I am tentatively hoping it will be the same one tough evening here and that’s it… fingers crossed!

I’ve not prepared anything for tomorrow or going away yet but as we don’t need to leave until about midday I will do all the packing in the morning. I need to wrap Tarly’s presents tonight, so I hope she goes to sleep fairly soon as they are all on top of her wardrobe at the moment so that will be tricky! All my Christmas cards are written and with the exception of the stuff still whirling round the tumble drier everything is pretty much ready to be slung into a holdall in the morning. Mum gave Davies the new Willy Wonka dvd as a Tarly’s birthday present so that’s the in-car entertainment sorted for the journey, I’ve given up on the idea of baking so it’s just copious volumes of wine and song sheets for the karaoke night still to organise! 😉

fuck

Spectacularly unsuccessful four f*cking hours spent in the kitchen baking. I made two birthday cakes for Tarly, both of which rose beautifully and then stuck to the tins, I knew I could cover the damage with icing but put too much food colouring in one of the batches of icing so it is a very garish shade of pink. I *think* I’ve made them look ok now and Tarly is delighted with them so that’s the main thing I suppose.

I also tried to make some window biscuits (with cut outs in the middle filled with crushed boiled sweets which melt and create a stained glass effect, can look beautiful if done properly) which either burnt, crumbled, fell apart when I pricked holes for ribbons to go through or simply didn’t hold any sort of shape and looked like splodges rather than festive creations of any description. The last four batched were pretty much OK as I abandoned the cut out shape idea and just baked stars with the intention of making them pretty with icing later. Except then I used up all the icing sugar on Tarly’s cakes and then when I was balancing on one of the kids stools to put something on top of the kitchen cupboards to tidy up the stool slipped and I fell on top of the cooling rack and smashed about half of them. 🙁

Kids are driving me insane with added tinsel and I feel crap 🙁

Might be back later as I’ve cancelled going out to the party tonight, I am the most dreadful company imaginable, Scarlett has lost her voice, Davies is a one boy snot factory and Ady’s holding it all together. Bet you can’t wait to spend time with me next week 😉

My blog is censoring me!

I have found three words it simply will not let me post and can’t work out how to stop it from being so Mary Whitehouse about the whole thing!

Hmm, a good stuff / bad stuff type of day today really. I’ve done my share of ranting at small people, but we’ve also done lots of nice stuff too.

First thing we gathered up all the library books in the house (of which there were many, many of), then we all sat down and read them all. There was a quaint mix, some of which we’d looked at before like one about a soldier for Remembrance Day and a couple on the Gunpowder plot too, so we didn’t bother with those again. There was a couple of ones from the main library in town that I’d picked up from the ‘issues’ section so we did ‘Sad’ by Michael Rosen illustrated by Quentin Blake which is about how Michael sometimes feels sad, mainly when he thinks about his son who died and his mother who died, how he deals with that sadness and that it’s ok to feel sad. Not hugely relevant atm but maybe a good one to have read for refering back to one day. Very touching anyway. We also had ‘where do babies come from’ which was another well written and illustrated book, talked about seeds and eggs, which me and D have already covered really, talked about parents meeting, falling in love, making a home together and then deciding to have a baby – they decided to have YOU! They make their bodies fit together (nicely put – and D pretty much ignored that – phew!), it being hard work getting you out of Mummy’s body and then you taking A LOT of looking after but you grew and grew, then maybe another baby came along too. Really liked that one 🙂

Also did a couple of nonsensy books, several Dr Seuss and two enormous big classroom size versions of books – one about a hen who arranged a series of swaps of belongings between the animals so she ended up with the scarecrows hat and one about dancing giraffes, which I’ve wanted to read ever since Sarah interviewed Heather 🙂

The children made some Christmassy mess with glitter and glue and Scarlett came upstairs while I got dressed and put make up on so she wanted to try some too – birthday pressie is so going to go down well then :-).

Then we headed out to the library, picked up a smaller pile of books to borrow and popped into Woolworths to get candy canes and chocolate tree decs for tomorrow. Also got a couple of Dora books for Tarly for birthday / Christmas and then we came home for lunch of cheese toasties.

This afternoon I have been mostly on the phone I think, Miranda phoned me about yet another possible business proposition. She has been speaking to my friend Dayve, who used to be my assistant at Dreamieland about him working for her again on a local project up there so I was getting excited texts from him while talking to her on the phone. She is coming down to Sussex to stay with her parents for Christmas so we’ve planned to get together for alcohol aided brainstorming which may yet result in something exciting happening – another different door and all that! ;-), also spoke to Karen and Ady several times. I also spent about half an hour writing down a very basic beginners guide to HE for a woman Ady works with who is in a desperate state with her bullied primary school age daughter and has been asking Ady all sorts of questions he feels he is answering very badly so asked me to have a go instead at and emailed that across to him to pass to her. Poor woman 🙁

The children took this opportunity to play with some beads which ended up scattered ALL over the lounge. Threats and pleading failed so in the end I set the kitchen timer for ten minutes and all three of us cleared the whole lot up! My plan had been to do a fair bit of baking today but it didn’t really happen so I managed 36 mince pies which the children found utterly boring to assist with (no bowls to lick, no icing to mess with!) so they played with their sticklebricks, which required yet another kitchen timer moment to get tidied up.

Tarly is now asleep, Ady went to Reading to get some Christmas cards from Costco and should have been home about an hour ago, Davies is still chattering away and I need a drink, a hot bath and to get the dinner on soon so I can execute my plan of an early night to fight off Girlflu which has finally made its presence felt in my head, nose and throat 🙁

Tomorrow we’re putting up our decorations, so it will be a fest of Christmas music, mince pies and Baileys, over excited children, fused and tangled Christmas lights, tinsel droppings and the annual hunt for the drawing pins! Oh and ill health permitting we’ve all been invited to a house party round the corner with my parents too, so we could well have a long old day ahead of us.

the kitchen timer!

Not for being some sort of Nigella you understand, but for giving added gravity to my threat of ‘anything not tidied away in the next five minutes will be going in the bin’!!!!!

Ady bought the advent calendars for the children this year. I’ve not said anything but I don’t really like his choice although I do understand why he got them. When we were children we shared an advent clalendar, it always had some sort of festive scene on it, sometimes it was a nativity, sometimes it would be something like Santa’s workshop. I don’t even know if they made chocolate calendars 20 odd years ago but we never had one and they always, but always stopped at 24 and it was always, but always a double door for 24.

I know in recent years we struggled to find anything similar in the shops and this year Ady came home in about October with two identical Disney Pixar chocolate advent calendars. They feature Nemo, Monsters Inc, Buzz Lightyear and Mr Incredible, there is not so much as a holly leaf or a santa hat to be seen. They contain a chocolate behind every door and not only do they not stop at 24, they go right past even 25 and take you all the way to the new year.

I don’t do religion but even I feel slightly spiritual at this time of year, I think there are lots of tender messages about humankind and peace and goodwill and stuff to be cherished and last year we did lots of chatting about baby Jesus, read a couple of stories based on it and generally tried to infuse the whole time of year with more than what Clinton Cards and Toys R Us have to offer.

So far from today’s first door opening being the exciting countdown that I recall December 1st being in my childhood with the chance to talk about what Christmas means as well as the enormous educational opportunities of days, weeks, months, counting down, looking for numbers etc it was a scuffle to wrench the door situated on Mr Incredibles unfeasibly large bicep and wolf down the chocolate as quickly as possible before getting all stroppy that they couldn’t open another one straight away. And of course the instant my back was turned, that was exactly what Scarlett did. 🙁 Luckily DC Davies was on the case and came reporting to me, so her’s was put on a high shelf, has now been set up high on the door to be brought down once daily and when she reaches the 8th she will be reminded again that the excesses of the first mean regret at a later date.

For once my Mum has unwittingly saved the day by bringing round a fantastic Christmas Carol book advent calendar which has a tiny book for each of the 24 days, which is set beautifully into a scene and is read on the relevant day then hung onto the Christmas tree with a loop until the whole of the Christmas Carol tale is told, then put away again for next year. Will really look forward to reading them both today’s and tomorrow’s in the morning as they munch on the chocolate tucked behind Sully’s right ear from their other calendars!

We went to soft play today where Julie and I had a nice catch up and moments of total hysteria over a builder who was there constructing some sort of grotto affair for their Christmas party in a couple of weeks time. He started off wearing these dungaree style overalls with a checked shirt and a banadana, and then suddenly he reappeared having removed the shirt! I was laughing like a drain at his blatant lack of sex appeal and thought Julie was too until she confessed she was actually quite enjoying it! He then spoilt it for her too and reduced me almost to tears of laughter by putting Madness ‘Our House’ on the duke box and sort of strutting around with his power tools to it! Classic!

It was a too expensive to be worth it day out though really. 🙁 It’s £8 to get in and then we spent another £7 on lunch and several cups of tea for me. It did mean the kids didn’t need proper tea at home having had a cooked lunch but neither of them were up to much still being quite skulky and needy of regular cuddles in their recovering from illness states so they certainly didn’t get 15 quids worth of value from the couple of hours we were there.

Came home and the children, having argued all the way home about the music (James Blunt again!) with each other decided they simply had to play castles together and dashed off upstairs. It was shortlived peace however and within about half an hour Tarly was downstairs to report on Davies for some misdemeanour and then he followed to defend himself and then we ended up doing a long winded chat about the weather.

I was going to get Davies to dictate what he’d learnt but he ran out of enthusiasm for further structure, so here is pretty much what he repeated back to me at the time, some of which has hopefully gone in permanently. We learnt that the weather is controlled by the sun, the earth is surrounded by an atmosphere and the bottom part closest to the earth (6-10 miles above) is called the troposhere and that’s where the weather happens. Above that is the stratosphere (which is also the name of a hotel in Las Vegas with a very mental rollercoaster ride which Uncle Frazer went on!). The sun warms the earth. Closer to the equator is closer to the sun so it is hotter – deserts etc, farther away from the equator is farther away from the sun, north and south pole etc. As the world orbits the sun we get nearer and further from it at different times of the year, when we are closest it is summer, when we are furthest it is winter. When it is winter here is is summer on the other side of the world. As it is winter here now it will be summer in Australia.

The sun warms the land and the sea but the land warms up faster which creates different temperatures in different places, the warms air moves to mix with the colder air and this creates wind. It also creates fronts and different pressures but we only very briefly touched on that.

We then tested this theory by holding a piece of cellophane above the radiator and watched it move in the wind created by the hot air trying to move into the room to mix with the cooler air, we looked out of the window at the howling wind bashing the washing line against the window to see how this worked on a bigger scale.

Next we talked about clouds and water. Davies gave me examples of liquid (the sea), solid (ice) and vapour (steam from a kettle) water. We talked about how steam is tiny droplets of water being carried on hot air moving about. We had previously talked about the water cycle so we just reminded ourselves of that.

We then stepped outside to ‘make’ some clouds by breathing out to make ‘dragon’s breath’ and talked about how that was water vapour.

I looked at a couple of books and websites to find some further experiements which we might well do another time.

Davies drew some pictures to show some different weather (a snowman, a tree being blown about by the wind complete with swirls to represent the wind, the same tree in the summer with fruit and blooms on it and some dark clouds with rain pouring out).

Then he got bored and asked if we could all make a picture of underwater together. We all got two sheets of blue paper taped together and drew some underwater stuff. Davies did a shark, a whale, an octopus, various small fishes and some coral, Tarly did a shark chasing a smaller fish to eat him all up and I did an octopus, a clownfish, a shark, a whale, a starfish, a jellyfish and a mermaid. Then we taped them all together to make one long underwater scene.

Then they had some soup for tea and Ady and my mum arrived home at the same time. Mum bearing the advent calendar gift and wanting to watch the dvd of Davies and me on TV as she’d not seen it yet. Mum and I then popped to Tescos as I needed a few bits not available in Lidl, she offered to buy the Willy Wonka dvd for the children to save us buying it ( 🙂 ) and we needed to get a few bits for Sunday as Chris and Julie and Granny are all coming to Mum & Dad’s house for an ‘official birthday’ for Tarly as we’re away next week and won’t see them all on the actual day.

Tarly has a really bad, barking cough and is lying in bed, half asleep making scary gasping and spluttering noises, Davies is hideously tired and grumpy but still wasn’t asleep before about 9pm. Tomorrow we are home for the day, I want to do some baking (mince pies, birthday cake etc) and I think we’ll aim for a nice low key day.

more on this later, but wanted to note this link while I remember:

As in Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat (although actually that could be less in relation to the goose putting on extra pounds itself and more that the Christmas shopping list has been shared out between all the creatures and they are all off out making purchases –
Christmas is coming,
the goose is getting fat,
the oxens getting sprouts
and the stuffings down to the cat,
Christmas is coming,
everyone is coming here to stay,
best get on the internet
and buy all the pressies from ebay,
Christmas is coming,
do we really need nuts and dates,
no one ever eats them,
or that turkish delight everyone hates,
Christmas is coming
the lamb can get the crackers
the pig can bring the cranberry
the turkey? well he’s knackered
Christmas is coming
wrapping paper from the dog
partridge will bring peas and carrots
the donkey’s got pudding and yule log

etc.)

Ady worked from home this morning which was excellent as it meant I got to take Tarly to TT without dragging Davies along. And it was my last ever one with her too. Next week we’re away and then the following week is the last one and they’re doing some sort of Christmas party – we are not around that day anyway but my parents are babysitting so migt be persuaded to take the children along to that. Then when they return next year she goes into the next class up and goes in on her own. I only realised all this on the way home so didn’t manage to infuse this end of an era with the correct gravity while it was happening, but never mind.

I then dropped Tarly home and set off to The Wizard store to get some bits such as wrapping paper and a few cheapo pressies for the kids to bulk out what they’ve got. Then came home so Ady could go off to work. He’d taken the opportunity of being home to light a fire which I then had to try and keep burning all day (I failed!) and having dug all the Christmas cds out (and believe me we have *loads*) weeks ago he decided today was the day to start playing them. I’ve heard Mel & Kim sing Rockin’ around the Christmas tree enough times to last me this festive season already and it’s not actually December yet. On the plus side we do have the Pop Idol Christmas cd from series 2 which is actually very nice so that’s got a bit of airplay. In the Wizard Store I heard Christmas Wrapping by The Waitresses which always tells me that a) It’s nearly Christmas b) there is still a huge gap in the market for decent Christmas songs and c) I will be struggling to get the lyrics out of my head for weeks to come – infact until about Febrary!

Boyflu continues here for Davies, Ady’s Manflu seems to be slowing abating , I can’t decide whether Tarly’s had it, is having it or is about to have it and I have the most unbelievably stiff neck and shoulders which I think might be the beginning of something horrid 🙁 I woke Ady at about 5.30am to get him to rub tiger balm on it cos I couldn’t move at all so we lay there holding hands and being all excited about Christmas like the parents on the Disneyland advert!

There was debate this afternoon as to whether we should venture into the town centre for glitter and card making supplies or to just go to Lancing. In the end we went into town and I got a few more bits for the children’s Christmas pressies in ELC at the same time, which financially and in the style of our new low key lifestyle is my Christmas shopping pretty much done :-). Came home and they were issued with a set of felt tip pens each (50 p from the Wizard store) to keep nicely as their very own. Showed them how to put the lid of a pen on it’s end to keep it safe and told them that keeping lids on and pens back in the packet is their responsibility. Clearly more for Davies’ benefit as Tarly was a) oblivious and b) doesn’t care anyway! Buy hey 🙂 So we went into Worthing and we have totally done with the pushchair if we can do town centre in full Christmas shopping mode. They were actually really well behaved and Davies even did the averting his eyes while I bought presents he clearly knew would be for him, bless 🙂 We had a funny conversation about Father Christmas on the way into town actually where he clarified what has always been our official line about us buying the presents for the children and then Father Christmas delivering them. He came as close as he ever has to asking a question which I am not intending to lie to answer by asking if anyone had ever seen him. I answered ‘no’ (true!) and he then asked how I gave him the presents then. I replied that I left them somewhere and he collected them, he asked where and I told him it was secret and I couldn’t tell him. He was cool with that and knowing Davies I reckon that’s as far as this years questionning will go. I fully expect him to tell me next year he knows its all tosh actually! 🙂 In ELC the woman serving me read my discount card and asked me what a Home Educator was, I explained I HE my own two children (one of which was standing next to me, the other was playing with some small boys on a Thomas brio table and announced to the world at large that they were all her new friends!) to which she sighed and said ‘I’d love to do that with my daughter – she’s so unhappy at school. How does it work?’ Bearing in mind I had instant audience of the other cashier, the customer she was serving and the three people behind me in the queue I did a hasty ‘there are 1000s of us doing it, you don’t need any training, it’s perfectly legal’ and ended up with checking she had internet access and told her to google for ‘Home Education’ and ‘Education Otherwise’. I came away feeling I could have done so much more but it was a real wrong time, wrong place type of situation. But at least she is a whole footstep nearer knowing there are choices.

Came home and they did some colouring in of Christmas cards before we headed off again for Davies’ Gymbobs. He’d already said he didn’t want to go and he so clearly didn’t. He really struggled to participate and as I peeped at him through the door I thought I probably should have skived off and not bothered actually as he probably got less than nothing out of it. We had a minor chat about it afterwards actually – he has struggled with the new class and doesn’t really have a friend in it – he really likes Andrew but he is not always there and he seems to be a real outsider in the group generally otherwise. He says that the little children (of which he is one actually as they only go into that group at 5) mess about and don’t listen to the grown ups (bit of a sin in his eyes!) so he keeps away from them and the older children sometimes bump into him. Which reminds me once again of why my little boy would not necessarily be ok in a playground even if he assumes the leader role in a group he is comfortable with. What I so celebrate about Davies is that he is Davies and he is quite happy to just be Davies, which let’s face it, many an adult struggles to be (I certainly was not Nic when I was 5, it took me at last another 10 years or so!), if people like him then great, if they don’t then he moves on and finds someone who does. My plan is to give it another term or so, which takes us to March I guess and see how Tarly has gotten on with her new group and whether Davies has any enthusiasm for it. If I start to feel that the year or so we’ve done has served it’s purpose then I will be quite content to call it a day really. Davies has various other possibilities to consider such as Badgers and Drama and Tarly is suddenly desperate to be a ballerina, which I have firm reservations about but similarly don’t want to quash so we’ll see. I don’t really think she has the personality for it regardless of talent and I’m somehow reluctant to groom my wild little fairy accordingly but if she hankers after a tutu and a bun then who am I to stand in her way (aslong as she understands the tutu cannot have mud and chocolate splashed on it and the bun needs to stay in and not be falling down into a tangle of dreadlocked blondeness!).

Davies continues to have an interest in the weather, or more specifically the process and skill of predicting the weather. It’s one of those tricky interests that I could overkill leap on and wither up or I could leave alone to do as he will with it, or I could attempt to tread carefully and foster it in a gentle manner. I think I might just read around it a bit around it and be the resident expert he can learn from in bitesize chunks chucked in as and when he sees fit to listen. A weather forecast at the end of the news can stop him at 20 paces though, and of course science and geography are being nicely ticked off as we go 🙂

And I think that’s about it. Tomorrow is soft play with Julie and the twins which is always a good day all round 🙂