I’ve got flatpack fingers!
 
Ady came back from work yesterday having been into Ikea – and like everyone who ever goes to Ikea he managed to come home with stuff we didn’t know we needed until he went there! He bought two huge freestanding kitchen units with slidy doors for the playroom. We have put one up and it is fab – the other one will be sorted tonight and then I’ll blog a picture of our new organised playroom and office! He also bought this huge green furry rug thing with two blow up inserts which create big hills in it to lounge about on or in the kids case bounce about on – doubt anyones mental image is anything like the actual thing so will blog a photo of that too later! The units were reduced from £100 and something each to £15 each and the rug from £50 odd to a fiver – so well within even our paultry budget! Now we are not going to be able to build Teeny a new bedroom upstairs and make her room into an office for me we will need to make this room as dual purpose as possible so my ‘close the doors and you wouldn’t even know there’s a computer in there’ type unit is going in favour of one of our (three!) dining tables from the old house as a desk which I can sit and write at as well as use the computer – this is our task for the weekend and will lose some crap, tidy the rooms and remove a table from the garage too which is all good! We also have this one day play to make the cupboard under the stairs a sort of playhouse for the kids. Its in the playroom and is pretty huge with a door on it – currently it houses a freezer, the chiller and assorted crap we intend to one day sell on ebay! If we took the big door off we could make a smaller one, add a couple of windows, put some lights in there and it would make a fab playhouse – of course by the time we actually ever do this the kids will be teenagers with no want or need for a playhouse, but the idea is nice!
 
So yesterday… well there was the locking out incident obviously but what else did we get up to? I managed to tick some stuff off my job list – Jax now has some logos and images which her DP is going to do clever stuff to, and some initial text for the website – so thats now in hand. I have finally set some advertising rates with built in discounts, series rates, early payment reductions and so on which are sort of cobbled together from a couple of competitors rates and some basic maths about how much it will cost to print. Today’s task is to get some more print rates and send some initial emails to gague interest about advertising in it, and a list for Monday of places to contact to see if they will take copies to distribute – like doctors surgeries etc. I might actually try and produce a daily joblist for all of next week, with very small managable tasks for each day to make me feel all good about what I’ve achieved – a grown up version of a star chart if you will!
 
We only left the house very briefly to buy bread for lunch from the corner shop yesterday, the rest of the time was spent with the kids building train tracks – they had wooden and plastic sets out. I am always amazed at how good Monster is at building tracks with curves, bridges and all sorts which actually match up and can have a train run round them, must take photos of his next efforts. The funny thing is once they are actually built he seems to lose interest – for him the fun is in the building them and getting it right, not the actual playing with the trains once they are done. Teeny is quite good with the wooden (brio type) one too. They also did some water play – which involved Teeny asking for water in some of her stacking cups and then they used it for all sorts of stuff, drinking, pretending it was a picnic, then they found a paint brush and painted things with it too,  good fun for them and lots of small puddles to be dealt with for me!
 
Late in the afternoon I decided to make some numbers to go up the stairs (an idea shamelessly stolen from someone else’s blog – I think Kirstys – really good one, thanks!) so I drew the numbers and coloured them in, both kids wanted to play too so they did some colouring in and the watched me laminate them. They are too big really so halfway though I stopped and will try again another time with some smaller ones as I really want Monster to start recognising numbers.
 
A good day really, I was very tired from a bad night with Teeny but did not really shout at the kids and they seemed to enjoy playing and be a bit better at getting on with it themselves. They are being quite good this morning too, although the current game is climbing the stairs with small toys then throwing them back down and squealing with laughter – wrong on so many levels – shouldn’t play on the stairs, don’t like throwing in the house, noise level is irritating and its only a matter of time before someone gets hurt! So off to make a cup of tea and maybe do something a bit calmer and quieter with them – E’s birthday party this afternoon and Ady is coming too so they probably need to conserve a bit of energy!

Just got locked out!

Have been in and out today pegging out washing and normally shove the keys in my pockets as I go out the door although Monster lets me back in the house again. This time I forgot the keys, but had shouted to Monster that I was going to peg the washing out and to let me back in so didn’t worry. A couple of minutes later saw me hands and knees alternatley shouting and peering through the letter box at Monster who was shouting back that he was in the downstairs bathroom (very specific that child!). Teeny was peering back at me through the letterbox and helpfully trying to post shapes from her shapesortet through to me. I did for a moment think she actually understood what I said when I asked her to pass me the keys which were tantalisingly close on the table but she ran off and came back with a piece of wooden train track.

Eventually after much yelling back and forth and begining to fear what Ady would say if he arrived home at 5.30pm to find me in the garden having been there for three hours while the kids ran rampage inside Monster came crawling round the corner into the hall with his pants and trousers round his ankles. He had been having a pooh and waiting for me to wipe his bum, which was what he had been shouting back but I could not make out! Not sure exactly what the lesson here was but it looked very funny with me on hands and knees outside and him on hands and knees inside (I refrained from the same state of undress as him, naturally!)

Ooh and my kite google ads are back!

And ooh look…

my google ads have changed! but curses I have been foiled in my bid for an irrelevant link – so PETER ANDRE, JAMIE LEE CURTIS, DERREN BROWN, TOM CONTI, KEITH CHEGWIN, DISCO, ROCKCLIMBING, HORSE RACING, TESCOS, LIVER PATE, PLEASURE, BRAZIL, BANANAS, BRIEFS, MANGO CHUTNEY.

cake decorating, banished from the bedrooms and shouting at other people’s children!

Yep, that was my day! This morning’s blog entry ended quite abruptly as the children were doing their usual act of not letting me be on the computer. A serious discussion ensued with talking about why mummy has to be on the computer (okay i said i was working not blogging but they don’t need to know that!) to work if I am not going to go out of the house to go to work like Daddy does because I look after them. I think it sunk in but as ever with Monster one of his most amazing abilities (and annoying!) is his ability to contruct a decent argument and his sense of what is and isn’t fair. He said that when he wants me to play with him I should stop working and play with him and then I can do my work when he is okay to play on his own and doesn’t need me. I think compromise on both sides is called for and tomorrow we will give that approach a go as the current one does not work!

Due to all that we were very late eating lunch – Monster insisted on grated cheese sandwiches (had to be grated, sliced was not acceptable!) and then they both proceeded to just eat the cheese out of the sandwiches and leave the bread! Earlier in the morning we had made some dinosaur biscuits and fairy cakes for the afternoon. Both kids sat on the worktop and helped with added ingredients, mixing stuff, licking bowls and spoons and general mess making! The dino biscuits were first and they cooled down while the fairy cakes were being made, we then went into the lounge and they both sat at their table and chairs with a couple of biscuits each and a bowl of various decorations (sugar flowers, silver balls, orange and lemon jelly slices, jelly diamonds, chocolate sprinkles etc) and a couple of tubes of icing each. Teeny ate all her decorations but Monster was really good at being all creative and good with the fiddly little balls too. The fairy cakes were left too late to ice and decorate so we left them on the side.

Kerry and EL and baby K arrived while we were still (not) eating lunch so it was swiftly cleared away and tea made for Kerry (with sugar, I’m having a bad day!) before Rachel and E arrived. Rachel was full of trepidation as E has been really playing her up and sure enough within minutes she had him in the hall by the front door threatening to leave. She has been reading Toddler Taming and thought she had made some headway this week but once he was with Monster he played up again. We talked about whether she talks E’s behaviour through with him once its all calmed down, whether he likes Monster and wants to come and play with him, in what other circumstances he acts like this etc. I feel really sorry for Rachel as she is a really good mum, and its so easy to see where I think she is going wrong but its not quick fix stuff. Whilst she popped over to the doctors (opposite our house) for a midwife appointment Kerry and I talked about how when we all first met when E, EL and Monster were weeks old we both felt Rachel was by far the better mother (she was a nanny for years before having E) and how its really odd that our children seem so much better behaved and we only have normal niggles with them as opposed to the trauma Rachel is facing with E at the moment.

I had put a ban on all rooms except the playroom and the lounge as there were four children running about today and everytime we have children over they seem to run rampage throughout the house which means I end up tidying four rooms of toys and dealing with traumatised cats and hyper children and I don’t think its fair that the children’s rooms get trashed, especially Teeny’s. It was quite hard to enforce, particularly as Teeny’s room is downstairs and I chased them out of the bathroom, the kitchen, my bedroom and Teeny’s room until finally they all dashed in the kitchen (which is too small for four children anyway!) and shut the door, so in I went, guns blazing and shouted. I took two dinosaurs off E which he was using to terrorise the other three with and he suddenly changed his behaviour and cuddled up to Rachel. In a fit of genius I slapped some icing on the fairy cakes, brought in one each and a couple of bowls of decorations and the four of them sat really nicely and with lots of praise for being clever, creative and making pretty cakes they sat and decorated and ate them.

I then had a private chat with Monster about standing up for himself. I reminded him that this is his house, they are his toys and whilst I expect him to share and play nicely he does not take anything he doesn’t like off anyone, that means no shouting, no snatching, no intimidating or bullying and he stands up for himself by shouting and telling them loudly that he doesn’t like it / doesn’t want it etc. EL overheard and suddenly the two of them decided they were going to be ‘tough’ and stood up to E. The change was dramatic and fairly instant and they all played really well for the rest of the afternoon. On Friday we are going to E’s birthday party at the local ball pool kids loony run around place and there will be 12 other children there so it will be interesting to see how they all behave and interact there. Ady is coming along which is great as it means one of us can be with Teeny and one with Monster if he wants the support – those sorts of places are not really his scene.

Tonight there was a knock at the door and it was our friend who has moved to New Zealand, he has come back for two weeks for his fathers funeral and to sort out the sale of the house and although I knew he was over here I didn’t really expect him to make it round to see us, so that was lovely.

Tomorrow we currently have nothing planned, we need to get a birthday present for E and I really, really want to get some proper preparation work done, but I think I might employ Monster’s suggestion of playing with them when they ask and sneaking off to do work when they are okay – last Friday worked well when I sat on the floor with my laptop all day so was accessible and on their level but actually got a fair bit done.

I am going to blog a ‘to do’list so that I have a real idea of the stuff I keep intending to get done but not getting around to and imagine the sense of satisfaction if I can actually start ticking some of it off:

Work stuff – in no particular order
email Jax a couple of logos for my website template
work out some content for my website – write some copy, think of the various links and stuff
get some more printing costs so i can work out some realistic ad rates
send emails to potential advertisers for the website
send emails to potential advertisers for the magazine
send letters to potential advertisers for the magazine where emails are not appropriate / suitable
make phonecalls to follow up letters or cold call adverts for the magazine
write some articles, collate some info for the content of the magazine, perhaps some interviews, reviews of parent friendly places such as restuarants etc
contact local info services to ensure there are no issues with copying information about toddler groups etc
business side of stuff – find out what i need to do from a legal point of view – do i need any sort of insurance, do i need to declare myself as self employed and at what stage, do i need a business bank account and if so where is the best deal for it
draw up a list of deadlines for booking ad space, copy & ads, getting to printers, collecting from printers etc and decide how frequently and when the issues will go out over the next year, building in some seasonal stuff such as christmas focus, back to school etc to help with selling ads, writing articles etc
write a press release about the mag for the local papers / radio station
start to create a proper distribution plan including the advertisers, doctors surgeries, health centres, schools / pre school etc

wow thats loads!

Childrens stuff / educational stuff

write up a new educational philosophy updated from the previous one to take in all we’ve learnt and how the children have changed
draw up a plan for the summer and the autumn of stuff we want to cover with Monster. This is likely to take the form of a series of projects or topics which he has shown an interest in and tie in with resources we already have, more I can get from the net, trips we can go on and the focus for them while we are there.
a bit more structured reading, writing and number work available for as and when he does show an interest
make contact with more local people with same aged children to ensure he is getting contact with his peers and gets exposed to a wider amount of children in different situations.

wow, thats gotta be one of my bigger blogs, hope theres something in there worthy of a google ad change from pickfords (whoops, mentioned them again so thats the end of that hope!)

Vote Ahmed!

Ducks, swans and moorhens

Of the genuine variety as opposed to my google ad game! Yesterday we went to the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust in Arundel with Activeo . We met up with Chris and Julie and the twins and had a nice couple of hours walking round looking at all the birds and their chicks. We then had lunch in the cafe there which was less of a success as between them the four children kept a constant fuss of one or another of them for the duration of the meal!

Then we came home and walked round the shop together. Monster found some popcorn someone had dropped and spent the rest of the walk finding clues about who could have dropped it, which included flower petals, stickes, stones and so on. That feels like all we did yesterday really, and as the children are driving me mad while I try and type this I don’t think its wise for their wellbeing to continue it just now so will blog more later…

I’ve got email!

Biggest event of the day really was that I have now got email showing my magazine name. Children were wrecking the house, untidying all the tidying, screaming like banshees and generally being horrid while Jax (who truly deserves some sort of award for patience shown in the extreme to computer illiterate folk like me! thanks again Jax :-))sorted me out via yahoo chat, so hurrah!

So to get back to the rest of the day APRICOTS* we did a fair bit of tidying before my grandmother arrived, we hoovered all of upstairs, cleaned upstairs bathroom, dusted the bedrooms, changed Monsters room around a bit to make some more space, got everyone dressed and got the first load of washing on. Great Granny then arrived and in the manner of people who have not had children around them since their own grandchildren (the youngest of whom is my brother, now 28!)said she had brought them some sweets which of course they demanded upon hearing about them, which meant lunch was a bit of a non starter a mere half hour later, then CHEESE as Monster had an audience he was not up for sitting nicely and eating his lunch – with much cajoling he did actually eat it all but Teeny barely ate one quarter of her sandwich. ROSEMARY, PETUNIAS, GRAPEFRUITS, NOSTALGIC, DRAGONS, TOOTHPASTE.

Great Granny finally left when I said we needed to get ready to go out for the afternoon, which left us free to get another load of washing on, peg two loads out, hoover the stairs, assorted shouting at children, FRENCH KNICKERS, and sorting of email addresses. BONNIE AND CLYDE.

I then relented for being evil mummy from the dark side and we had half an hour play with the playdough, while I made a stegasaurus from the air drying clay I bought last week – quite pleased with it actually, it has just the right mix of cartoon versus realism – oh who am I kidding its a three inch pink clay replica of a 50 foot long extinct creature from millions of years ago but we know what its supposed to be! CARROTS, LAMB SHANK, HAIRDRESSER. Then a quick hoover up of the scattered playdough, a touch more shouting at the children before tea was served. Ady arrived home shortly after plates of baked beans, potato waffles and turkey dinosaurs (greeted with much excitement those I can tell you!) EVAPORATED MILK. and took over the kids while I had ten minutes of time out!

Then milk and sleep for Teeny, milk and begging me not to leave from Monster as my parents arrived to look after them for a couple of hours while we went to say goodbye and help with last minute loading of vans with our friends who are moving to Ireland tomorrow – GUINNESS. Home again for 10pm, Ady cooked up sausage and mash which we have eaten in shifts as Teeny awoke soon after we got home and is currently nestled in his arms while I blog before retiring to bed. HAWAII, BEDFORD, ANGELINA JOLIE, CORONATION STREET.

* for those who hadn’t guessed my odd selection of random and totally irrelevant words in capital letters is for the benefit of google ads, I’m desperate to see if I can get it to come up with something hilarious off the back of them! The words are totally random, but no doubt a pyschologist could find some subliminal messages hidden in them from deep within my consciousness!

Banana, fish, bucket, pants!

Anyone else frequently amused by the google ads thrown up by their blog – the latest on mine is dinosaurs and house removals – wondered what it would make from the title above!

Another good day yesterday, we went to staunton with Chris and Julie and the twins and despite being a bad day weather wise we managed to avoid the rain and even had a bit of sunshine while we ate our picnics. The four children all got on so well again, apparantly the twins, J&M are a bit cautious and Chris and Julie were saying they are surprised how well they have taken to us, M proved this by sitting on Ady’s lap for a story and then sitting with me and pointing to all her dolly’s body parts when I asked where they were. They brought up the topic of babysitting again, don’t really know how they think it would work as we do live about 15 miles away from them, so I guess it would involve one of us going over there for an evening to look after the twins or one of them coming over here to look after ours, we’ll wait till they bring it up again and find out how they had thought it would happen! We normally leave them shortly after lunch but yesterday they invited us back for a cup of tea so we did and didn’t get home till nearly 6pm – very late for us. Luckily the kids ate the rest of the picnic in the car on the way home so they didn’t need tea, and both fell asleep quite early having run around like small lunatics all day with the twins! I’m not sure what photos Ady took of the day so will blog some later if there are any nice ones.

Today I have great tidying plans – Monsters room specifically is very messy – he’s got lots of stuff in there which looks nice when its all in its proper homes and a complete shambles when its scattered about like it is now! He is also really into dismantling things like tissues and cotton wool and often does it when he’s going to sleep, so there are bits of tissues and funny rolled up scraps of cotton wool everywhere too. Our room needs a hoover and the bathroom needs a huge hoover as kids have been playing with sparkly powder again, donwstairs the sofas need their covers washing, luckily the spare set for the first time ever has been put away clean so thats achievable, there are at least two other loads of washing to do and the playroom needs some serious attention (this includes my computer area too – I need to make some proper space for my tiny times stuff and clear away some of the other redundant work stuff.

Tonight we are going round to our friends who are moving to Ireland, their removal people arrive tomorrow so we are going to say goodbye and give them a hand with any last minute packing stuff, Mum and Dad are babysitting. In about an hour my grandmother is supposed to be coming round for a bit so I really should get myself and the kids dressed and tidy at least the lounge before she arrives. We have already made some handprints and footprints this morning as additional logos and Monster was very calculating too – he did his, Teeny did hers then he said ‘oh look Mummy, theres some paint left still’, I thought he was going to ask to do some more and as both of them were already cleaned up was going to say no, when he said ‘so you better do your footprints too’ so I did! They are all drying now and as mine came out quite well I think I might scan them and make them smaller and have my own on there too!

Let’s go fly a kite!

are y’all singing yet?! Had a good day today, Ady did some gardening in the morning and Monster assisted (well hindered really but some nice father son bonding time anyway!) while Teeny and I did some ‘womens work’ and went to the newly opened Waitrose and did the food shopping!

Teeny was so cute all the way round, she let me listen to my Will Young cd in the car instead of demanding Peter Pan or Toy Story soundtracks, sat in the trolley and made her little chattering noises, took shopping off me to put in the trolley, chose the yoghurts for her and Monster’s puddings (Winnie the Pooh and Thomas the Tank Engine for any interested parties in brand recognition in 19 month old girls!) and then helped load it all on the conveyer belt too. I even gave her a carrier bag and passed her the lightest stuff to pack too. We really should do more of having one to one time with the kids – last week I took Monster to see Shrek 2 while Ady stayed at home with Teeny and that was nice too. However Teeny kept looking for Monster in his car seat, in the trolley next to her and was thrilled when we got home and he came running to greet us (with a milk bottle full of buddleas he had picked for me!), and last week at the cinema Monster kept asking what Teeny would be doing and kept back some sweets to share with her.

The kids came in the house with me while Ady tidied up outside and helped me put the shopping away and make a picnic lunch (I say helped in the loosest possible definition you understand!) then we set off for Drusillas. Halfway there we suddenly saw all these huge colourful things bobbing over the downs and turned a corner to see a field full of kites and windsocks, signposted as Brighton Kite Festival we pulled over and went on in. And had a great time.

Photos below show some of the sights, there were literally hundreds of kites, some enormous ones, some teeny tiny ones and a big arena in the middle with stunt kites, multiple flying, and loads more. Monster had a go at the free kite workshop (you can see him flying it in one of the pics) and the kids had a great time running round like loonies in the field, pointing at all the colours and getting blustered about by the wind. Then we had a quick go on the crooked house and caterpillar train rides. Cheap, fun and a good day out!

Went over to my parents for a couple of hours and I told Dad about our financial situation, he will no doubt busy himself with going off to think about it all now, but despite crying while I told him and getting a bit of a lecture I feel so much better that he knows, my guilt about the whole thing has lifted a bit, the worlds still turning, and better days are just around the corner!

Tomorrow we are meeting up with Chris and Julie which is always a good day and next week is largely unplanned so far, will think about some stuff to do each day and plan in some advertising space selling time too.

Sarah’s Friday Four

well everyone else is doing it so I might as well join in!!

1. How many times have you moved house in your life (now, work out the average number of moves per year of your life … !! We all know Merry is a hot favourite for the most here but her children might do better …)

Not many actually, lived in one house till I was four then parents moved into the house they still live in. I moved out into a flat with Ady, then we moved in with my parents for a month while we completed on the house we bought, where we lived for ten years till we moved up North, but we kept the house and moved back into it again which is where we are now – so four different addresses, although two of them have been lived in twice.

2. Do you have a moving highlight or disaster you can tell us about?

I don’t recall moving when I was four, the move to live with DH was not a total one – left most of my clothes and stuff at my parents, then moved back into my parents for a month or so which involved chucking all our possessions in the back of our cortina and unloading them again into my old childhood bedroom! Moving in here for the first time was fairly chaotic – Ady crashed the car the day before we were moving and we were penniless and had to fix the busted radiator by going to a scrapyard and buying one then getting a friend to bodge it as a moving in pressie! We then for some very odd reason decided to move everything we owned into this house over the course of just one day using said Cortina – this included a flat packed kitchen and bathroom, all our clothes, a bed, kitchen stuff, two TVs and various odd donated pieces of furniture – the spare room was literally full – you couldn’t even open the door fully and if the cats went in there it could be days before they found their way out again! Moving up north and then back again was all done by Pickfords – although there was a wobble when we moved back here a couple of months ago and when Ady checked the kitchen cupboards he found they had missed all our fragile stuff from the kitchen, which ended up piled around the kids and cats in our people carrier, loose and with a chinking clinking sound every time we went round a corner for the full 250 mile trip!

3. What’s your favourite place you’ve lived and why?

I guess it would have to be here – its my first home, it’s grown with us from a little two bedroomed bungalow to a four bedroomed house, and may even grow again if we have our way, its light and airy, I like the views, I like the location and I just feel very sentimental about it!

4. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?

America. Don’t laugh but I really feel thats where I should live – to the extent that when I see it on telly I almost feel homesick. I have a dream of us in small town america in a little wooden cladded open plan style house living in a town where nothing ever goes wrong and everyones a bit like in the Brady Bunch…

A much better day – even quite a productive one!

Have spent the whole day sat on the lounge floor with the laptop going through all the free local papers and the county wide parenting mag getting all the details from the people who advertise in them, I know I will be cheaper than them and have focused on companies and businesses who are specifically in this town to ensure they will be of interest to my select group of potential readers.

I also had a reply from the woman who runs something similar up north with some handy hints and well wishes, which was nice. She is also sending me the latest copy of her mag which will help no end in trying to explain to people what I mean, give me some ideas for layout and subject matters and helped no end with my confidence to hear someone who has done it, made a success of it and is willing to be a bit of a mentor to me!

Have been thinking about my website and got lots of ideas for that once its up and running too – if any bloggers think any of their sites might be of interest to parents to be and parents upto aged 10 children let me know and we can sort out some link exchanges or something. I’ve also pretended to be a potential customer and asked for prices and stuff for advertising in a couple of similar type publications which will be helpful too.

The kids have been pretty good today – yesterday we were all badly behaved but today I had a lot more patience and they reacted by behaving better. They spent all day around me, Teeny had a good nap this morning which gave Monster a chance to have some one to one time – which he chose to use having an early lunch without interuptions – odd child! Then we had a bit of a book reading session and then Monster asked to do some painting -erm no! – so I dug out a couple of those magic painting books where you just brush water over the picture and colours appear on the page – they both spent quite a while doing a book each before deciding that Teeny was going to be a flying painted dancer (no I don’t know either, and it sounds a bit exotic and not at all the thing Ady will be proud of her for in her teenage years) which meant Monster painted the outside cover of the book (all pages had been torn out once completed as presents for mummy!) with water to create the ‘wet board’ (again I don’t know!) and Teeny painted herself to look pretty for her dance – this involved her putting loads of water on the picture till a puddle of colour appeared then daubing her legs, arms, hands and feet with it till she looked like the mad tattooed woman of old tattoo town, the dance never actually happened but the preparations were enough entertainment in themselves!

We also did some sticker book work – I bought Monster a first 100 words in spanish book which he started working through – basically finding the stickers and matching them to the pictures which have spanish words underneath instead of english – so a bit premature for someone who can’t read but I told him how to say the words and he had a pretty good bash at repeating and remembering them. Teeny did a reusable sticker farmyard scene and enjoyed that too.

Mum appeared just before the kids dinner and stayed for about an hour – quite nice and low key, they have arrangements for the weekend and so do we so probably just a flying visit with them tomorrow – its quite odd since we moved home we don’t seem to have actually spent that much time with them which is ironic considering how much they were looking forward to having us home.

So a mellower day really, not much education in any sort of formal manner gone on, but kids have enjoyed playing around my feet as I worked so to speak which is both nice as I couldn’t have done with being evil mummy again today and cos it shows they can which is promising for success of my fledgling business and ability to work round them at home.

and….relax!

I was a pretty crap Mummy today really, both kids really created cos I was on the computer or the phone most of the day. I did try and be patient but tended to do more shouting and stomping and crying than educating or being kind, caring and the sort of mother who would put Supernanny out of business! (which is of course my usual persona!!!!). Made it all up with both kids before bedtime though, Teeny fell asleep in my arms and I’m guessing she will have her revenge by waking in the middle of the night and getting my full and undivided attention for hours then! Monster was all ecstatic about Daddy coming home and had his milk and cuddle with him instead of me, then came over to say that I had a curl, lots of further questioning finally deciphered that he was talking about the children’s rhyme:
there was a little girl and she had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead;
when she was good, she was very very good and when she was bad she was horrid!
I used to say that to them quite a bit, especially when Teeny was very small and was a bit like that. So he qualified that later when he was just falling asleep by telling me that I am ‘super lovely’, and even when he’s cross with me he still loves me, and that he was cross with me today and wanted to tell me off but he couldn’t cos I kept shouting at him. Very cute and very guilt-creating! Alls well that ends well though!

So positives from today – Ady still loves me despite the huge debts and tells me everything is okay and we all have each other and we’ll be fine, the lovely support from you guys, and pretty much everyone else i have shared our predicament with, I have done some research into our options and as i am convinced this is a temporary blip and I can earn sufficient to put us back on track again within the next couple of months I am going to have a bit of a chat with my dad and see if he can help us out a bit for a while. It might just be the impetus I need to shove me into actually getting on with my business idea and everything happens for a reason so either I needed this wake up call to sort myself out or we will win the lottery on Saturday and all will be well once more! Am I positive and optimistic or simply foolish and head in the sand!? Never mind at least calm is restored once more in the house.

Tomorrow my Mum is off work and I think she wants to do something with us and then (I can’t believe its come around again so quickly) its the weekend! At least we already bought season tickets to drusillas and paradise park so we can go and see animals and dinosaurs whenever we want for free!!

On the subject of getting off my arse and sorting the magazine I have a name for it and almost a website! It will be called Tiny Times and when the site is in a decent state I will let you all know. Jax is being a superhero and helping me and its being hosted through codeplacidly too, and I’ve sorted a logo – which I will attempt to blog later. Its very basic – my own handwriting saying tiny times and instead of dots on the two ‘i’ s there are handprints courtesy of Monster (we did footprints and Teeny did some handprints too but his came out the best so we’ve gone with them!)and I think I might do some more footprints from Teeny to go round it as a frame. Tomorrow and over the weekend I’m going to firm up my advertising rates and draw up a contents list for the first issue and a list of places to contact next week to get some advertisers organised, by this time next week I will have some definates and I plan for the first issue to be September & October (it will be every two months) so it will need to be ‘out’ and printed by the end of August, at the printers mid August which gives me a month to sell all the space, write all the articles and sort the layout – erm no problem?!

Anyway thats it – don’t want to curse it by mentioning it really but Teeny slept through the night for the first time in weeks last night, don’t for one minute expect it again tonight but it was lovely! Thanks for listening to my self pitying wailing, I think its all out of my system for now!

serious wobbles at our house!

Have just ‘come down’ from having a bit of a moment! Finances seem to be going from bad to worse – just got some redirected mail from old address and discovered that Ady’s tax code has been changed due to his company car and he now gets no personal allowance at all – can’t quite work it out but it looks to be about £125 a month additional tax to be paid – just when we really can’t afford it and there is actually no ‘benefit’ to him having the company car – he literally just uses it for work – not even to travel to and from work as he is on the road and only goes to the office once a week – phoned the tax office who said that unless he leaves the car at work every night it is considered to be a company car and therefore a taxable benefit. we don’t use it as we have a people carrier anyway and it makes Monster carsick – so even selling our car and just using that is not an option – admittedly it does save us about the £100 a month (I am assuming that is all it is and desperately hoping its not more – otherwise we really are in trouble)in not having the second car to tax insure and run, but the car is a total necessity to do his job rather than an enjoyed benefit. So after phoning him and the tax office and shoving Monster quite roughly for spitting at Teeny while I was on the phone I retired to the bedroom for a big sob! It was not long before I heard two sets of footsteps creeping up the stairs and in came the troops! Monster went off to find tissues, wiped my face, asked why I was crying ‘I am sad’ why was I sad ‘grown up stuff’, what grown up stuff? ‘money’, what about money? ‘we don’t have enough’, oh well don’t be sad anymore, I’ve wiped the tears away so now you can be happy. Teeny (who for some reason was wondering round with Monster’s Buzz Lightyear toothebrush) climbed onto my lap for a cuddle, pointed at my tears and said ‘uh-oh’ then brushed my teeth! I am now feeling a little more composed and determined to be practical and sort stuff out. (but still a few tears escaping onto the keyboard!)

So to resume normal blogging – yesterday was an eye opener really. We walked into Lancing in the morning through the alleyways and took back a couple of books – and got about 25 more! I got about 10 on stuff like working from home, working for yourself, setting up a business etc and the kids chose about another 15 between them – Monster got lots of ones about bodily functions and what makes us work and Teeny got some poem ones (with help from me!), home for lunch and then out to Rachel’s house. Another friend was there who used to meet with us before we moved up north, her daugher EL is the same age as Rachel’s E and she has just had a second daughter – K who is 5 weeks old. Have not seen EL since she was about 18 months old and she is a gorgeous nearly four year old little girl now – quite tough and tomboyie, and seemingly quite unaffected by a little sister arriving. She will be starting school in September and Kerry (her mum) was telling us the nightmare of getting her into the ‘right’ school including attending church and getting the minister to sign forms to say she had and all sorts. For once the topic of HE did not come up and as it didn’t I didn’t say anything – of course she may already have been briefed by Rachel and decided not to bring it up.

E was a real little monster yesterday – there was him, EL, Monster, Teeny and the little baby there and he just went wild, he was lashing out at all the other children, specifically Monster who seems to be a bit of a target for him, he was taking toys off them, trying to spoil any games they were playing and generally being bullyish and boarish with the others. Rachel, by her own admission, does not know what to do and feels she has lost control, she took him away a couple of times, I believe he got at least two smacks but he just kept coming back into the room, being rude to her and continuing doing what he was doing, he shouts at her and sticks his tongue out when she is telling him off. She is worried as the new baby is due in September, and E is due to start school in January full time. She actually asked for our advice and said she doesn’t know what to do next. I told her that I get that sort of behaviour (although not as extreme) from Monster but only ever in our own house, when there is just him, me and Teeny there and he is attention seeking. I can always either remedy it by giving him some positive attention, distracting him with something or if all else fails removing him until he understands what he’s done and apologised. Rachel tends to spend most afternoons sitting playing with E giving him her full attention and it would seem that he is just reacting to the change in this when other grown ups are talking to his mummy instead of him, and other children are playing with his toys. Also watched Supernanny last night and am feeling, certainly not smug but content that we are doing the right things to ensure our children have rules, boundaries and know what is and isn’t acceptable, whilst giving them sufficient time and attention to ensure they feel valued and don’t need to kick up the instant they don’t have attention for a short while. The other thing from Supernanny, and even from Rachel and E is the talking – I talk to mine all the time, explaining what we are doing, why we are doing it and reasoning and rationalising stuff with them, clearly Teeny is too young to grasp this but Monster does have a basic understanding that if he wants me to stay home and look after him and learn with him here instead of him going to school or other daycare then the trade off is that he lets me have some time to work on the computer, make phonecalls or whatever – it doesn’t always happen but he knows it should! It seems maybe a bit cruel to put that pressure onto a three year old but life is about compromise, making things work, having consideration for others, self discipline and so on so at the very least he is gaining some valuable life skills I guess.

Anyway enough of the poor old me with no money but see what a great parent I am stuff – the whole point is I should be out there drumming up some advertisers so off I go!

Mean old shouty mummy, that’s me!

Pretty pooh day really although I don’t actually feel too down about it. Went to the bank first thing to transfer money about – without going into too much detail we are financially in a bas position at the moment – Ady took a pay cut when we moved and I currently have no salary at all – as I have consistantly lived above our means for the last however many years this is quite serious for us. A relatively small amount of earning by me would remedy this for now if we spent wisely, and I am sure Ady’s salary will be increased within a fairly short timescale too so I see it as very short term, but the less additional debt we can incur during this period the better….erk!

So this additional head stuff has made me all impatient and shouty with the kids today and as a result I seem to have done little with them other than tell them off! I know that’s probably not the case and I have noticed that Teeny is being especially loving and affectionate with me recently. In terms of HE I feel really confident at the moment, both kids are clearly thriving, I feel totally able to continue this well past school starting age. Fortunately as Monster is one year away and Teeny is three years away from school starting age and the childcare costs of two children would impact severly on any salary I could earn having been out of the traditional workplace for four years it is not even an issue that we go down that route.

Yesterday was my Mums birthday, we went into town in the morning to get her pressie and then onto Asda to do the food shopping – both kids sat in the trolley and were so sweet till about half way round taking it in turns to want cuddles, then they started this game of shouting and seeing who was the loudest – luckily most of the looks we got from other shoppers were either indulgent or sympathetic but I’d rather they hadn’t done it! Then home and Mum came over to share birthday cake, blowing out candles etc and being sung happy birthday to by the children before they went to bed, then Mum, Dad and bro came over for dinner later in the evening. Today bank again and then I gave the kids the choice of what to do and they wanted to play in the house all afternoon. I also decided to make the logo for my magazine and wanted a handprint and footprint for it so got the kids to do some painted prints for me, which have now dried and have been scanned in ready for me to do some arty stuff with!

Tomorrow we need to take some library books back and we are going to Rachel’s in the afternoon, Thursday is as yet unplanned and Friday my Mum is off and wants to do something. I planned to get some serious work done on my magazine tonight but a friend arrived then we watched wife swap and now Big Brother and I’ve done nothing.

So as usual I’ve blogged myself round in a big circle – we need more money, I’ve got a business idea which would provide it, really I just need to get off my backside and make it happen!

Socialisation? sometimes you just have too much of it!

Mad, mad weekend really – after the guests who just didn’t leave last night we dragged ourselves out of bed and packed the picnic for a day out with Chris and Julie – we were half an hour late and when we pulled up at their house the family car was missing – Ady went in and Chris was there with the kids but Julie was commentating at a horse show all day – it was a bit of a confusion and I’m still not sure whether I had gotten confused about which weekend it was or Julie was supposed to ring to change it but we had a nice couple of hours with Chris and the kids anyway! The four cousins all get along well now and its so heartwarming to see them all playing together when you consider how Ady and Chris should have grown up together like that but didn’t. Chris and Julie still see a bit of Chris and Ady’s mother but they are not sure it is doing any of them any good and Ady certainly has no wish at all to make contact with her – and after hearing some of their tales I don’t want her anywhere near my children!

We left there and went onto another couple of friends who have moved house while we were up north just along the road from where they were before. Loved their new house – very cottagey – built in 1700 and something with loads of cure features and a huge garden… still pondering on what we’re going to do house wise but I think we have come to a decision to do nothing for the rest of this year at least. We will live with the fact that Teeny is downstairs in her bedroom – quite frankly the nights she stays there and doesn’t end up in our bed are few and far between anyway – and all the time she’s in a cot it is all academic as she can’t go anywhere anyway. It will then give us time to see how Ady’s job is panning out and whether there are decent enough prospects to keep him on that corporate ladder or not! After moving only two months ago neither of us can quite face doing it all again quite so soon and we have a few plans to improve the garden and make it bigger and more child friendly. We are going to hold back the missold endowment money we planned to use for the extension and when the architect finally comes to tell us that the planning permission has been refused we will talk to him about scope for extending the kitchen so we can still have the kitchen we wanted…in the meantime that means I can have a serious bash at my business idea and see if there is any mileage in it or not. We plan to think about it all again at the end of this year and decide whether to get a bigger mortgage (hopefully either Ady’s job will have yielded a payrise or my business will be operating at a profit) and move somewhere bigger locally, stay here a bit longer and see what happens or sell up and either do the post office thing or go travelling with beads in our hair and rings on our toes!

Which leads me quite tidily to my business idea… it’s not a particularly new or radical one but it encorporates both what I know, what I’m good at, what I have previous experience in and something I know has worked for others. Basically I am looking to start up a very local parenting magazine. I first had the idea when we moved up north and I struggled to find friends, contacts, details of where to go for toddler groups, where was family friendly and so on. There was a local parenting magazine run for an area which was too far out to be relevant to me but I got friendly with the woman who did it as we advertised in it eventually and it was very good. It inspired me to do something slightly different. I had the idea of doing a very local parenting mag for the town we lived in which would list all the what’s ons from toddler groups to family events, features on family friendly restuarants, places to get childrens haircut, buy kids clothes, support groups for all aspects of parenting – breastfeeding, homebirth, c-section support, PND right through to sleep clinics, behaviourists, cranial osteopaths, baby massage, kids gymnastics, swimmin lessons etc etc etc, giveaways and competitions, parents handy hints and tips, readers letters, funny stories, lighthearted stuff and more serious articles, money off vouchers, roundups of where special offers were on nappies, baby food etc and loads more. I had conducted two interviews of relevant people and places and lined up some potential advertisers and giveaways – and found a couple of places willing to carry it on their counters when Boss Lady offered me a ready made job with a good wage and I copped out and took it!

So now we’re back in the town I grew up in and know really well and aside from a county wide (Sussex) parenting mag which is very glossy, very focused on Brighton and in my opinion too full of adverts, editorials for the companies who advertise and lots of information but very little ‘personal’ stuff there is no competition. It will use my skills in selling advertising space, writing, giving the opportunity to smaller local businesses to reach their target market by very low cost, specific advertising, produce the sort of magazine I (and the friends I have pitched the idea to) would like to read, hopefully turn in some money for me and give me something productive to do – as the littlies get older it will be something they can learn about and even help with, it won’t really take anything of me away from them, any research can be done with them in tow – indeed will be better done with them in tow!

So my to do list is to draw up a list of potential advertisers and donators of freebies, get some proper costings for printing to enable me to decide on how many to print initially, how much to charge for advertising, source potential places to leave piles to be picked up (although I will also stand in the town centre and hand them out to everyone with a child if necessary!), draw up some ideas for articles , interviews, features etc, get all relevant information on the business side of stuff, decide on some timescales and date for first issue and just start doing it! I also want to have a website – intially just for info about the mag, where to get it, how to contact me and submit stuff, how to advertise etc and with some links to advertisers and maybe even a yahoo group for local mums to chat online and arrange to meet up perhaps – but all in the future!! Jax – I will be in touch soon about some stuff for the website and if anyone has any ideas / suggestions etc all comments would be gratefully received!

This week looks to be fairly quiet so far, its my mum’s birthday tomorrow so mum, dad and bro are coming for dinner tomorrow night, I need to fit in a trip to the bank, shop for food for the week, flowers and chocs for mum etc tomorrow, our only real engagement is for Wednesday afternoon with Rachel and E and the rescheduled outing next Sunday with Chris and Julie… so plenty of time to be getting stuck into all my business stuff – and creating some sort of schedule of stuff we want to complete for Monster too – more on that tomorrow…