One word? When seven would do…

Scarlett doing some baking.

Scarlett’s 2nd birthday.

Enough to bring you news of the Worm World. Yep that’s right after weeks of inactivity and a sneaky suspicion that what we were really getting a unique insight into was what happens to worms after they die we have signs of life! Dad told Scarlett that she was being a wiggly worm when she was sitting on his lap for a story which prompted the kids to go and fetch the worm world to show Grandad… quite heavy that worm world. Especially when you are only 3ft tall and the getting the worm world down requires you to reach over your own head height.
So yes predictably worm world ended up on the playroom floor with various worms and mud and debris scattered around it. Luckily the kids were here to scoop the worms back in and a quick hoover leaves nothing but a small stain waiting for Ady to come home tomorrow and show me how to use the vax machine (added to that is the small stains where the cats have made an every night habit of coughing up hairballs all around the hall and landing and stairs). I will update you all on the continued health of the worms of course, and whether or not a dramatic fall and rescoop makes them behave in any sort of new or animated way!

Talking of animation (see what I did there?!) a couple more slatings of kids tv shows; The Shiny Show, Tikkabilla, Bits and Bobs and Zingalong.

Today has been mainly horrid actually. I have been very horrid, I have shouted, sent to bedrooms, shouted some more and generally been far from the model Mummy my kids have come to know and love 😉 The kids have also been horrid. They have been noisy, messy, cheeky (and not in a good way) and far from the model children I am usually so proud to call my own 😉

I can make allowances for all of us until the cows come home (ooh, have not used that phrase in ages, it’s nice isn’t it!), we’re all tired, all missing Ady, all feeling pretty pooh with this cold and have been cooped up in the house with only each other for company for too many days, but I do wish it had been a nicer day. There were tears all round at various points, Scarlett has long since gone to bed exhausted and I will check on Davies in a minute but I’ll be amazed if he’s still awake.

Rachel came round this morning and the kids really played up. Davies does this thing of just talking across who ever is trying to have a conversation at the time and quite often he doesn’t even have anything to say. I tried to get him and Scarlett to go and play somewhere else, or at least be a bit quieter (not unreasonable really, we have a play room and they have a bedroom each so why should they play really noisy games in the lounge when I am trying to hold a conversation with my friend – oh yeah, because they are four and two!) but they were having none of it, so he ended up being shouted at a fair bit. Rachel left and we had lunch – which for some reason seemed to calm him down a bit and I got to ring round a bit to do some more work on finding a new venue for group.

Then they started playing with water. For the sheer sake of making a mess really. There are puddles all over the place and Davies was just acting really stupidly. So I rang Jenny to say I would not be going to soft play (simply could not face it, didn’t think they were up to it and even if they were I didn’t think they deserved what amounts to a treat!) and then my Dad arrived. So just as well I had cancelled! Dad being here should have made it better but it actually just made it worse – they played up even more and only served to be walking talking examples for my Dad’s theory that they would be better off in school 🙁 He stayed for a couple of hours and then I shouted at them both some more ’til I sent them to bed.

In among all this I did manage to source and book for next week a new venue 🙂 Which hopefully should be really good, but will hold back on raving about until we have been there, done it and not been asked to ‘get our coats!’ 🙂 Also have done the assorted behind the scenes stuff to do with it such as posting on our yahoo group about it complete with a multimap link, contacting EO to change details for insurance and emailing a couple of other places to change details.

I have also done various other kids tv reviews which are all very negative and ranty as they reflect my mood of the day. I will probably post them later when I am sitting down with my wine and laptop.

And that’s it for now. I have a plan to watch Desperate Housewives tonight although I have missed the first two episodes so I face the dilema of it not being worth trying to catch up or missing more and then kicking myself for not watching it at all. Or I might knock back three glasses of wine and be in bed comatose by 9pm 🙂 Can’t wait for Faraway Husband to come home tomorrow…

So just to reassure you I am fine 🙂

In my very brief window between entertaining house guests, making lunch, shouting at the children and going to soft play I have popped by to say I will be back later!

But before I do, here’s some thoughts on Little Bear, with a big THANK YOU to Jax for her assistance in getting it into such a pretty looking format 🙂

After two days of very little activity tomorrow is looking a bit mad, Rachel is coming round first thing (and I do mean first thing! 9am after she’s dropped E off to school) and then down to the local soft play to meet as many of the homeless WAG home ed group as arrive to join in. On the plus side they should burn themselves out early again 🙂

Bit concerned about Rachel actually, we had a long chat about E on the phone last week as we didn’t get together. Last time we saw them was over 2 weeks ago now when there was the big row between her and E here. She has been talking about how he is getting more and more out of hand and also mentioned that he has started to be rude to other people as well as her (notably the HV we share who is a very large lady, apparantly E was ranting about ‘not having that fat cow in my house’) which makes me wonder if we are being purposely kept away. Hope to reassure her tomorrow, whilst at the same time ensuring that my two are not witness to either rude behaviour or subject to one of his outbursts. We’ll see…

Is that come bedtime, they are so tired and worn out from being shouted at all day the combined force of medised, milk and a forgive and forget cuddle from Mummy is sufficient to send them off to sleep in no time!

Thanks Joyce for the whole paperclip sorting out tip, and hurrah! I’ve sorted out my picture texts too. Anyone want to subscribe to my new service of pictures of my children doing random and odd things by video text – just £1.50 per message 🙂

Really missing Ady now, he sent me a text which made me all teary and girlie. Yep, Sarah it was five days, four night and we’re three days, two nights in now, so more than halfway. Kids are both missing him too, which is really sweet.

Off to have one of my little or no washing up meals now, might be back later….

oh yeah, and you know chicken kievs? What sort of crap design fault is it with them that all the garlic butter leaks onto the baking tray during cooking then???

1. Spangly new phone was ‘ported’ today. For those like me who have no idea what that means I have a new phone and new service provider but wanted to keep my old number. I have been using the new phone with my old SIM card and sending vid and pic messages no problem. Now it’s changed to the new network it won’t send them 🙁 I’ve rung the helpline who are ‘experiencing a high volume of calls just now and will call me back’ grrr! Bet they won’t. Or bet they do just as I’m putting the kids to bed and can’t answer the phone!
2. And I can’t find any smilies on the phone to send in texts either!
3. The whole paperclip on emails thing (although I feel better to be in your company Joyce! But it can’t be an XP thing as my PC is win 98!)
4. Can’t get access to a site I need to look at for my online course. The tutor sent me a ‘helpful’ (read patronising!) response which makes no sense and does not help. Will have a try at accessing it from my laptop later and see if that makes a difference.

And I know they are not IT related but the kids are driving me MAAAAAAD today too! Scarlett’ speech is truly a thing of great wonder, I am pleased she is doing so well and all, but when I asked her what she was doing and got ‘Tarly not doing nothing!’ in return (with more than a dash of attitude thrown in!) . And she was doing something (which given the double negative is actually what she said although I don’t think she’s quite that clever!). Davies is in that horrid ill child place where they are naughty but the instant you try to berate them they dissolve into tears, beg for a cuddle and ask why you don’t love them anymore 🙁

This morning he asked me if I was going to throw Davies and Scarlett into the bin and get a new Davies and Scarlett cos I was cross with them 🙁 He’s just run headlong screaming cos I served up some ham and crisps with his dinner (they’re not dinnery Mummy, they’re lunchy), there was the whole tidy up now or it all goes in a bin liner episode and he keeps telling me off for saying bloody! And he’s told me he doesn’t want to be in this family anymore.

I want my husband back 🙁

Elsewhere they have both been demonstrating positives of being HE. Their behaviour out and about is getting better and better, Scarlett’s speech is really good and her sentence formation is very good – sure it is a result of spending time playing with an older sibling instead of sticking her in a preschool (which round here she could be doing a couple of mornings a week). Davies has been asking some very intelligent questions too of late, and really playing around with language. The other day he told me four different uses for the work break/brake (brakes on a car, make a break for it, break something into pieces, have a break / rest). This morning we had a big debate about who he marry when he is older and who will look after his babies. He wants to marry Scarlett so we discussed that you can’t marry your sister. We talked about all the little girls we know who he would be allowed to marry and that he most likley has not even met who he is going to marry yet, infact she might not even have been born yet! Then in Sainsburys he asked me about dying and stuff (much to the pregnant woman pushing a trolley alongside me’s amusement!).

Would you look at that, I appear to have drifted from the point 😉

Which had followed the previously non negotiable ten minute warning:

Get all this put away before I come back up here or it all goes in a bin liner.

Anyone want to guess how much had been put away?

Anyone want to guess how much I will be putting into said bin liner when I go back up there in five minutes?

DON’T MESS WITH ME CHILDREN, DON’T MESS WITH ME!!!

But Incy Wincy spider was still in hiding cos it was that bloody cold! It’s freezing here today, despite being dry and bright and sunny.

Ady couldn’t ring last night cos he couldn’t get a signal on his phone so after saying I was not missing him enough I spent ages pining for him 🙁

I went to bed really early for me at 10.30pm, Scarlett woke up at 11.30, I brought her into bed with me but she was doing this really annoying coughing thing of near choking straight away (I may have mentioned before my very low tolerance levels for other people’s coughs, even my loved ones, particularly if they are in my bed at the time!). So I took her back to her bed and she went back to sleep. Next thing I knew it was 6.30am 🙂 So I got my 6 hours anyway! She came in with me for a bit until she woke Davies and then they played in his room for a little while before I got up at about 7.30. Still pretty tired though and glad we decided not to go to London after all – I don’t think any of us would be up for a long day really.

This morning I have done quite a bit with the small people, built walls with mega blocks discussing how you should offset the bricks to make the wall stronger, built a big wooden train track, which as usual is being largely ignored and taking up all the floor space in the lounge! My book people order arrived – the spanish books, the pack of 10 poetry books, a pop up ladybird story and a freebie Angelina Ballerina annual (I got the Bob one last time) which Scarlett was delighted with (strange child!). I’ve had an email from Amazon to say that 100 easy lessons is out of stock and will be another couple of weeks grrrrrrr 🙁 We have been to Sainsburys, more to get us out the house than anything and the kids are currently upstairs playing a very noisy game which sounds like it could be messy too! Today is going much quicker than yesterday 🙂

Well I feel a bit guilty that I’m not missing him as much as he’s missing me really. I do miss him obviously, but cos my life is continuing pretty much as normal with the exception of one less body in the bed, and he’s rung me at least 5 times today so I am not getting much chance to be missing him 🙂 In contrast he is away from all of us, sleeping in an unfamiliar bed in a lonely hotel room. The pattern of my evening does make me wonder how different my life could have been if I’d not met Ady though. I have been with him since I was 19 – still a teenager / child really. Much of the person I am today is down to his influence and presence. That sounds like he is controlling, which he is totally not, but there is a definite dynamic in place in our relationship which has shaped us both as people and as most of us can go back to one or two defining moments in our lives and wonder ‘what if?’ being with Ady, being in a secure relationship from such an early age and having grown up responsibilities from very young will have very much shaped the grown up I am now.

I actually feel we are a very complementary couple, we tend to bring out the best in each other and we are not competitive about each other (interesting to see what people who have only previously met me alone will think when they see us together at Melrose), but I do think I am a lot more self-sufficient than he is. Ady has always been in a relationship – although I was in this one from 19 I think I am much more independant and the thought of being alone does not scare or intimidate me. It’s lovely to be half of a couple, have someone to share it all with and so on but as someone who actually enjoys my own company, and is in confinement with two very reliant small people most of my waking hours it is quite nice to sit of an evening alone, choose what to eat, what to watch on TV and not actually have to talk. (God I sound like a mad old bint who is destined to wear purple and keep cats and talk to people who are not there while sitting on park benches swigging gin from a bottle concealed in a brown paper bag!) Not at all sure where I’m going with this so if you are holding on in there hoping to get to the point I apologise now and warn you that there is not one to be found!

Watched a thing on C4 about Einstein which was very interesting and had me sitting here going off on all sorts of excited tangents – most of which I can’t remember now! One thing which did stick was someone quoting Einstein as saying that he was so clever because he asked questions that a child would ask, and then set about finding the answers… wow! That is one of the key reasons I am HEing – I want to go down all those possibly percieved as ridiculous wavelengths that children go down and learn the answers with them. At age 4 Davies has pushed me into finding the answers out for questions I have never thought to ask, or perhaps I did once but got shoved in the opposite direction. There was some discussion about whether he was autistic or not. I have little or no knowledge about autism but their explanation was that he could have been a genius to the detriment of his social skills – makes you wonder just how important those social skills are really – surely better to be investing your time in asking all those wild questions and finding the answers to them than learning to put your hand up before asking them?

So anyway, that was convoluted as usual wasn’t it. I’ve been drinking my wine, wondering all the time whether I am an old lush for drinking alone and despite it being not yet 9.30 I think I might be in bed before too long.

Well that’s a result then! 6.30pm, both children in bed asleep, house is tidied and hoovered, all washing done and drying, have achieved several items on my list (cleaned bathroom, written grovelling letter, rung round several possible venues for WAG group’s new home etc) and in the last 15 minutes I have finally got out the knitting needles and wool my Mum gave me months ago and with the aid of a library book re-discovered how to knit 🙂 Very basic and judging by how laboriously the book got me casting on and knitting a few rows I don’ think my relationship with said book will be a long and happy one. If I bring my sticks and yarn to Melrose does anyone fancy teaching me some more complicated stuff? I’m a quick learner, I just need to watch someone doing it for real instead of looking at pictures of hands!

Kids will both probably be up and bouncing around by midnight, but frankly if they get 12 hours sleep and I’m up with them again at 6.30am I won’t mind if they sleep through.

I’ve been a shouty and intolerant mother today. But that is because I am tired and impatient and they are tired and horrid, so we all parted friends and I think tomorrow will be better. We did get a bit of educational stuff done. Davies finally tried out the next DK Play and Learn cd rom – which is for 5-7 year olds. Admittedly some of it was beyond him due to the instructions being written as opposed to spoken but once I read them out he was just fine. His mouse control is excellent now and I was really pleased to see him counting something on screen using the mouse pointed instead of touching it with his fingers 🙂 He is really starting to recognise numbers and letters at last too, so hopefully the time is right for that 100 Easy lessons book if it ever gets here!

More playing with The Incredibles, some colouring and drawing, some dressing up and some watching of TV and that’s been our day really. My plan now is to spend an hour on my online learning course, cook myself some dinner and then maybe have a quick trawl round the ring before an earlyish night. You may or may not hear from me again this evening.

The venue for our group has questioned our compatability with each other. Which basically means that we are a homeless group!

Jenny and I have actioned crisis measures and arranged to meet up at the local soft play for this week with a view to having found somewhere equally good if not better by next week. I’ve been ringing around this morning and not found anywhere fantastic as yet – I think we were a bit spoilt with that venue really – we had three seperate rooms, toddler toys and a huge garden for warmer weather – and it was pretty cheap too. To find somewhere of comparable price, at the same time and day (which I think it has to be otherwise we run the risk of making people who had already committed to us unable to come) will be a bit tricky…. the quest continues.

In other news I have cleaned the downstairs bathroom, made lunch, have not actually got enough dirty washing to make up a full load for the first time in, well ever probably. Davies has played on his Thomas cd rom, Scarlett is fading fast and although I had plans for a cool activity involving timelines of their lives so far with illustrations I think that might not happen today after all.

Faraway Husband has rung three times so far and sent a couple of texts. He appears to be holding up okay 🙂

Just thought of something I really, really have to add to my to do list – some of my online learning course otherwise I face the possibiltity of getting kicked off it as it’s not been touched since a flurry of pre-Christmas (oh how long ago that seems now) activity.

Still raining btw 🙂

Kids are being hugely rowdy, I’ve written (well typed) my grovelly letter and am debating whether it’s worth the battle to get them into coats and shoes to go to the post box.
Have also done two loads of washing, sorted out the below pics (Flickr is great, really like it 🙂 ) , tidied the playroom which has resulted in chucking out loads and realising just how much chocolate we still have here from Christmas. Lunch then the bathrooms…. (strides purposely away from the laptop 😉 )

One of Ady’s best ever photos I reckon. It has been cropped which spoils it a little, but was also necessary as Scarlett was not wearing many clothes 🙁

He sat and did this all by himself yesterday morning. He then presented it to me and was quite justifiably proud of it. He talked me through the colours and the flower parts and how he’d done some of them purple cos ‘that’s your favourite colour Mummy’ ahhh 🙂

As part of my new economy drive instead of rushing out to buy Davies various Incredibles related merchandise after we’d seen the film, I drew pictures of them, managed to swallow my cries of ‘don’t touch them, you’ll ruin them’ at the kids when they helped colour them in and laminate them. They came out okay actually and have been played with loads.

Got home from Tescos with Davies at the weekend to find she had actually sat still long enough for Ady to do this to her, and she had even worn a hairband for half an hour while he did it!!!!

And it looks like it’s going to be both! Well I mean obviously it’s going to be, well it is Monday, that’s not up for debate. But the rainyness, well that’s not a certainty yet you see. So whilst it is without a shadow of a doubt one of the above, it only ‘looks like’ it might rain, and only by raining and being Monday would it be both. So anyway, it’s a bit overcast and there are some gloomy clouds gathering. Isn’t there some sort of saying about that ‘bit black over Bob’s mother’s’ ????

Yep, I’m back 😉

Yesterday I was not really alone, hence the lack of postings – Chris and Julie came over for a few hours and my parents were also here – they stayed ’til 11pm when after exchanging a few video text messages with my faraway husband I went to bed. Quite a nice day really, I got a bit arsed off with all the toy cupboard emptying but my Mum did help me tidy up and for once my parents were very good with the kids. Scarlett was asleep by 7pm, Davies stuck it out ’til 8.30pm but as they were here I was still able to go and have a bath and get a dinner cooked (for the rest of the week I anticipate showers and ready meals 🙂 ) . So a nice roast pork dinner (with roasted carrots, parsnips, potatoes, sweet potatoes, red onions, apples and garlic, sausgae, bacon and sage and onion stuffing, sage yorkshire puddings, peas and gravy) which I actually quite enjoyed cooking (Ady does most of the cooking here so as such I have a somewhat undeserved reputation for not being able to!), then they washed up for me 🙂 After which it was nearly 11 so they left. I was torn between a quick whizz round the blogring or bed and deciding that the kids would probably give me a bad night I chose bed!

Sure enough by 3.30am Scarlett was in my bed, by 4.30am Davies had woken up coughing and at 5am we were all in my bed with the kids telling knock-knock jokes (which would have been better if a) it was a more sociable hour, b) they had a bigger repertoire than the single knock-knock. who’s there?, Barbie, Barbie who? Barbie-queue (barbecue) joke that they know and c) They had not conducted this impromtu stand up (well lie down) comedy routine at such high volume!). Honestly I don’t know where they get their flamboyant nature and urge to make others laugh from 🙂 At 6am I sent them off to play elsewhere and although they did keep coming to report back to me (Davies: ‘I stood in some cat sick with my new socks on. Look’ while thrusting said sock into my face, Scarlett: ‘Mummy? Mummy? Dark Mummy!’ while turning all bedroom lights on) and they managed to get looks of toys out I did stay in my bed ’til nearly 8am:-) Down to clear cat sick, cat sick footprints from Davies, feed them milk and cereal and toast and make very strong tea for me, exchange more phonecalls and video texts with Faraway Husband, deal with very runny bum nappies and cancel going to London tomorrow as if we have another night like tonight and they are still runny bummed and runny nosed then it won’t be fun for any of us.

My plan for the day is as follows:
Report back to my blog with constant meterological updates as to whether it is raining at our house and my blog title is accurate or inaccurate for that given moment 😉

Write a grovelling letter to the current tenants of our old house in Manchester who I imagine at this very moment are teaching their child to read in 100 easy lessons and ask if they would possibly send the books back to Amazon for me. Should I go for informal, friendly handwritten to give them a sense of me being a real person, human, apt to make mistakes, an object of pity who they could help out by sending books back (could even pinch one of the children to get a tear stain on it!) or printed to give an air of authority, a quiet menace and the idea that they better give those bloody books back or else I’ll show them who they’re messing with???

Walk to post box with children in tow to get fresh air and post said letter.

Clean at least one of the bathrooms! Downstairs seems more likely as Scarlett has decorated the sink with toothpaste as part of her ‘let me downstairs alone while you languish in bed you lazy malingering mother you’ early morning campaign.

sort out the playroom a bit

drink tea

exhange various long and loving phone calls with Faraway Husband and send him inane video texts of stuff like ‘here’s Davies and Scarlett eating their lunch’, ‘here’s them watching Dora’, ‘here they are again eating their tea’, ‘oh look here they are askeep’ and so on.

PS Joyce, do not send comments like that about big dogs coming to find me, I thought I only blogged recently about my issues with Clifford the Big Red Dog having Cujo tendancies!!!!

Okay so he’s only been gone for four hours but I have been busy and industrious! Davies was in our bed by half midnight, but he is an angel child to have in the bed compared to Scarlett and simply snuggles down and goes to sleep. Ady was up at 5.30am and he woke Scarlett who refused to go back to sleep so when he left at 6.15am I had to get up. 🙁 Which did mean that by 7am I had already got the first load of washing drying, moved the clock on the kitchen wall so I can make one of the new shelves my ‘tea shelf’ and cooked pain au chocolat for breakfast. Also booked a tenner room for the way home from Melrose in Notthingham. We might well end up not using it but for a tenner it doesn’t matter! Davies got up and is veering between rowdiness and sword play (urgh!) and slumping on the sofa dabbing at his runny nose with a tissue. Reckon they’ll both burn themselves out easily to go to bed tonight though!

I have rung Julie to warn her about our colds – which meant that Chris said they weren’ coming. She put her fierce voice on and said ‘I think we need to discuss this, I will ring you back’ and rang back ten minutes later all victorious to say they would be coming:-)

Davies has just appeared with a really well done magic maize picture (you can get picture cards to cut and stick the maize to) of a vase of flowers. It’s excellent – I will try and get a photo of it later. He used to be really into arty stuff but he rarely does it anymore, too busy with his games. I am planning on trying to draw some pictures of the Incredibles later for him to stick maize onto / colour in. Strike while the irons hot and all that 🙂

We also re-did his reward chart yesterday (it’s a weekly one). He had done really well last week – four out of the seven days he had got a magnet on every single thing – so 80p reward for that (20 p a day for any day he gets magnets on everything), and managed to remember sounds from a-g too 🙂 Only a couple of slight alterations for this week – I’ve changed letters to numbers and then next week we’ll go back to the same letters we did this week again so they really sink in. I’m undecided as to whether to do 1-7 or something like 10-70, I think the tens might be a better idea, particularly as he has been amazing me by seeming to recognise numbers 1-10 which I had not realised he had grasped. (I think Scarlett being able to count up to 14, which is where he gets to before losing it may have spurred him on – has he really not progressed in two years with numbers????)

I have a mental list of stuff I want to get done while Ady’s away, which I will turn into a real one so I can feel better about constantly blogging over the next few days under the pretense of checking my progress 🙂
Kitchen – needs a big sort out really, we have in theory got more cupboard space with the new shelves and stuff, so I want to clear all visible surfaces to make it look like a ‘busy kitchen’ as opposed to a pit!

Playroom – I know, again! Actually the kids bits of the room are fine, but Ady tends to dump all sorts of stuff on the corner of my desk and in my in trays – I think Scarlett has grown out of messing with the on/off button on my tower so it can go back on the floor under the desk again which will free up some desk space for me. Also I think the last remnants of Christmas chocolates and stuff can go into the kitchen now.

Books – I am going to make a real effort to go through all the books in the bookcase. The three binliners full I cleared a while back with the intention of taking to a bookshop for about 30pence each I am going to bring to Melrose to see if anyone wants for the Tsunami bring and buy, along with any books my two have really grown out of.

Bathrooms both need cleaning and decluttering. I am a bugger for stashing posh toiletries and never using them until finally end up chucking them cos they’ve not been used and have gotten all dusty/faded/out of date. Dad is going to finish repainting our bathroom while we are at Melrose so the less junk he has to shift around the better.

Inane and frankly loony blog posts less an intention, more a certainty I reckon 🙂 But if I put it in my to do list I can feel like I’ve achieved something when they happen 🙂

I was reading Junior this morning – someone remind me next time I go to buy Junior because some interesting looking article advertised on the front cover catches my eye, that it is infact a crappy read serving only to annoy or irritate me. The best I can hope for when reading Junior is smugness at some of the frankly mental ways people parent their children! Anyway there was an article in there about Baby Blogs (I think someone might have mentioned it on a list somewhere but I was not paying close attention and only remembered I’d heard it when I was reading the article). In the usual skimming over the surface, making lots of half made points and never following any of them up the article drew no conclusions, left several doors half open and quoted from a couple of frankly very boring blogs (no offence meant!). It sort of nodded at the ‘are these people mad for posting such intimate and traceable details about their kids????’ hysteria without going any further, which I have come to view as a bit of an overreaction really. When I first started on lists and with blogging I was very careful not to reveal too much detail about me or the kids. I would now not worry in the slightest. I think I am at more risk of some weirdo taking a shine to me as I wander round Tescos yelling at my offspring and buying sanitary protection, then following me home and sitting outside my house in his Fiesta wearing his anorak and noting my every moment in a spiral bound notebook with a biro (with a chewed end), than I am of someone happening across my blog, deciding I am exactly the sort of woman he would like to be stalking and then trawling through my blog archives to get all the details they need to set off in their Fiesta, wearing their anorak to find me! And similarly for the children really. I do post their names, I do post their pictures but that’s cos I’m very proud of them, I think they are beautiful children and I want other people to see that. If there is someone harvesting these images and doing awful unthinkable things to them then a) I’m not thinking about it and b) it is only their pictures, not them. And quite honestly as I am frequently debating the less attractive side of all four of us I doubt anyone would be wanting to come find us anyway 🙂 I may be back later with further Junior related rants though, I’m only half way through reading so far 🙂