One word? When seven would do…

After over two weeks of being with Daddy, Granny and Grandad, two uncles, an aunt, two cousins and various other people who love them the children have been mine-all-mine again today. And for the most part we have all three enjoyed it. We missed Ady and there was the unfortunate event in Boots where Davies showed us both up a bit by getting very upset about not being bought a present (I had a huge audience of other shoppers who all appeared to be waiting with bated breath to see how I dealt with it! I was calm and quiet and took him away from his crowd, got down to his level, cuddled him and very rationally said that we would go home and look at all the presents he had been given for Christmas – some of which he has not even played with yet. If he still felt he needed a present then perhaps he would like to swap some of those presents for the fishing game he was crying over. FFS he didn’t even want the bloody thing, it was the nearest attractively boxed looking thing when he started up his request for a present anyway!). I was quite proud of both of us for conducting it eventually quite well and even more proud of myself for not just buying the thing as it was *only* a fiver and I am pretty crap at denying my children stuff when they ask nicely – infact if he had stayed asking nicely instead of whinging and foot stamping he might even have ended up with it.

So the rest of the day has been nice really. I woke up feeling really crappy and have some sort of upset stomach which I will go into no further details of. We were all in our bed at 4.30am and although Ady got up with them both at 6 and left me in bed til 7 I feel shattered and I think they did too. Scarlett had been particularly clingy and cuddly, which is actually quite nice. I often wonder how Scarlett would react to school or even pre-school. She could attend the playgroup round the corner from us for three mornings a week already. She is fiercely independant, very fickle about which parent is her favourite and so not a baby she would probably be fine. OTOH she has never really been left with anyone other than Lynda who she knew from birth, or my parents, and she has never really been in any sort of large group so maybe she wouldn’t be! Whatever it doesn’t matter as it’s not about to happen any time soon anyway!

I have been pondering over Christmas as to whether me and the children spend too much time together. They rarely if ever go anywhere unaccompanied by me. At the weekends I do very occasionally go off for a while but only leaving them with Ady and they are always full of ‘we missed you’s ‘ when i return. I am not sure who this is most unhealthy for – them or me, but I guess it’s not forever – in 10 years from now I will be the last person they are itching to spend all their time with. I am looking forward to seeing just how they get on with the group dynamic at Melrose actually. And looking forward to a bit of a rest as Ady has got the OK from work today to take the time off so he is definitely coming too (hurrah!) so as novelty parent he will be most in demand for the week 🙂

Play and education wise today has been quite productive actually. They started the day with the lego – although that was more of a tipping it all out and refusing to pick it back up again game than actually building anything with it! Then the wooden blocks – which Davies build a stable / house thing with. Cue a discussion about diferent types of houses – we covered and he can now identify detached, semi-detached, terrace and flats. Funny moment when I recapped with him and asked ‘what do you call a house with no other houses joined on to it?’ ‘Mummy’s’ came the correct but not what I was looking for answer 🙂 He has something of an obsession with chimneys at the moment so there was much talk about chimneys on houses – there are loads of semis opposite us, some of which have shared chimneys so that was discussed. We also watched the birds outside for ages – they are in huge groups and doing loads of swooping about the sky and landing on roofs en masse. Davies has got it into his head that absolutely everything he can think of has a name so that has been quite tricky to explain; eg. a group of birds is a flock, so what is a group of birds flying together and all landing on a roof then flying off to the left? What do you call a house that has three chimneys?

Also played with were the toy cars which he built a blocks garage for and a puzzle fest this afternoon. Scarlett is getting seriously good at puzzles actually. I always thought Davies was pretty good, but she really goes at them properly looking for the next bit to match the picture which is emerging. She is doing the 3+ ones with relative ease now – anyone up for swapping some 18 month & 2 year + puzzles for some more advanced ones?

The other surprise hit pressie for Tarly which has been played with every single day is this . We first saw it when in Hamleys when we went to London in September and thought at the time it would be ideal. It has refillable water pens and as the water dries so the drawings disappear and you start again. It’s great on many levels – firstly it saves on the pages and pages of paper she was getting through with her scribbles, secondly it creates no mess and if she chooses to scribble on walls/cats/herself then it doesn’t matter cos it’s only water. Thirdly it has re-sparked Davies’ interest in drawing again and finally the design is excellent as it has letters and pictures and numbers all round the border to trace over or copy so it is educational too. Love it and would totally recommend it to anyone 🙂

I think that’s about it for today. I’ve done my introspective bit for the year, I have a job list as long as your arm to get cracking on and hey, it’s already Wednesday tomorrow!

I remember when I was small watching a cartoon adaptation (probably Disney) of the ant and the grasshopper story where the ant spends the summer squirreling away food for winter but the lazy old grasshopper just enjoys the sunshine, then ends up in trouble during the cold bleak winter months. If I recall correctly the ant comes to the resuce and shares his supplies, the grasshopper learns his lesson and the next summer they gather food together, or some equally tidy ‘happy ever after.’ I have a horrid feeling I somehow missed the point of that tale and an even more horrid feeling that I might just be that grasshopper.

I was discussing this with my Dad on NYE actually – although he was the wrong side of half a bottle of whiskey so perhaps more argumentative than usual! I don’t know whether it is a generational thing, a sign of the huge consumer driven, buy now-pay later, because you’re worth it, very clever marketing campaigns, materialistic society we live in. Whether it is a result of 9/11, knowing too many people who were just like that ant but spent the best years of their life working, saving and seeing no reward, dreaming of their ‘winter’ retirement and never actually living to see it or just keeping up with the Jones’ I don’t know.

Me, and more than a handful of my friends have lived life so far to the full. We have earned okay money but spent a good deal more, lived on overdrafts, credit cards, many of us bought property at the right time and have been borrowing against all that bricks and mortar equity ever since. We have lived way above and beyond our means. The phrase all fur coat and no knickers could have been coined just for us.

In the last year several things have conspired to make me question this lifestyle. The first is my carefully constructed house of cards arrangement of our finances crashing around our ears with the total loss of my income and a cut in Ady’s. The decision to Home educate and therefore not make use of the free childcare that is the education system will prevent me from re-entering the ‘tradional’ workforce again in a couple of years when both kids are of school age. A very close friend is currently in severe financial difficulties – which could result in many scary worst case scenarios if the bank does not consider him a good enough risk to push more cash his way. I have ‘met’ (both online and IRL) people who I would never have mixed with before, most of whom live a more frugal, spirtitual, worthy and otherwise sensible life than anyone I have ever met before. I guess my eyes have been opened good and proper 🙂

I have no religious beliefs, I am not particularly spiritual. I believe myself to be a good person, who would help out others in need, a good and true and faithful friend, loyal and loving to my family, a supportive and caring wife, a mother who does the best I can and strives to do even better – not here to change the world, but certainly to enhance it for those who share my little bit of it. But I am feeling a bit small, a bit shallow and a bit empty really. I know our children are still very little but an episode with Davies today where he got really really upset when I wouldn’t buy him a present in Boots (yes, just two weeks after he got *that* mountain of gifts) has worried me that my attitude is being passed down to them it’s not actually that nice a reflection staring back at me.

I still stand by many of my opinions. I am glad we have spent our money (or rather the banks!) on plenty of the things we’ve done, I still don’t see the point in working hard all your life never to enjoy it and to leave it all to your offspring (my main argument with my Dad btw). I think life is for living and enjoying and grabbing all you can from. I think that for me, for the moment the gesture of giving something back by HEing the children is enough – although to some it may seem like a very little, I know to others it is a huge big deal. But I do think that at some point in the future I would like to do something for others who have not had all that I have had. I am very aware that although I have grabbed all the opportunities life has shown me there are many who were never shown any such chances to grab and maybe there is something, somehow I can do to help open some doors for people who can’t open them for themselves.

So as I sit here, looking round my house at all that we have, with my two babies who I have spent a lot of the day just cuddling and being with, in a house which is warm, sturdy and filled with love, waiting for my husband to come home for the evening and know that I have all I could ever need and more.

All over! Ady returns to work tomorrow. It’s been lovely having home for so long – quite the very longest he’s ever been off over Christmas before and he is quite mopey about going back to work too – unhelped by the fact he has to go away for 6 days at the end of next week (which will actually be the longest by far that we’ve ever been apart too, although neither of us has actually said it 🙁 ) He should find out tomorrow whether he can have the time off to come to Melrose of not too – otherwise that will be two seperations in the space of just a couple of weeks. Sad and a bit mushy I know but after 12 years together he really is my very best friend and without a doubt the other half of me – not that I am overly dependant on him or him on me, but we do seem to function better as a duo. He has been my ‘partner; now for well over 1/3 of my life – certainly most of my adult life and I know he feels the same as me when I say I wish we could find the way to be together for more of the time instead of him going off to work each day. Now we have the children it seems to make the wrench that much worse as he and them really do love spending time together. Chris and Julie were here today saying both in private (Chris to Ady and Julie to me) and then again in front of each other how they are glad Chris is going back to work tomorrow as they have had enough of each other…. Not so for us 🙁

Anyway, today I have been ruthless. Ruthless I tell you! I have finally done my wardrobe declutter and there are now four very full black sacks in Ady’s car ready to be taken to Oxfam. I will not dwell on how much money is sitting there in those sacks and I certainly did not take a mental add up of the price tags on the clothes which still had labels and tags attached – they are going to help a good cause and what’s more with them leaving the house I can let go of my guilt in having spent money we don’t have on clothes I never wore. I now have a very organised wardrobe indeed and really do plan to start dressing as the shake and vac woman in swirly skirts just as the mental image I hold of myself says I should 🙂

Mary Poppins count for the day stands at 3 I believe – Davies is no longer content to simply sit and watch it – he gathers props around himself in advance and now acts it out as it happens on TV! He finished the day off with a viewing of Bedknobs and Broomsticks – and does not appear to have noticed that Mr Brown is infact the same actor as Mr Banks…. tomorrow I am definitely ringing round to find him some sort of creative classes outlet for all this theatrical energy which burns within him!

So a fairly productive day all round really – I was up early with the small people (Ady had this plan last night for us to both get really, really drunk as it was the last night before he went back to work, then we would both get up this morning with the small people to make it ‘fair’. This went wrong as Davies didn’t go to sleep ’til gone 9pm, Scarlett was awake again by 11pm and in the two hour window between this we ate a full roast dinner. So I was a little less than drunk actually! The new deal was for him to stay up with Tarly while I went to bed, then for me to get up this morning while he had a lie in to recover!) and we did some more work on Davies’ solar system mobile and some magic painting before Ady got up and loaded all the Christmas decs into the garage while I made a start on the wardrobe.

Chris and Julie arrived at around midday and Chris, Ady and Davies went out into the garden to finally dig in my green cone which at last is operational 🙂 Me and Julie supervised the three smaller Goddards while making lunch and numerous cups of tea. They left around 3pm when Ady got out the mad Ikea mat and put Mary Poppins on again for the small people.

I then calmed it all back down again by deciding we should really bring in the poor worms they had collected in a bucket earlier and were probably freezing to sort out Davies’ worm world he had gotten for a Christmas pressie. So we all did that together, with small people excessively handling worms which I couldn’t quite bring myself to touch!

Then they watched Mary Poppins again while I printed off and cut out some pictures of them over Christmas to make some thank you cards with. Davies was far too busy to help but Scarlett enjoyed sticking them on the cards creating little montages of them both ready to be sent out / given out to people as we see them over the rest of the week.

The tea and they both had a bath supervised by Ady – who put on my bubble spa thing for Davies – which was great fun for him, but reminiscent of an Ibiza foam party as they had put bubble bath in it before turning it on, so a very foamy child and bathroom to contend with!

I have since put away the towering mountain of clean clothes into our newly organised drawers and wardrobe (I even want some of those divider thingies you put in your sock drawers now, that’s how flylady I am!), had a bath, used my facial spa thingy and have the radiant and glowing skin as promised on the box, eaten dinner, drunk much wine and laughed hysterically at this show on Sky 1 Mix which after three glasses of dry white really appealed to me!

Right I’m off – and apologies for anyone who was offended by my inadvertant display of underwear in yesterdays post 🙂

Which were meant to be added into the post below, but I forgot 🙂

New Years Eve gathering:

a nice one of me and Davies – which is spookily recreating a picture we have of us when he was about 9 months old – I will dig it out tomorrow…

And finally, yesterday we rediscovered the Christmas crackers my Mum had insisted we buy but had gone unpulled over Christmas! As they were a quid a box from the poundshop we let the kids go mad with them instead of being frugal and putting them away for next year 🙂

Today we have been mainly living out the story of Mary Poppins!

When Davies was 2 and a half or so he went through a phase of totally ‘living’ as a particular character. He would only answer to their name, the rest of the family were re-christened with corresponding characters and he would go all out in his recreation of them. We have lived in the past with Davies as Buzz Lightyear, Peter Pan, Sergeant Stripes, Bob the Builder, Rudolph the red nosed reindeer, Dangermouse (quite recent that one!), Jake from the Tweenies, Boots (although that was a Scarlett dictated one when she was being Dora) and more I have probably forgotten. Currently he is being Bert the chimney sweep from Mary Poppins.

Today this has entailed every sentence uttered being turned into part of his ‘Step in Time’ song and dance routine (e.g. Me:Davies can you get your pyjamas on now please, Him: I’m not Davies, I’m Bert…wanders off singing ‘Put your pyjamas on step in time, put your pyjamas on step in time, never need a reason, never need a rhyme, put your pyjamas on step in time!’), Scarlett has been Mary Poppins, he has accessorised himself with the witches broom stick from Halloween as his sweeping brush and with some assistance from Ady coal dust streaking his face!

He recreated a fireplace by dragging loads of sofa cushions off to make a chimney, getting the fire grate thingy and companion set off the real fireplace and using red and yellow and orange card to make the flames. The two sofas were then the rooftops to be jumped and danced over. The game had a grand finale once pjs were actually on with him leaping from one sofa to the other…

So loads of imaginative and creative play going on there then! We have had a really nice day at home actually. I managed to clear the playroom (again!) and all the pressies from Christmas now have proper permanent homes somewhere in the house, all the decorations are down and ready to go in the loft so the house looks bare but bigger! I still need to do my wardrobe declutter – particularly as there are now three towering baskets of clean washing which need putting away but there is no point in doing until reorganisation has taken place – tomorrow, really, tomorrow!

Elsewhere the kids have played with lots of their tat Christmas pressies – the pound shop bits and pieces we bought them to bulk out the sheer volume of stuff to unwrap – loads of Hawkins bits and pieces, like magic sand, sticker sets, paint your own paper aeroplane and so on. Davies has really enjoyed some one to one time with Ady which has been lovely to see. I have started to sort out my beads and realised I need to order some more 🙂

Tomorrow Chris and Julie are coming over at some point and I have a quite considerable job list crept up on me yet again!
* sort out various bits and pieces for the new HE group which scarily is starting next week! I had another response from the flyer I posted out today so we are hoping for a fairly good turn out for it…
* monthly finances juggling act 🙁
* wardrobe, wardrobe, wardrobe!
* Thank you notes from the kids for all their Christmas gifts (very late and inefficient of me – I’m normally much better at this one!)
* some stories for Miranda
* Get some phone numbers together to ring round next week to find out about activities for Davies along the lines of dance / gym / swimming or something to run off some of his creative energy…

2min39 & 73 …

Playing catch up again so a quick round up of yesterday and today:

Yesterday In the morning we had three items of mail – a cheque from camelot for a tenner won on last week’s lottery, a cheque from the tax office for a tax refund (which it had occurred to me a while back I might be due having not officially worked all year, but promptly forgotten about again) – only £300 but very welcome just the same 🙂 And the third item of post? A letter from the library to say I had two books outstanding and owed £4 odd in fines! I was actually in the process of gathering library books together to be returned when the post arrived – and had totally forgotten I even had those two, so despite the £4 I was glad of the reminder!

Ady was working from home so I took the children with me to walk into Lancing and the library while leaving him to a nice quiet house in which to work in. Davies was not really in a walking mood and Scarlett was in even less of a being in her pushchair mood but as that is currently the only feasible way to get anywhere with two of them it had to be that way.

The library appeared to be having some sort of pre-January sale and all their books for sale were at 10pence – so stocked up 🙂 I got twelve books on various topics – mainly educational ones about things like weather, heat and light, a couple on faiths and beliefs, one on Israel and a few story books. I also picked up a book I borrowed from the library up north a few years ago which I found quite good at the time – would probably not have bothered buying it or reading it again but for 10p it is a good one to have on the shelf when having a bad day!

A quick traipse round Woolies, buying some new compartmentalised storage boxes for the beads I bought from BM before Christmas and then a long and windy walk home with Davies complaining most of the way 🙁 Scarlett fell asleep so at least I was only dealing with the one of them! Home for lunch and then I had an afternoon to myself.

Ady had asked what I wanted for my birthday and without having to entirely spell it out I managed to convey that what I would really like was a couple of childfree hours to wander round the shops all by myself and choose something – so that’s what I got! Early, but the only chance we had for it as he is back to work again properly next week and I like to avoid shops at the weekends at all costs..

So I had about three lovely hours, trying stuff on, rejecting most of it and circling the same four stores mostly, picking the same items up again and again and buying none of them! I did get six new tops (for the bargain total price of £26!) and then blew it by spending £60 on underwear which was not actually in the sales! But I did really need some new underwear and I’d rather get what I wanted under the justfication of it being a birthday pressie, than feel guilty about buying it! Also picked up a fab pair of wellies in Woollies for Tarly when she reaches next shoe size up and a winter coat for Davies for next year – both less than half price 🙂 Oh, and a world map puzzle in ELC which was reduced too.

Going round shops I worked in this time 5 years ago – one of the unhappiest periods of my life, and being without the children for a few hours made me ponder a few things which I think I will save for another post…

Home again and we had the children in PJs and ready to go to bed when Mum and Dad arrived for the evening. I had decided that if they behaved the kids could stay up a bit later last night – not ’til midnight, but until they were tired enough to go to bed without a fight! Ady opened a bottle of champagne when my parents arrived and gave both kids a very very small glass each. Davies predictably didn’t like it. Scarlett, equally predictably loved it and downed hers, Davies’ and would have started on mine too if we’d let her! She then had a total meltdown when Ady decided she should not have any peanuts just before bedtime – which he probably didn’t deal with that effectively, but never mind. Davies was asleep by about 8.30, but she lasted ’til nearly 10pm 🙁 Dinner was delayed til 10.30pm which made quite a short evening of it really! Dad had arrived the wrong side of about half a bottle of whiskey as they had been with friends all day, so he crashed out on the sofa, Ady cooked in the kitchen and Mum, Scarlett and I watched Roman Road.

We saw midnight in watching the London Eye fireworks having turned over from Jools Holland’s Hootenany. Not sure how I feel about the fireworks really – they were staggeringly beautiful, without a doubt the most impressive and amazing display I’ve ever seen but Ady thought he’d heard somewhere it had cost about £1m which just seems completely obscene and quite literally burning money… Mum & Dad left at about 12.45, we were in bed by 1.30am and as the kids didn’t wake ’til nearly 7am it was not a bad night’s sleep for a NYE!

Today – as said I was up with small people from 7am while Ady had a lay in ’til 10am. I had this idea it would be nice to go out for lunch somewhere with the kids, although with no real idea of where. Chris and Julie rang to wish us Happy New Year and see if they could come over but we are both feeling like we have just seen too much of everyone the last week or so and really wanted some time to be just the four of us. So we drove to Horsham – where we used to go quite a lot before we had the children and found a Beefeater for lunch. In the main I loathe those sort of establishments – the food is mediocre, the service can be a gamble and whilst not expensive they are not exactly budget prices either. But this one restored my faith in them 🙂 The service was great, they had a new menu with a great variety of dishes and the children behaved really well which made it a great success. Ady even suggested that we start a new practise of going out for lunch with the kids once a month which will be really nice. As we eat our dinner once they have gone to bed they only really eat lunch with us – and often I eat mine on the go so we don’t really do sit down meals as a family – which will change as they get older but it is a good exercise for them to get used to eating in restuarants anyway so I think that is something we will be doing.

We came home via my parents as Davies wanted to see Granny and Grandad but they were not in so we have had a productive afternoon here instead. Ady watched football while supervising the kids playing with magic sand while I totally cleared out their bedrooms. They have been dusted and hoovered, all rubbish removed, homes found for all the various toys which stay in their rooms, soft toys bagged up and put in the loft, space created for them to actually play in their rooms, their little bedroom Christmas trees dismantle and put away and I am feeling very industrious and organised.

I still have our room to tackle – but that was due it’s annual wardrobe clear out anyway so that is fine. I clear my clothes of anything which had not been worn since last year or is worn out and try to create new outfits and semblance of order in the drawers and cupboards too. It usually works for a while when I dress in my dream clothes of skirts and smart jumpers for about a month or so before slipping back into my old habit of jeans and v necked tops again! Ady has also vowed to clear out the cupboard under the stairs and finish sorting the kitchen out to create some more storage so we are feeling like we might live in an organised house for a bit!

And that’s it for now… we have nothing planned as such for tomorrow – probably a bit more house tidying and I want to create some job lists for myself for the next couple of weeks. Education wise I am totally relaxed at the moment – I believe I am due a mad panic around mid February so I will relax until then and worry about curriculums, workbooks and whether I am raising illiterate children then 🙂

A New Year search party not being sent out to track me down! I’m here and will blog tomorrow!!

Happy New Year one and all – may you wish a good 2004 goodbye and welcome an even better 2005 in 🙂

A quick post to assure Jax and anyone else worrying that I am still here and fine and will be back with a vengence to my three posts a day average again pretty soon 🙂

It’s been pretty busy really – a sort of extended Christmas cos Lynda (our old nanny from when we lived in Machester – although she became much closer than that over the course of the year or so she was with us) and her husband Stuart came down for three nights so we have crammed as much time spent with them as possible into their trip. My friend Kerry – who moved to Norfolk at Halloween has also been down for a week staying with her parents in Brighton and she, her husband and their two girls EL and K met up with us at Rachel’s yesterday afternoon as well. Hopefully it’s all gone quiet again for a bit as I have some pondering, introspection and reflecting I wish to do and need some quiet time and access to my blog to do it 😉

Tarly has now developed a full range of symptoms for a text book case of H,F&M so my diagnosis was correct – which is good that we know what it was, but bad that she now has had it, as despite never seeing it documented anywhere or confirmed by medical experts I remain convinced it is a virus which you keep in your system and returns to plague you whenever your immune system is crashing due to other illness – Davies first had it over two years ago but whenever he gets poorly he always gets a crop of mouth ulcers. Now Tarly has it I imagine we will have the same with her too.

She is much better today though – on Tuesday she was barely able to eat and veered from being okayish to being really sad and just wailing and clinging. Yesterday morning she was much the same, but I went off to Tescos to remedy the no food situation and picked up some baby rice cakes for her. Once persuaded to try one she ate most of the packet and perked up no end. Lynda and Stuart were here while I was at Tescos, then I took the children to Rachel’s (which in retrospect was probably a bit selfish as there were three other children there so I really hope Tarly hasn’t infected anyone else 🙁 ) while Ady cleaned out, or perhaps excavated would be a better description – the pit that was my car 🙂

E was out with his Dad so Davies and EL had a lovely time playing together – his first words to her were ‘E, I’ve really missed you!’ (aww!), while babies K and A were cooed over by Tarly, Kerry, Rachel and I caught up with chats and tea. Very nice. Kerry then left to continue her round of visiting as they are going back to Norfolk today – I know just how she felt as we used to do the exact same thing when we came down for visits – run around ragged and end up being glad to go back to Manchester for a rest! Ady then came to pick us up as we had walked round there and he stayed for a coffee and played with our kids while I had a cuddle of baby A. Andrew (Rachel’s dh) and E then arrived home so the kids all had a quick run around together before we left to come home.

My parents arrived shortly after we got home as I had said they could pop in to say goodbye to Lynda and Stuart who were coming over for dinner. There were many hints dropped about them staying for dinner too, which we ignored as we have been a but pissed off with them recently turning up, sitting around and being waited on hand and foot without any offer of help, washing up, bringing anything to contribute etc – they used to do the same when they stayed with us up North and I used to get really fed up with it them too 🙁 When it came to it though as usual I had cooked more than enough food for all six of us and as they were showing no signs of going home I ended up inviting them – which they accepted with a little too less gratitude! They all left at about 11pm ish.

I think Ady has spent just a bit too much time in my Mum’s company of late – he is getting really low level hacked off with her. I probably accept her and all her oddities as she has always been the same and I accepted a long time ago she was not going to change, she is not being deliberately malicious and I could either get all wound up about it and suffer or let it go and be laid back – I chose laid back 🙂 She does tend to try and huddle in a corner with Ady and get him to join in with being critical of me though, which he really struggles with. Maybe it’s just classic Mother in Law irritation – I’m sure spending a bit less time with them when everyone goes back to work will help! And he has offered to cook tomorrow night instead of getting a takeaway so he can’t be that cross with her!

Well once again I have been a little less brief than planned! Julie and the twins (pre warned about HF&M) are due any moment so I need to change a very stinky nappy and get the kettle boiling!

Back later, probably!

Yep, we have that traditional annual quandry of a house packed to bursting with ‘food’ but nothing to actually construct a proper meal from! Tonight we have eaten jacket potatoes and posh chicken nuggets 🙂

A pretty good day today all things considered. Over to Mum & Dad’s for the day and Lynda and Stuart came over too. The only downside was Tarly not being too well. She has a very ulcerated tongue (Joyce, I am sure will sympathise…) which is making her a bit crotchety, difficult to eat or drink with and generally not her usual sunny natured happy go lucky self. My theory (and you knew there would be one!) is that Davies caught hand, foot and mouth about 2 years ago while he was at nursery – he was diagnosed by the GP and since then everytime he has any sort of illness or gets run down generally he comes down with these little mouth ulcers and complains of a sore mouth – he also gets really odd smelling breath too – I know that HF&M is some sort of strain of the herpes virus so I am guessing it is one of those things which stays in your system like cold sores do and strikes when your immune system is low. So after he had this flu he ended up with his usual sore mouth and small crop of ulcers – which have now cleared up and now Tarly has them – so I think she has caught it from him 🙁 Convoluted and possibly nonsense but my theory just the same!

So she has veered between being fine and running about loving all the adult attention on offer, and curling up into one or other of me or Ady and crying – poor baby 🙁

By 5pm she had clearly had enough and was asking to come home, so we left everyone there and home we came. She then perked up again, had another relapse and is currently asleep in a very restless and unlikely to last manner. Depending on the night she has I might take her to the docs tomorrow, but I know from Davies’ experience that there is little or nothing they can do to treat it anyway, and hopefully she will be on the up again by tomorrow.

Other stuff? Davies got a magic kit (including wand, a couple of card tricks and a set of marked cards, several disappearing coin tricks and so on) for Christmas from Rachel, which has proved a bit of a hit with him. Wearing his little wizzard outfit he put on a little show for everyone with many an ‘abracadabra’ and a wave of his wand – and a very tolerant audience! I recall being quite into magic tricks myself as a child, although I would have been somewhat older as I was reading the ‘how to’ book myself. But this does seem to have captured his imagination and theatrical nature – so expect lots of ‘pick a card, any card!’ next time any of you meet him 🙂

More other stuff – had a play with my facial salon spa thingy today and it’s fab! My skin is all velvety smooth and glowy – why I ldon’t look a day over erm 30 🙂 One of my NYR will have to be to set aside a night a week to do Nic pampering and we’ll see if I can stave off the aging process a bit 🙂

Right, I have at least 14 other things I should be doing (writing some stories, doing some 2redboots stuff on at least three books I have thought would be great for it, taking the load of washing out of the machine and starting to dry it, writing all the birthdays and stuff on the two new calendars for next year, looking at Jax’ cv etc etc etc) so will leave it there and be getting on with it – or going to bed!

Knew I’d forget this! But as this is supposed to be a HE blog perhaps I should mention it 🙂

Following on from Davies helping me yesterday while I tried to sort the playroom into some sort of order, I was dealing with all the Christmas food such as twiglets, cheesie biscuits and the chocolate mountain. I started to seperate them into sweet and savoury and had a bash at describing the difference to Davies. Given that I came across as some sort of thesarus (no, not a dinosaur 😉 ) and could only use further words he also needed defining to explain the difference I didn’t think it had gone in, but today on the way home in the car he suddenly started talking about sweet, sour and savoury 🙂 (which was all the more impressive as I had not linked sour into the whole sweet and savoury thing anyway).

I am sure one of the pedants can put me straight about them not all being correct opposite descriptive words but he did a grand job of categorising all the foods I could think of into one or the other – including a few trick ones!

Lynda was saying again tonight how amazed she is by his general knowledge and thought processes – I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, it’s at times like these when I just *know* that HE with all it’s opportunities to follow whatever tangent he wanders off on is so totally the right path for us 🙂

How when I have Ady around I blog rather a lot less! We had a serious chat today about what we really, really want out of life and where we would like the next year to take us. No real conclusions drawn but a definite agreement that what we value over and above anything else is spending time together – both as a couple and with the children as a family. Not altogether sure where this leads us, but we keep going in big circles and coming back to the same idea of some sort of business… will blog further when we have more than random thoughts floating around. This time of year always has me asking lots of questions of myself. I have no issues with getting older particularly (and at 31 next week I don’t even really consider myself old anyway!) but I guess its a bit of an overhang from childhood where I always felt a bit sad and melancholy when my birthday came round as it meant that was it for me again ’til next Christmas.

Christmas always leaves a slight feeling of over indulgence and anti climax – whether you have had a good one or not it always feels a bit obscene in hindsight just how much money was spent and food was consumed – won’t change it for next year of course, but it is a small period of a lot of excesses. Then New Year comes which always seems like an excuse to beat oneself up over all ones failings and make ludicrous promises to improve beyond recognition – which last until at least the second week in January! Of course everyone is a whole year older at the beginning of a new year, but having a birthday in early January means not only are you actually a year older, but your specific age goes up one too. All of which conspires to make you really re-evaluate your life.

So my evaluation is in the main a positive one – which I will no doubt be sharing at some point in the next couple of weeks when Ady goes back to work and I have time on my hands again 🙂

Anyway, back to today! Over to Chris and Julie’s fairly early to drive onto a local area where we had a brisk winter walk. Very nice actually – it was an area where Ady lived in his teens attached to his job as a gamekeeper junior (whatever the correct term for such a postition is – underkeeper or something I think!) so it was a literal walk down memory lane for him, and a chance to run around in some fresh air for the kids.

Some pics follow:

Scarlett got a bit upset at one point because Davies was holding Maisie’s hand instead of hers but other than that it was all very enjoyable! After that we popped into Chichester where Lush were offering a suberb bargain of a free Christmas box gift (worth about 25 quid) when you spent over £15 🙂 Then back to Chris and Julie’s for tea and chats. The kids charged round playing while we had a defrost infront of the fire before heading home for tea.

Lynda and Stuart arrived in Littlehampton this afternoon so they came over this evening – gave the children some pressies of books which went down very well, then Lynda sat with Davies for ages reading him a bedtime story, then had a drink with us, then left to go back to their hotel. Tomorrow we are all over at Mum and Dad’s as they have more room – and we’ve done with being hostesses too!

Hope you all had the very merriest of merry Christmases. We had a really nice day, the kids were asleep by 7pm on Christmas Eve (possibly the last time ever in their lives!), the presents were removed from hiding places and places under the tree with snowy (well okay self raising flour!) Santa footprints leading from the fireplace to the tree, a huge indian takeaway was consumed and much alcohol drunk!

Scarlett woke back up again at about 11pm, which meant there was much hurried concealing of gifts under the tree with blankets 🙂 Mum and Dad left at 11.30pm and I took Tarly up to bed with me for a brief time while Ady rearranged the lounge and did the footprints, then he had to bring her back downstairs again as she was being really loud and lairy and was either going to wake Davies or get really shouted at by me so he sat with her ’til about 2am when she fell asleep.

Davies woke just before 7am (again probably the latest Christmas Day waking we’ll be getting for a fair few years!) and his first words from his bed shouted to me were ‘Mummy, Mummy, he’s been!’ He brought his pillowcase into our bed where he opened the bits and pieces in there and was shocked at being allowed to eat the chocolate coins so early in the morning. At 7.30am I sent Ady to fetch Scarlett up so she could join in and we all arrived downstairs at about 8am.

Davies opened the biggest box first – which was the Peter Pan Island (well the box for it, the actual thing was readymade and waiting in the playroom), which he was totally and utterly and completely delighted with 🙂 So much so he didn’t actually want to open any more pressies and just wanted to play with that – bless him 🙂

He was coerced into opening the rest and was a perfectly grateful and happy little lad, Scarlett similarly was astounded at the sheer volume of pressies all for ‘Tarly???’ and they spent about 2 hours altogether opening, exclaiming with delight, stopping to play, eating breakfast, eating chocolate and generally being lovely. They both tried some Bucks Fizz – predicatably Davies was not keen but Tarly loved it 🙂 She has been drinking Baileys (heavily diluted with milk) all week and loves it!

I finally persuaded them to get dressed and at midday my parents and Frazer arrived. More pressie exchanging ensued – Frazer’s gifts of the Dora house for Tarly and the wooden pirate ship for Davies were very well receieved! Davies and I then set his ship and Island up in his bedroom with a sea playmat so that when the twins arrived later nothing would get lost or broken. Davies spent ages up there with various adults in shifts playing with him – suffice to say he is very happy with his gifts.

Scarlett similarly loves the Dora house. It is excellent actually – very good quality and IMHO worth the money. You can get various add on bits and pieces such as furniture and character sets which we will start to collect for her on various occassions, but she is delighted with it – the Dora obsession continues…

Chris, Julie and the twins arrived just before 2pm, in time to join in with the buffet food I had been cooking on and off all morning. They stayed a couple of hours during which Davies had a bit of a moment – he complained about being hungry (although he didn’t want any of the wide variety of food offered) and didn’t quite know what to do with himself. ‘Mummy, I’m not having a very good Christmas’ 🙁 What he actually wanted was for me to stay upstairs with him playing with his pirate ship and Island but it was not really practical with a houseful of people and not really what I wanted to do either. Although he didn’t come right out and say it he just wanted everyone to go home! It was too many people in too small a house and probabably just a bit too much attention for him. I do know where he was coming from, much as I love Christmas I also love January when it is all over for another year and we can get on with our daily lives again – I feel the same about holidays really – I love the anticipation, I love being on holiday but equally by the end of it I am glad to get home, sleep in my own bed and get back to my own regular routines! I manage to cajole him out of it anyway and he was fine again later.

They were both asleep very quickly again last night and we had a pleasant enough evening with Mum and Dad watching Christmas Day telly!

Today I wanted to have a low key, at home playing with their presents kind of day. So that’s what we did. Ady played with them this morning while I sorted the playroom out a bit to fit in most of the new stuff they have got – some can stay in the lounge for a bit longer! Then Mum and Dad arrived for lunch after which Mum and I went into town while Dad and Ady minded the kids and watched football.

Only three shops were open in town – WHSmiths, Debenhams and Woolworths! We did manage to make purchases in all three though! Mum bought me a cd in Woolies and I got Davies a couple of half prices jumpers, in Smiths she bought me four books for my birthday and in Debenhams she bought herself a leather coat which was half price as her pressie from my Dad. So quite a result 🙂

Home again and Davies and I played with a couple of his pressies – a make your own window sticker kit and the Usborne Make these dinosaurs book which was nice. They have now been packed off to bed, Mum and Dad have gone home and we have just enjoyed our roast partridge dinner!

Pressies for Nic? I got the Trinny & Susanah book which I had asked for, some Lush perfume I had asked for, Tom Jones & Jools Holland cd I had asked for, loads pf liqueur chocolates, calendar and off his own back a bubble spa bath machine thingy and a facial spa kit (sauna, mud pack warmer, exfoliator etc) both of which would normally be cop out, stored in a cupboard somewhere pressies from most bloked but were actually very well thought out and I am really chuffed with. I adore my baths – the jet thing is great, if a little noisy and extreme with its jets 🙂 I have not played with the facial spa thing yet – tomorrow I plan to have a good go with that!

Ady got a DAB digital radio, which he bought himself and totally adores! I also got him various bits and pieces – socks, pants, a map reader gadget, aftershave, chocolate and so on and a really cool make your own mug kit which I got Davies to write ‘Daddy’ on and draw a little picture of Ady on – which is his favourite present 🙂

So I think that’s everything caught up over the last couple of days… tomorrow we are going for a brisk winter walk with Chris and Julie followed by lunch at their house. In the afternoon Lynda and Stuart will hopefully be arriving so we will either be seeing them tomorrow afternoon / evening or seeing them on Tuesday when they come over to Mum & Dad’s (they have more room and we’re all hostessed out!) for the day. On Wednesday Kerry (who moved to Norfolk at Halloween) and her girls are down for the week and meeting us at Rachel’s house for a catch up. So it is looking like being one of those real Christmasses where you really do catch up with family and friends and enjoy being together.

Below are various pics, hover over them to get a description if they are not self explanatory. Can’t be arsed to put them into the body of the blog, sorry 🙂

And finally thank you to Karen 😉 for the gifts! Very astute on the one for me and Ady! And to my CBR Secret Santa – thank you very much, we are planning to take it for a virgin flight and will post pics tomorrow!

To not blog tomorrow, although having kept the receipt I may be returning that intention for an exchange 🙂 So here it is, Merry Christmas, The Goddard Family are having fun 🙂

So far we are having a lovely day. Up early to collect my parents for us to all go out to breakfast together (Little Chef – but actually an excellent breakfast!), then we walked round Bognor to get the few very very very last minute things – Mum and Dad went off together, I took Davies and bought some pillowcases for the children to decorate instead of stockings, Ady took Scarlett to choose a replacement for the card he had got me from them and has hidden so well he can’t find it 🙂

I worked in Bognor for a year or so a few years ago as the manager of a well known card retailer. The girl who used to be the Assistant Manager and I were very close (I took a chance on employing her as she had been unemployed for a few years and had no real experience but she proved excellent and was promoted to Assistant Manager and even offered my job when I left). She left shortly after I did and went to run a spiritual and alternative gift shop down the road. To my delight, there she was still in there so many hugs and kisses and Christmas wishes and addresses exchanged to meet up in the new year. So that was lovely.

Then we delivered our last couple of Christmas cards, with Mum & Dad still in the back of the car with us. One to an elderly couple who Ady used to do gardening for years ago, who also know Dad, so that was nice. Then one to some friends who love just round the corner but we have only met up with once since we’ve been home. Arranged for them to pop round on Boxing Day for a proper catch up.

Then home. I have made about 200 mince pies (which have already had a big dent made in the pile – thanks Dad 😉 ), Mum & Ady made the pillow cases all festive with Davies & Scarlett using glue, glitter, feathers, sparkling bits and pieces and the last few remaining bits from the MP Christmas craft kit from last Christmas! I was called upon to draw an angel on Davies’ and Dora and Boots on Tarly’s – which I made a bit more festive by adding Santa hats too!

Mum & Dad have popped home for their last few things to do before returning here later for a takeaway and excavating the pressies from all the hiding places around the house to put under the tree. We will also be faking snowy Santa footprints using icing sugar and a wellyboot template up and down the stairs from the chimney.

I can’t quite bring myself to actually turn the PC off for the weekend so I will be around, peeking when I get the chance, but incase it is a couple of days before I blog again…

To each and every one of you a very Merry Christmas. I hope the day brings you all you wish for yourselves. However you celebrate and indeed whatever it is Christmas means to you in terms of what you celebrate I wish you all peace, joy and love…xxx

Further to something going on over on Jax’s blog is something I have been considering of late too.

It seems that the whole ‘three’s a crowd’ thing can relate to a mother and her two children at times.

I am very aware that although I quite categorically do not have a favourite child at any given time there is perhaps a favoured one. My relationship with them both is clear and seperate – while I might refer to them here as ‘the children’ they are quite definitely people in their own right and I have a relationship with them each as well as being their mother.

Now the dynamics of these relationships should probably never even be compared and contrasted. Aside from anything else there are so many differences in them – gender, age, birth order, temprement and so on. One of them is very like me, so I can recognise and relate to traits in their personaility and either enjoy and like them, or clash horribly with them. One is very like Ady, so again the aspects of his personality which I find very attractive, I enjoy in them, the ones which make me want to throttle him also bring out the worst in me when exhibited by a small person too.

It does seem that if one is being lovely then the other is being horrid to compensate. Despite the fact they are close and also close in age they do have different needs and both are very good at asserting those needs and demanding that they get their one to one attention – this is good in some respects – bad when they are being assertive at the same time 🙂 As yet we have found very few activities which the three of us really can enjoy together – they are either too advanced for Scarlett, too babyish for Davies or simply require my attention to two children simultaneously which I can’t do (makes you wonder how teachers manage eh? No? Oh yeah, that’s right – they don’t 🙂 )

I like to think I am pretty evenly matched in terms of showing preference to one or the other at times, I do not consistantly support either one of them all the time. I appreciate and understand Davies’ frustration at having an often annoying younger sibling as I once had (and still do have 🙂 ) one myself. So I know how much it pisses you off to make up a big train track and have someone tramp through the middle of it, or run off with your crayons while you are drawing or noisily demand attention the instant you get some books down and ask to learn some letters.

I also know that at Scarlett’s age Davies had me all to himself for hours at a time to sit and do jigsaws, read books, have cuddles, learn colours and so on. There was undivided attention from two adults a lot of the time and he enjoyed being the very centre of our universe for over two years.

There are immense benefits to being a sibling too. I have been watching them this week, playing together and really enjoying each other’s company and know that they are so important to each other and I love that. I once heard someone say that every parent has a favourite child, whether they admit it of not. From moment to moment I guess there are times when I do have a preference for which one I’d rather be locked in a small room with, but in the main I really can say I don’t feel I do have a favourite but I do go through periods of getting on with one better than the other.

This is late and rather wine fuelled. I am sitting with the Christmas tree looking all festive, watching the clock tick round to Christmas Eve and anticipating the looks on their faces over the next couple of days.

This is likely to be added to but this is what I’ve got so far…

1. Refresh what used to be quite a good memory for rules of written English. My grammer, punctuation and so on used to be really quite good. The one teacher who I recall being quite influential in my schooldays was a bit of a stickler for it and disliking school for many reasons I found comfort in the ‘rules and laws’ of the language. It is pure laziness that prevents me from doing it, well that and a tendancy to run away with my words and type as I think instead of constructing proper and cohesive sentences and paragraphs. It is something I am sorry to have lost, would like to get back both from my own pov as a blogger, something I want to pass to the children as we get more into writing and reading and something which bugs me about myself a little too.

2. Take our financial situation a bit more seriously. I do have the capacity and ability to earn money and I really need to pull my finger out and do it.

3. Do enough planning and recording of our HE journey to satisfy me that we are doing it and can prove it. That is all. Do no more than that as it serves only to stress me out and is actually a hinderance to the children learning rather than a help.

For just how bloody cold that gel stuff is when it’s smeared all over your belly for those ultra sounds 🙂 Yep, he came out and said that he understood now why I winced a bit when they squeezed it all over me – also the 15 minute wait to be called was bad enough for him without the full to bursting bladder that I have been sitting with so in all I think it was a good experience for him 🙂 And he didn’t even go there with the fact getting his bits out infront of an audience made him more than a little uncomfortable….

So the good news is that he is fine. No cancer, no suspicious lumps or tumours simply a very common side effect of the snip, which the doc assured him will continue improving over time as it was only 8 months or so ago he had it done. It would appear that it is quite common, but is also quite ‘glossed over’ when snips are being discussed at planning stage. Although to his credit he still said he would have had it done, even knowing about this as it was the better option when all possible permanent birth control methods were discussed after Tarly was born. So huge sighs of relief, glad its been done before Christmas and a bit of a bugger having read up on our life insurance which covers serious illness that our mortgage is not about to paid off after all 😉

The rest of today was a bit of a blur really, we both admitted to having been more focused on the scan than either of us had let on – even to ourselves. First thing he went off to work while I took the kids to the post office to collect a parcel which hadn’t been delivered yesterday cos we were out (thank you Mrs Bowlzer 🙂 Secret Santa lives at your postcode does he 😉 xxx), I also did that typical thing of going into Woolies at the last minute and picking up a couple of last minute impulse buy pressies for Ady which I didn’t really need to do, but made me feel more festive 🙂

Home again and Julie and the twins came over for lunch. Davies was totally overexcited and ran around shrieking for most of their visit – in the end I sent him to sit on the steps while I calmed down after catching him encouraging the others to squirt the juice from mandarin segments at each other 🙁 Scarlett & Jack spent ages emptying all the books off the bookshelf, then while Julie and I were tidying them up they went into the playroom and emptied literally every puzzle box out into a big pile 🙁 That did need tidying up straight away before any pieces got lost so I spent nearly 1/2 an hour sorting them out and putting them away again up high. Why is it you only need to introduce one extra child into an environment for total havoc to be caused? My two would never dream of doing that on their own, and neither would Jack and Maisie, but the instant they all get together they egg each other on like lads on a stag night to down pints in one and have ‘jushst one more for the road’.

And then, to coin a phrase, we had lunch 🙂

Ady arrived shortly afterwards when we had settled the kids down infront of a Brum video. When Davies was about 18 months old he was seriously into Brum, we’ve got all the videos, had various Brum related toys and puzzles and a couple of items of clothing. Scarlett was into it to a lesser degree at around the same age. Jack did a Brum puzzle when they were here last week and has been Brum spotting ever since. So that captivated them all for half an hour and made them calm down a bit too while we chatted about Christmas Day arrangements. Julie left and Dad arrived to mind the kids while we went off to the hospital.

Hassle parking and then a wait in the scan room anyway meant we were gone for about an hour but all seemed peaceful and okay when we got back. Davies was dressed as Jack and Dad was being the Giant and ‘Fee, Fye, Fo, Fumming’ all over the place while Davies dressed in the top and hat from his Peter Pan outfit was attacking him with the foam sword. A scene I would have shuddered at a while ago and one which still didn’t exactly warm my heart, but I guess a totally normal and acceptable game for a 4yo boy and his Grandad…

Mum arrived too and despite huge hints about inviting them for dinner we didn’t so they have gone off home. We are spending all day and evening with them tomorrow and Christmas Day and both wanted a bit of an easy and early night tonight – we are going out for breakfast tomorrow and I don’t think anyone will be sleeping past about 5am on Saturday so a late night tonight would be a bad idea…

Thanks again for all your thoughts, well wishes and reassurances over the last couple of weeks about Ady. It has really helped 🙂

Feeling fairly unaffected by the whole festive thing today. It always seems to happen in the last couple of days leading up to Christmas that you suddenly forget it is infact Christmas and it feels distinctly unChristmassy….

Went to Sainsburys first thing this morning as although we were very organised in getting all the Christmas food last week we mananged to fill the house with food without having any actual dinners for this week. Last night was a raid the freezer for sausages night so today I whizzed round and got dinners and the last few bits we need for the big day. It was brave and possibly a bit mad to attempt this jaunt with both children but they were positively angelic and sat in the trolley all the way round being little cherubs. They watched the scrum that is the fruit and veg aisle three days before Christmas with old folk scrambling to get sprouts like there is a national shortage with wide eyes, smiled at all the old people who wanted to pinch their cheeks and tell them how cute they were and ask them if they are looking forward to seeing Santa and asked for apples and bananas when I promised them treats for being good (which is probably cos they are actually sick of crips, biscuits and sweets but never mind!).

Dropped Jenny’s Christmas card in, dropped the shopping back at home and then went over to Dad’s. I had planned to get him to show me where an old couple Ady used to do gardening work for had moved to so we could take them a Christmas card but ended up staying there for lunch and most of the afternoon instead. Frazer was there and he played with the kids for ages while me and Dad sat and chatted, which was really nice.

Dad has this habit of really teasing the children, he used to do it with me and Frazer and has done it with every child he has ever met. Scarlett is getting better at taking it from him, but it does tend to upset Davies. I am torn between feeling sorry for him and thinking that it is no bad thing that he gets a bit of flack from someone. Ady does not do that classic Dad thing of teasing the kids really, he is more the good cop to my bad one. The thing is I would rather they got teased *nicely* by someone who loves them and they get used to it than dwelling on some hardcore nasty teasing by for example other kids in the playground…hmm not an easy one this really.

Home again and although they are both asleep neither of them are sleeping very soundly, I predict a bad night!

Tomorrow Julie and the twins are coming over and then Dad is looking after the children while I go with Ady for his scan – so fingers crossed it is all okay, and that they are able to confirm that to us tomorrow without waiting for a verdict too.

Weather permitting we are planning a walk round to deliver our very last Christmas card and look at all the various houses decorations tomorrow afternoon once it gets dark. The children will really enjoy that. Then on Friday Ady is planning to stay home with us, as there really is nothing for him to do at work, so we are going out for breakfast with my parents first thing and then have no concrete plans for the rest of the day other than keeping a balance between the children looking forward to Christmas Day but not exploding 🙂

I’m also working on some New Years Non resolutions at the moment which I will probably post in the next couple of days. More a couple of self improvement things for me than anything else but at least one of them is something I could do with some recommendations on.

This cold / flu thing really is taking it out of me. I keep thinking I have shaken it off only to feel crap again by the evening. So glad I was organised about Christmas and with the exception of two last Christmas cards I need to get to people (one of which is your’s Jenny so expect it shoved through your door maybe tomorrow!) I don’t actually have anything Christmas related to do this week.

After the earlier blog I made 48 mince pies – I belive there to be roughly 8 left 🙂 Ady loves mince pies! That did only take up about a quarter of the mincemeat though (I buy cheapish mincemeat then add chopped cherries, walnuts and brandy to it, a trait I have inherited from my mother who always always has to modify or add stuff to things she buys in the false hope it makes them appear home crafted, individual and a ‘bit special’!! Wouldn’t be surprised if my hair is really blonde, she’s just been dying it for me while I slept all these years!) and I have one more pack of premade pastry left, so I will either have to actually make some pastry, buy some more ready made or have half a tub of mincemeat kicking around the fridge til March when I decide to chuck it out 🙂

Kids were fairly unruly this afternoon, a combination of too much chocolate, too much Nick Jnr and not nearly enough maternal attention I suspect. I console myself HE wise that if they were at school then they would have been being ignored by me and sat infront of TV with chocolate this week anyway like all the schooled children I know 🙂

I had plans for tomorrow which I am just not feeling up to doing, so I have dug out the Christmas crafty books I got from the book people way back (July, when Christmas starts for me I believe 🙂 ) and think we might have a bit of a snowflake making, home made tree dec fest here tomorrow instead. And maybe a bit more festive baking.

And that’s it really. I have various things I really should be doing but can’t actually be arsed to do, so I think I’ll let myself off due to sickness and look forward to a nice quiet weekend 😉

I have been a cross person today mainly. It started badly cos I had been having a nasty dream in which Ady had run off and left me so when he woke me up I was already in a bad mood with him! Then he went off to work and the kids were both really demanding of my time while I was trying to get the house into some sort of order before Rachel arrived (she is very houseproud and although I know she doesn’t do it I always worry she might have some sort of dust detector in her handbag!). Hence several occassions of me shrieking ‘WHAT????!!!!!!!’ when one of them shouted ‘Mummy’ for the seven hundreth time! Also my nose has become a snot factory requiring blowing at least once every fourteen seconds which is noisy, yuckky, gets through lots of tissues and is starting to get sore (TMI? tough!)

Anyway, that all calmed down once Rachel arrived and three cups of tea and chats later I am feeling less like there should be booing and hissing everytime I enter the lounge, but still quite snotty. Baby A slept for the whole time they were here and Davies, Scarlett and E played fairly well together. Davies is now dressed as a space man building a big wooden train track, Scarlett has collected all the dummies in the house and growls at anyone who thinks they might take them off her and I have intentions of going to make some mince pies and maybe even some cheesey star biscuits I spotted a recipe for. Should probably think about lunch too really…