Ikea and Insanity!

Iggy Pop and Ian Dury…

Ikea cos I’m going later and very fortunately it corresponds with the letter I in the alliterative titles challenge, but need to blog about insanity so have to use it now rather than after I have been!

Today would have been Monster’s first day at pre-school, he would have started going to pre-school attached to the local school every weekday morning until next September when he would have started for real. Today has been a timely reminder that we are doing something different and one of those icky days when you question just why you are doing it!

We were all up and about early so as my dear parents have failed to meet my request to mind the kids for the day while I go pressie shopping for Monster’s birthday next week I decided to make good use of the early hour, the lack of school age kids about and go into town to get a few bits for him. We reached town with no traffic hold-ups and found a great parking space – so far so good! Into Woolies where I bought them a new pair of wellies each for the October Dorset trip (near a beach and on a farm – I think wellies will be footwear for the whole week!) I then spotted a huge selection of fancy dress so picked up a fairy outfit and some ballerina slippers for Teeny (to put away for her birthday which is not till December by which time they are bound to have sold out) and a Peter Pan outfit for Monster. He has wanted one for over a year and I have pondered over the Disney store one and rejected it at £25 as too pricey, I have also looked at them on Ebay too but never found one that didn’t go way above what I was willing to pay. Woolies had them for £15 which if it gets the volume of wear the rest of the dressing up outfits have done will be a bargain. I shoved it on the pushchair and thought I had got away without him seeing it but as we were paying he started asking what the green thing with a red feather was (like he didn’t know!) I told him it was his birthday next week and he didn’t want to spoil any surprise presents so to forget about it. He just pasted this massive grin on his face and didn’t mention it again – very heartwarming.

Sadly the cute behaviour didn’t last 🙁 In Superdrug the checkout lady looked at him and said ‘ooh someone’s ready for school’ ‘erm no actually he’s not four yet so he wouldn’t start till next year’ – not an outright lie but also not the time (with a big queue behind me) to start talking about HE – proved right when she said her grandson had started today and was really excited – as was her daughter to be ‘getting rid of him!’. Monster then proceeded to touch everything in every shop, wander off either infront of behind me, keep tugging on my hand and the pushchair and generally be horrid. He has also developed a new and very annoying habit of slapping me – not hard and not really meant maliciously but not acceptable just the same. I ended up getting him in the car and having quite a go at him about how if he didn’t want to go to school then he better start acting like he was able to be at home and be a good boy and learn stuff off me because if he couldn’t even learn decent behaviour from me then what hope did we have of anything else. I also told him that as he won’t go to school he is ‘special’ (I guess unusual would have been a better word but I was very cross) and that when people found out they would look at his behaviour more than other children’s and if it was lacking then they would assume it was because he doesn’t go to school – and he needs to. What he needs to do is behave so well that people think that not going to school is the best thing for him and it works really well. Perhaps making a 4yo boy responsible for the public face of HE is a bit much but in a way it is true – every time I complain about his behaviour or make even the slightest noise about needing a bit of time off from the kids, them being tiring or whatever the stock answer from everyone will always be to send them to school – get their edges knocked off, teach them to stand still, shut up and start working and give me six hours a day to myself too. He apologised, spent the return journey ‘thinking about his behaviour’ and when we got home said he was sorry and would try to behave better and make me and other people proud of him. This lasted until a friend called round just now and he spent the whole ten minutes Jim was here talking across us and attention seeking – grrrrrr! His behaviour is not even naughty as such, just a bit more silly and babyish than I would expect and very attention seeking.

I rang Rachel earlier to see how E had got on at his first day back at school – he didn’t want to go back and had quite a fit about it early this morning but went in fine and has been full of it since she collected him – she told me I don’t know what I’m missing not getting shot of the kids during the week – said nicely but I know that everyone who knows me and can see I am getting nearer and nearer to really needing a break from them is thinking the same thing. This is the first time I have not had at least one day a week off from the kids since I had them, it’s also the first time I have not been working or earning since I was 14 so I am feeling a bit like there is not much of me left for me. I know that this is something only I can change and that if I manage to get one of my many business ideas off the ground it would enable me to find a HE friendly person to have them perhaps one day a week to free me up to work unhampered and have some time off too -I just never seem to have the time to spend on all the things which need doing to get the businesses working.

Tonight I am off to Ikea with Julie but our plans for tomorrow have just been cancelled so I might try and snatch a couple of hours to make a job list to try and motivate myself a bit – it sounds a bit naive to say that earning a few extra quid and having a few childfree hours to myself would make all the difference but having had that life for a couple of years and thinking to myself that I truly did ‘have it all’ even at the time I know that if we could get back there I would appreciate it all the more…

Home cooked roast, Happy families and Half past nine!

Howard Jones, Happy Mondays & Housemartins…

After retiring very early last night and sleeping through till 7.15am this morning Ady, by contrast had a rather worse night! Teeny awoke at midnight or thereabouts and was still awake at 4am! He told me of this as he crawled into bed shortly afterwards – waking me specially to bestow this knowledge on me (we’re all about education us!). So I left the poor lamb to sleep till he woke naturally (well maybe slightly aided by runaway Teeny as she escaped when I was doing Monster’s milk!) at about 9.30am.

Amazingly for us we were still all out of the house shortly after 11 – and onto Ford Market – which would sound far grander than it actually is! It’s basically a market every Sunday on what was Ford Airfield before it became largely an industrial estate and site for Sunday markets! It has probably 100 stalls but many are the cliched market stalls selling mobile phone accessories, cheap clothing (think very small T shirts with ‘saucy’ slogans such as ‘come and have a go if you dare’ emblazoned across the chest area – classy!), at least 15 stalls selling rancid burgers, hotdogs or ‘hog roast’ pork carved with stuffing into a lump of french stick and those pine framed very brightly coloured prints of Winnie the Pooh and friends for sale. Amoung the tat are a few stalls selling nice stuff, on this occassion we didn’t actually buy anything except a bolt for the front door (yes Teeny escaped again yesterday – I was upstairs, Ady didn’t do the locking thing with the front door handle and she went looking for me and was found naked (just to enhance the neglected abandoned child air) on the pavement squawking Mumm meee!)). We then went over to Chris and Julie’s and spent a very nice couple of hours planning the holiday, talking about life philosophies and generally being a family, before calling in to see my parents on the way home.

So a nice but not much to report sort of day really, and here comes my aforementioned home cooked roast pork so I will bid you goodnight and continue my brain racking to come up with I bands (so far I have Iggy Pop!)…

Gallivanting Goddards!

the Go-Gos, Godley & Cream, Gilbert & Sullivan

Yesterday is probably best told using the picture entries below – just to mention they will make a lot more sense if viewed from the bottom up (must sort out entering them backwards next time so they can be read the right way up!). We went to Drusillas which was great as we have now justified our years membership by going three times – any additional visits between now and May 2005 are ‘free’! I always think that it is a bit overpriced as there is not a huge amount there, but I think the season ticket is worth doing as there is plenty there to use educationally if you are happy to dwell in certain places for longer – which means you don’t see everything in one visit, which is fine if you know you can go back without paying again (not sure that made sense but I know what I mean!). So yesterday we split a different way with Ady and Monster spending the first hour walking together while I pushed a sleeping Teeny round in her pushchair – nice for Monster to get Ady’s perspective of stuff on the animals as he points out different stuff to what I would and also nice for them to spend some time just the two of them (although we were only a few paces infront of them but ykwim!) Then the picnic and into the playgroundy bit for a play.

They have this fab sunken trampoline for under 6’s which is such a great idea – its ground level with the hole dug underneath so you can’t fall off it – so clever! The kids loved that and played for ages on the swings and swing boats. Monster has a ‘gold’ membership which I think was only a tenner more and entitles him to stuff like free panning for gold and go’s on the bigger rides and crafts – he was not up for the crafts (pretty busy there yesterday given the nice weather and back to school during the week) but had a bash at the gold panning (well okay I did!). Then a go on the train and an ice cream. There are animals at Drusillas but only small ones – in a real zoo it would be great to get a season ticket and spend a whole morning just observing the lions or whatever – the animals at Drusillas are not really of that nature but it would still be nice to get into the habit of going maybe fortnightly and watching the baby animals grow and so on. I think I might start to make more of an effort to get over there during the week.

Then home and Teeny was soon asleep (while I watched Grease – ah happy memories!). Monster was very tired and up in his bed when Mum and Dad arrived for a barbecue. He asked to come down and say hello, then he asked for some sausages and under promise of behaving he was allowed to put his shoes on, and a fleece over his pjs and come outside to join us. He was actually very good – despite monopolising me for most of the evening so I didn’t join in the conversations much. At one point we were looking at the stars and Mars when he started asking questions a bit beyond my very basic knowledge of such things so we went in and got the Children’s Encylopedia and looked up about the solar system, planets, the sun and so on. That knowledge satisfied (for now – lol!) he carried on turning the pages through dinosaurs, fish and animals, rain forests and so on. At this point he went and sat with my Dad who finished reading the whole book with him and answering his many questions. I asked my Dad whether he still thought it was right that he go to school next year when the only time he would be allowed to ask questions would be when he stuck his hand up and was allowed to talk – in amoung 30 other children all asking questions. No real answer was forthcomming – Dad is now just saying that he *should* go to school to quote ‘give you a break’. This was eagerly pounced on from him as during the week when I had asked Mum to have the kids for the day so I could go to work with Ady and get Monster’s birthday pressies I had said it would be nice to ‘have a day off to wonder round the shops without the kids’. Hmmm, yes it would be lovely to have the odd, even one whole day a week without them but I cannot see that as any sort of justification for sending them to school – for me the two just don’t gel at all…

Anyway, a very nice day had by all. I think me and Dad need to agree to disagree (and TBH it’s only ever me really who brings HE up so perhaps I should just leave it for now and let the children prove it as the right path as they get older and start actively being HE’d instead of still preschool age kids who just don’t go to preschool!). Today we are off to Chris and Julie’s via Ford Market – will see if there is a url later, if not will describe it when I blog later.


it was all too much for Monster who needed a (very cramped!) sit down! He was quite happy in here while Ady and Teeny went into the Bat cave, when they came out and laughed and took pictures of him he soon got out! Posted by Hello


We panned for gold – actually I enjoyed this more than them – I was still going long after they had lost interest – and would still be there now if it wasn’t totally the wrong height for grown ups to bend over and killed my back! Posted by Hello

Friday : fun, floods and family time…

Fun Boy 3, Five Star and Frankie goes to Hollywood!

Aided by a pretty good nights sleep I am always a far better Mummy, so up at 5.45am with Teeny, who snuggled into our bed for a further hour instead of trailing up and down the stairs every ten minutes from midnight I have increased patience and capacity for being nice to the offspring today!

Friday seems, accidentally to have become our day for not doing an awful lot. We tend to stay home and have a break from going out in the car, visiting other people, having friends over to us (to trash the playroom – grrr!). So first thing we built another giant brio track, then demolished it and built another design – this was inspired by a Brio catalogue arriving for Monster in the post as we were building – very timely! We then popped up to Boots for a few essential bits – some more Audiclear (the spray thingy that you use to clean your ears instead of poking with cotton buds – its fab and the kids love it!) a little dental mirror and scraper thingy set for the upkeep of my shiny white teeth (!) and a quick meander round the Brantano shoe shop shack that’s next door to Boots. Teeny feel asleep on the way home and enjoyed a nearly 2 hour nap which always bodes well for a decent nights sleep to follow strangely enough. Monster and I took the opportunity to get out a workbook to do while she slept – but got a bit side tracked with the finding of the pencil sharpner, the actual sharpening of the pencil (talk about how it worked, how long we could make the shavings etc etc etc), then did a couple of pages before getting distracted again by the eraser on the end of the pencil – first time Monster has seen one – so we did lots of ‘oops that’s wrong!’ then rubbing it out! I seem to recall making some good pictures by scribbling then rubbing patterns through them with a rubber as a kid – might try that sometime with Monster.

Lunch next, which Teeny woke up for, then we built a hotel from sticklebricks, with a lift, stairs, a boardwalk to walk out over the sea and a cafe! Currently they are enjoying water play – they have the tea set out, various containers and lots of water which they are pouring into things, drinking it, sploshing about on the carpet and making many puddles with – ah well, its only water! I am trying to be very relaxed about it all and seeing where the experiments take them. So far Monster has indentified that when a tissue gets wet it becomes see through and a wet tissue is far weaker and easier to tear than a dry one. He has established that a towel is more absorbant than a tissue and that some things can hold more water than others. I think the final experiment will be towels all round to see who can make their puddle disappear first!

I was inspired to take some photos earlier of the traintrack we built, the hotel and Teeny in her boots and poncho but a quick phonecall to Ady has established that he has the camera with him (why? not sure actually – he has a work camera so why he is wondering round with two I really don’t know!) so on the pretext of some art and colouring with the kids I have done a quick, very poor and very open to interpretation sketch of Teeny in the poncho wearing her new boots – will post a real pic sometime over the weekend when the full quota of cameras are returned to the house!

Have also been quite productive myself in ticking a fair few items off my to do list – have done the monthly open credit card bills and send of minimum payments by cheque task, have sent cheques for Legoland and Dorset cottages and changed our booking for London in a couple of weeks (I had booked three nights instead of 2!), I have got 2 phonecalls I really need to make too but can’t see the kids letting me do that withouth either following me and shrieking (their favourite phonecall diversion tactic) or taking the opportunity to take the water play one step further to claiming on the house insurance type experiments – neither particularly desirable!! Hopefully Ady will be home soon and I can escape to the cupboard under the stairs with the phone!

EO, Excellent day and Escapism…

Erasure and Europe (it’s the final countdown, de ne nee nee, de ne ne neneneh!)

So, Education, well that’s been the topic of the day hasn’t it. Monster would not actually start till next year anyway by virtue of being just two weeks younger than the cut off for this year, but as several of his antenatal group pals are that two weeks or more older off they trotted in their little uniforms with their names sewed in the backs to meet their fate today while their mummies wiped away a tear and said their silent goodbyes to their babies. And it was goodbye too as this is the beginning of their independance, the beginning of the widening of their horizons and learning that the world does not start and end with their parents ideas and beliefs (although we all strive to encorporate that in our HE anyway!), goodbye to having a cuddle and a kiss it better from Mummy when they fall and graze their knee, goodbye to running to the loo whenever they need a wee and having Mummy come to wipe their bum, goodbye to eating and drinking whenever they are hungry or thirsty, goodbye to having their ‘why’s’ answered on demand and goodbye to even being able to talk without sticking their hand up in the air and waiting for their audience, goodbye to being there to share all the days ups and downs, goodbye to being there to cheer when their smaller sibling uses the potty, goodbye to deciding that for the duration of the day you want to wear your pyjamas with your Woody cowboy hat and your flashing rudolph nose, playing with your brio constructing mammoth train tracks and honing your planning and engineering and fine motor skills, goodbye to childhood, freedom and simply being – hello to preparation for the adult world where the clock needs watching, there are set amounts of things to be covered, there are ‘windows’ for everything (that Bill Gates gets everywhere eh?) from playing to eating to art to reading to going for a wee. Erm, thanks but I think we’ll stay at home actually!

Excellent day, first thing I finally rang my friends in New Zealand – a call which was long overdue excusable only by the fact that everytime I thought ‘Ooh, I’ll ring Heather it has been gone midnight in NZ – or something like 3pm on a weekday when no one will be home! Had a lovely long chat, as always promising we will make it over there sometime soon – one day! We then went out and went round Littlehampton to buy me a poncho, where we enjoyed the fact that Monster was one of the only walking talking children around and he was utterly charming and funny, then onto Julie’s where we sat in the garden chatting while the kids played with the sandpit, the ride on toys, had races up and down the garden with the toy buggies, ate each others picnics, took turns on the seesaw, played with the dog and generally covered all sorts of school subjects just by playing and being children. We also arranged a weeks holiday in two holiday cottages in Dorset for mid October. Ady has already taken or booked all his holiday for this year but we will all go for the weekend, then Ady can work from there as his base instead of home, joining us each evening – sounds quite idyllic, on the beach, near to Dorchester and Weymouth, near a dinosaur museum and set on a working organic farm which welcome questions and participation from children – can’t wait!

Home then and Dade came over to mind the kids while I went to the dental hygenist – which actually I love – it’s like a beauty treatment! I drink a lot of tea and as I have not been for over a year my teeth were quite stained – they are now gleaming, sparkly white and feel so clean. I am full of good intentions to floss twice a day, clean them after every cup of tea and polish them on a daily basis but I know they will be back to normal within the week – smiled at everyone all the way home to show them off though!

Have loads going on in the next couple of weeks – next week I have at least three days at other people’s planned, an evening trip to Ikea with Julie and the following week is Monster’s fourth birthday (I can’t believe my little baby is 4 – or that there is another little baby since then who is nearly 2!), a trip to Legoland with two nights booked at a Travelinn in Bracknell, two further nights in London the next week with a London Eye trip already booked, and the week after that is the London MP meet… I love having a full diary!

Most fortuitously tomorrow is Friday as I have nothing planned and would have fretted till I was frantic about finding F words to fit!