Making it up as we go along

due to technical problems with work, I am not dressed, I have not had breakfast, we have not gone to the home ed group (curses!) and I am really questioning the wisdom of trying to work for myself from home....

gibber, gibber.

I'm not sure whether I feel better yet, haven't had time to consider it!

as I felt terrible today, and consequently we've done very little.

still managed to do some hama with dd, which was nice. Her creativity is coming on in leaps and bounds - her artwork never fails to amaze me. She is sometimes held back by the fact that she doesn't know how to do something right, and so won't just try, but that doesn't seem to apply to hama. Perhaps I should be exploring different mediums for her.

She also played in the garden for ages in the sun, which was lovely. Me, I went to bed with ds - this cold hit me hard, and when I blacked out and fell over, I decided it was time to take it easy.

Ds seems OK, although we are running into his stubborn streak increasingly now. He aims for the most unsuitable things - radiator caps and shoes are big favourites. And he hates being told no. Good points are that he loves his bookstart books, and can be kept amused for minutes on end with a box.

Oh oh, I can hear him coming to find me again...better go!

was busy doing other computery stuff and forgot to put an entry on :-(

Not that we did anything much yesterday. My mother turned up unannounced before I'd got dressed *blush*, which derailled the morning somewhat, and then we had friends round in the afternoon. We had plans to do stuff with dd and her friend, but in the end they were playing so nicely that we left them to it (chalk up another point for socialisation then!)

Ds is getting incredibly mobile and is starting to pull himself up on to his knees to look for things - joy.

And I did manage to hoover - that's my contribution to starting to clear the house. This is becoming a joke - in a fit of enthusiasm some weeks ago I bought a LOT of books on Ebay (had some idea that I was going to start a bookshop) and they will be arriving soon and I've *nowhere* to put them. What am I going to do?? Aargh...

I've visited the counties in yellow. Which counties have you visited? made by marnanel map reproduced from Ordnance Survey map data by permission of the Ordnance Survey. © Crown copyright 2001.

For the critics! Yes, I do live in the uk.... ;-) but I don't know which county various places are in, not helped by the fact that some of them don't seem to be on that list! lol, still, it's been very educational for me! (Also, I have only included places where I know I've been and stayed for a weekend or so (so thank you to all those Karate courses that took me all over the country.)) Further updates later, although I won't repost the map again - I thought it was a good idea to do it this time though.)

I've visited the counties in yellow. Which counties have you visited? made by marnanel map reproduced from Ordnance Survey map data by permission of the Ordnance Survey. © Crown copyright 2001.

but that's mainly because I know names of towns and don't know which counties they are in *blush*

with the entry on the right day!

We went to Elsecar as well - met up with Barbara and co. We did it all! Saw Punch and Judy, the clown show, wandered round the gift fayre, talked to other friends, starting trying to sell my services as a web consultant (where did that come from?????) went on Thomas, had lunch, had snacks, bounced on the bouncy castle (well ok, I didn't get to do that) and finally played with the outdoor science track toys. Was really impressed with dd and her friend with that - shame it was so popular though - it took half an hour for them to have a turn, and really dd was getting too tired to wait any longer, so I made them share a turn rather than her friend waiting even longer for a turn of his own. (Horrid mummy).

Then we had tea at her friends house, home, bath and bed. For her anyway, I've got to catch Small yet! (Why oh why is my baby nocturnal?)

Got a really busy week planned ahead (can't remember when I used to fit in work) - feels like we are beginning to settle down into this lifestyle now. Do need to do some serious excavation on the house though - this room is unusable and it's just silly for it to be that way. At the very least it ought to be an office and storage room with added piano instead of just a pile of junk! Dd can't even get to the piano at the moment (I'm telling you all this so that you can encourage me to clear up - or nag me, whichever!)

If the weather holds I'm planning some gardening with friends tomorrow - after I spend the morning catching up on yet more paperwork *sigh*, Tues is bfg which we've got to go to - there's a birthday party, Wed is our first home ed group and nightwalk with woodcraft folk, thurs is nappuccino and dancing, Friday is another nappuccino and then dd's friend is staying over. Saturday may involve falling over in a heap....

it's Saturday!

So what did we do this morning?

Here's a clue


It just about fitted in the garden. But only just. And then dd's friend arrived to pick her up and take her away, so we've just pottered this afternoon.

It's Real Nappy week coming up as well - so I thought I'd share this with you all.

Doesn't he look cute?

This'll be a quick post - I had rather a lot of work to do, so we had a quiet day in. Still managed to fit in painting, sticking, and baking, so don't think dd missed out too badly! I think she needed a quiet day - we've had a hectic week. And she'd got a date arranged ;-) for Saturday, so I knew the weekend would be hectic too.

Did want to pop this on to show the mood we've had.


Happy girl, happy mummy. ;-)

come on, we're nearly there.

Thursday I irresponsibly went out for lunch at the house of someone I'd only met virtually. And I took the children with me! Well, I knew that she was a real person, as a friend of mine (hello Sarah) had met her previously. And I've met her on ukp and msn, so it wasn't that bad, honest. And given that I met dp online and then for the first time at dawn on my doorstep, I wasn't that worried.

We had lunch - J supplied quiche and I brought chocolate gateau. Dd thoroughly enjoyed playing with someone else's toys for a change and ds loved all the cars - we're going to have to get some I think. He's got a fire engine at home, but it isn't enough.

Back by about 3pm and we'd missed mother, who had dropped off a lime green fleece hat, scarf and gloves set for dd, actually from her cousin, although dd decided that they had been grandmas first. I've got a piccie - I'll put it up in a bit. Quick turn around and back out for her ballet lesson. Always amazed to see how well she manages with things like dressing herself when you see a room full of other children - I winced to see them just shoving their feet any old how into ballet tights, while dd sits herself down and puts them on carefully. She can be so very precise when she tries.

She was tired by the time we got back from ballet, but we still managed the evening without any major fall outs. She must have been tired as she slept through til 8.45 the following morning, and without any accidents as well. Bonus.

quick recap - it's been an important week I think, and I don't want to gloss over it.

Wednesday morning was our free showing of Cat in the Hat, and I got us up and organised on time, and was outside the cinema, having successfully negotiated the city centre, found the car park and all the rest of it, for 9.45. Unfortunately, I was outside the wrong cinema :-( Whatever did we do without mobile phones? Rang home, got dp to check the email - guess what, I should have been at the nice easy to park at out of town cinema. *sigh* Drag miserable offspring back to car (paying £1.80 for the privilege of parking for 3 minutes!) - ring the organiser of the outing, let them know we're on the way, ignore small voice from the back seat saying "B's mummy wasn't late" (aargh....) and arrive at the correct screen in the correct cinema just as the titles start - hah!

Dd loved the film - I thought it was dire, and highly inappropriate. A lot of the jokes were very smutty, and Dr Seuss is presumably spinning rapidly in his grave somewhere - most of it went over dd's head though, for which small mercy I was grateful - wouldn't have liked to try to explain the dirty hoe joke for example.

Then we went on for lunch - couldn't eat at Sainsburys as planned as they had half the seating cordoned off for no apparent reason (why? It's lunchtime!) and ended up in Debenhams. Was overcharged, but managed to find a small amount of assertiveness to complain and get money back - food there is really overrated, but I like to go out for lunch every now and then with the children - it's a nice treat for us all.

Home for an hour or two and I cooked mushroom risotto - which seemed to go quite well, although took longer than I expected. Neither dd or ds liked it which was a shame, but dp thought it was ok, if a little bland (which is the problem with trying to cook for the whole family including the 10 month old baby) so I reckon it was a success.

Then out to Woodcraft folk - it's a pleasant evening for me as well - the other adults there are welcoming ppl (although I did struggle to keep a straight face at the end of the night, when we were exorted to make friends with a tree, um, yes well...) and the children are very good with dd. The session was on trees, and dd drew a wonderful picture - if I can find it around the place, I'll scan it and pop it up. It had roots, trunk, branches, leaves and a butterfly.

Home and a late supper and an early night.

Another day with few disagreements, and dd being the mature little girl that she used to be. She is thriving again, and it's wonderful to see.

Not sure whether I've previously mentioned ds latest achievement - he can clap his hands together to make a sound - he is thrilled with this. He is so different to how dd is it's almost untrue - he sits and does his best to take things apart and he will try and try again - dd won't try to do something if she isn't sure how to carry it through - she is determined to get things right. Difficult to assist when often I'm not sure what is meant by getting it right.

was busy. First of all it was ds 8 month check with the hv - he's 91st %ile for length, but under 50th for weight- yeah right. Really is time they changed the charts, and I won't be doing anything major to up his food intake - but it did shake me. Now I remember why I don't go near hvs usually. Then we went to breastfeeding group, where the resident pro breastfeeding hv was extremely scathing - muttering about breastfeeding plateaus, and the fact that ds is obviously fine (and the softplay area was open again, so that was good).

After group we did the shopping - 90 minutes, two children, tescos didn't stand a chance! And dd was great throughout. OK we got a bit of whining here and there, but nothing we couldn't handle, and overall it was good. I've no idea what flicked the switch - has she perhaps deschooled now? She's certainly going around telling everyone that she is never going to school - you should see the expressions ppl get!

I'm cooking. ;-)

And if you know me IRL, you'll know how intimidated I am by that concept. But I'm giving it a whirl, and hopefully....

but today has been pretty good too.

but ds is crying and it's time for bed, so you'll have to make do with that cryptic entry for now. ;-)

and it's been sunny too!

We haven't done anything specific - i've been pottering and getting various jobs done, but what has been nice about it is how much dd has amused herself today. We've done some stuff together - she helped hanging out the washing for example, and made her own lunch again - but a lot of the time she's just been happy to get on with her own little projects with me in and out.

She's done jigsaws (methodically at that!), played with fuzzy felt, made glitter piccies, used a workbook (colour and wipe animals and shapes), played Thomas, Trouble on the Tracks on the computer and just generally been lovely. It's amazing what a difference it's made to my state of mind - I'm at the evening, and although I'm physically tired (ds having me up at 6 didn't help!) I feel fine in myself.

We did have a few moments of trauma - as when she managed to trip over ds and I didn't know who to pick up first (moments when it is really useful that dp works from home - boy can he get down the stairs quickly when I yell!) - and we've argued a tiny bit tonight, but overall, it's been good.

It's meant that I located paperwork, managed to do some business emails, hooked up with someone to arrange a day out later in the week for us (in fact two someones and two days out!) got washing done and hung outside (she came out and played on her climbing frame in the sunshine which was great), done financial stuff, discussed recipes and caught up with some de-cluttering, and ds has had a nice day too instead of forever being ignored while I fight with dd.

Now all I've got to do is figure out why today went so well and whether I can repeat it!

and a lovely time was had by all.

In depth religious, philosophical and educational debates (not necessarily all at the same time), good food (I brought home the recipe!) , two (count them, more than one!) glasses of wine in one day!, lots of dressing up, cutting, sticking and playing, and then this morning I took the children to a mothering sunday service at our friends church.

Feels a little strange - I am not religious atm, although I was as a child and teenager, but I strongly believe that my children need to know about religion and churches and so on, both for the politeness aspect of being able to be in all places and also so that they can make informed decisions for themselves later on. Still felt odd though, especially as I knew the hymns, and rather think I knew the preacher. Hm.

Mothering sunday lunch (and I think my mother was more thrilled with the daffodils that dd brought her from church than she was by any of the gifts she was given), and we survived it. Moment of pure joy though, when my nanny sister, who is not supportive of my breastfeeding, took hold of my hefty 10 month old ds and gasped and said "what are you feeding him?" Oh, only the good stuff. ;-)

And then we went and bought our tent. Far too windy to do anything at the moment with it, but we've got it now. We also bought a Karrimor back carrier thing - as noticed earlier ds is getting kind of heavy, and dp thought that a proper framed back carrier might be the way forward. And it was in the sale...

trying again after blogger ate this the first time :-(

Have just had phone call from home edding friends - and I'm off over there with the kids for an overnighter!

So, see you all tomorrow, after mother's day lunch with the family (suspect I might need to blog by that point!) I'm also hoping to pop in to outdoorfocus and pick up a tent...

Have a good weekend!

ps Joyce, good to see your blog is back, but your comments aren't working! Welcome back to the blogworld though, I've missed you.

but ds is bouncing off the walls.

He is so tired, but will he go to sleep? Fat chance. Dunno how ppl do controlled crying though - about 30 seconds of him yelling and I'm a nervous wreck! I'm beginnin to wonder if I'm on too many alternative parenting lists though - there was a woman with a tiny baby at dds ballet class yesterday, and she had the baby strapped into her car seat and was just sitting ignoring her wailing - I found it almost physically painful. That's not to say I don't ever ignore ds crying - but it is a rare occasion, and usually when I've tried everything I can think of and he still isn't settling.

Anyway, he's in bed now, so I need to sort out the broccoli (cooked earlier, should be cool enough to put in freezer now), the washing (washed earlier, needs hanging out in dining room), and my pudding. Have remembered to lift dd - beginning to wonder what we do next - we are taking her to the toilet round about midnight every night, and we haven't had an accident for a couple of weeks now, after a bad run of accidents every night.

Ah well, this isn't very educational is it? Well, we didn't do a lot today. That's not true - I did a lot today. Sourced a new supplier for my fledgling business, had my final life coaching call, helped out a couple of ppl on ukp, dealt with support emails from clients, failed to find the paperwork I need to deal with my sharesave, made lunch, made tea, did two loads of washing, hoovered (!), attempted to give dd her reading lesson - she claimed that she felt sick and needed to lie down so that didn't really happen - beginning to wonder what is going on there :-(, referreed several squabbles, cuddled my children, hugged dp and spent far too much time browsing the internet.

Hm, no wonder I'm tired. Night all.

We don't eat a desperately healthy diet. I'm veggie and dp is carnivorous - you can often find us of an evening with roast veg for me and roast chicken for him. I'd like to cook more, but I'm fairly incapable, and I want to offer both of the children an interesting, varied, balanced home cooked diet. Any and all suggestions on this welcome! Meals I can cope with include baked potatos, broccoli cheese (ds doesn't like cauliflower and I agree with him!), pizza (although I have been resorting to bought ones, I can and used to make them myself), um that's about it. While ds was on pureed veg I was doing reasonably well at doing it myself - now that he should be on more varied solid stuff I'm beginning to struggle. So if anyone wants to leave their favourite (really easy to cook) recipe in the comments, I'll lift them and stick them on a webpage for us all.

What I'm saying is - help!

but all in all a pleasant afternoon and evening. Dd didn't request the tv on when we got in - instead she wanted her bi blocks out. Then it was tea time, and she wanted to play dominoes, so we had three games, and she won all three. After tea and bath, we went for a reading lesson instead of watching Maggie, but that didn't work too well - she may well have been a bit too tired for it, and the concentration certainly wasn't there. I think there are some sounds that she struggles with - I was sent to Speech and Drama lessons for a lisp, and I think she's got a touch of one too. But a lot of the problem tonight was that it was funnier to make daft noises than it was to comply with the instructions, so I quit. No point in getting myself stirred up over it. We'll fit it in tomorrow I hope - we aren't planning on going out until her dance class, so hopefully we'll have time for a few things that are outstanding - some planting, two reading lessons, card for grandfather, couple of competition entries, plus I've some stuff to post (so that's a nice walk to the post office as well) and some papers to find for some phone calls I've got to make.

Ooh, hadn't realised there was that much outstanding, sounds like we're going to have a busy day! We also bought some scone mix (sorry Roslyn ) as I thought that might be an easy was in to doing some baking together. It doesn't have any instructions with it though (apart from just add cold water), so I don't know what temperature to bake it at - should be interesting.

// posted by Jax Blunt @ 3/17/2004 08:21:00 PM

popped over to see Barbara this morning. The girls played reasonably well together - it has to be said that it was dd who wasn't being nice :-( and Barbara and I coo-ed over ds and her sonlight books alternately ;-)

We also planted more sunflowers, and discussed E's cress seeds. Then a swift lunch, and we departed to do the shopping, while Barbara trundled off into town.

Home mid afternoon, after buying more seeds (I'm determined that something will grow this year, and I don't think it's going to be the strawberries :-( ) Dd and ds are playing with her duplo sized bricks - well she's building, he's knocking down and she's screaming about it. We've had lesson 3 of 100EL (hoping that if I document out progress it might keep me going with it!) and that's about it for the day so far. Not going to woodcraft tonight as they are going swimming and that's not something I can easily do with two offspring, neither of whom swims. not to mention the fact that I'm blind and deaf without my glasses, and I don't like to swim in them!

Right, got to go push buttons on the oven, will update more later.

We made it to breastfeeding group, although the soft play area was shut off which was a disappointment. Dd behaved well and ate well, apart from the irritating tendency to hide under the table and leap out shouting boo while I was trying to persuade ds to feed.

Then we went off to ds's photo shoot - he is going to be the local cloth clad baby for a new campaign to get ppl to reduce, reuse, recycle. well, assuming that the piccies come out ok. This was arranged by Sarah and so we went to her shop to do the piccies. Amusingly as the introductions were being done, the lady from the council said, I know dd already - turned out she'd been to woodcraft folk last week to do a talk on the three rs there. After that we called in at Yeoman's camping supplies to have yet another look at camping accessories, and then came home. Long day out and about, and I think we did pretty well through most of it.

Another reading lesson tonight - I've decided that I can't cope with the "I can't read" complaints, so we're going to work through 100EL to see if that will help. Dd crawled all over the sofa during the lesson, and ds (who was feeding) kept coming off to see what was going on, but we made it through.

It's the local group meet tomorrow, but I lost the phone number that dp brought back from woodcraft folk, and although I got a different one out of the EO handbook, I haven't managed to connect with the ppl concerned yet, so I don't think we're going to make the meeting (I don't know where it is which is a bit of a handicap). Shame, so I'm just going to have to think of something else to do.

We might do this and maybe some more planting - everything we planted so far has died!

have booked camp, done two loads of washing, reading lesson, dd has tidied the living room, I've done many emails, dealt with compost, washed up, and now considering phone calls that need to be made before going out to breastfeeding group.

There appear to be benefits to being dragged out of bed at the crack of dawn - but boy does my head ache.

Quick update while I'm defrosting the pasta sauce...

ds spent an hour screaming at bedtime (well ok, when I got tired of waiting for him to get tired and dragged him off to bed at 12.30am), despite all efforts to calm him down. Heartrending sounds of inconsolable baby - as I wouldn't let him sit up and play. Eventually he passed out sucking my finger, and then slept through til 8ish. I got up and got organised at 9 and hauled him out of bed anyway - we had things to do.

So we did them. We went here to look at these. We liked them a lot. And the lady was really nice - we were the only customers in during the morning, and she went round and switched all the lights on for us, then came to find us in the showroom, talked about our major need, and then talked me through the whole shopping list of necessary equipment. What a nice lady. We bought a rainjacket for dd and a fleece snowsuit type thing for ds so I was happy with those as well.

Then we went to see my sister Kierston for lunch, which was rather good too. After lunch we went here to look at some more of those outdoor things. I didn't like this shop nearly as much - it seems to be about budget everything, without any guidance on what you need - there were huge numbers of staff around, but none of them spoke to us. Such a contrast to the first shop. The only plus point was the outdoor display - quite educational on a blustery day!

Dd is so excited - she is desperate to go camping. And dp was tempted to go back to the first shop to buy the longed for item so that we can practise with it in the garden.

So I've put my vote in to the camps list, and we won't be using a static after all. Must ring and book tomorrow...

which was why I didn't get around to blogging last night. We had a power cut. But we have lots of candles, so dp and I got to sit and chat by candlelight, which was actually rather pleasant.

There wasn't much else blogworthy about the day anyway. Dd spent a lot of time going up and down to her room :-( She had started out quite nicely, with games built around Milly Molly Mandy - dp had added her a house to a scanned copy of the map from the book, and she was playing lovely games about that. But it didn't last long.

She also said she wanted to learn to read, so I sat down (again) with a beginner reader book with her. But she won't even look at the words - throws herself all over the couch, and sighs and moans - she appears to want someone to flick a switch so that she can read, and no matter how many times I explain that it doesn't work like that, she acts like it's my fault. So after half an hour of this, I rather lost patience. I don't know what to do - she knows her letters, but doesn't get the idea of sounding out words. I'd be quite happy to just leave it a while longer, but she is desperate to read, and it's becoming an issue. I don't want to spend loads of money on different schemes that don't work, but I'm a bit lost as to what I should do. Right, got to go make her tea, and then I'll update on today.

I suggested to dd that instead of spreading out whinging and whining throughout the day, that she goes off to her room and gets it all over with in one fell swoop. Well, it's worth a try (*anything* is worth a try!) So she gamely went off and made horrid noises for a few minutes, which appeared to work for, oh about 5 minutes before she found something else to wail about. Hm, back to square 1 methinks.

Oh, I'm getting tired of this.

was getting More Milly Molly Mandy stories from the library.

Took a bit of effort getting there - getting very tired of asking dd to do anything as first I get no, then I explain why, then I get a huge sigh and 'alright then, I'll DO it'. Strange, I thought we were going to the library for her book...although we did also pick up Alan Thomas, Educating children at home, which I'd ordered. It's interesting but a little dry.

Got my EO membership through today as well - beginning to feel like a real home edder. Except we don't really *do* anything. Still, dd is only 4. But she spends an inordinate amount of time fixated on the tv - or expects entertainment laid on, usually when I'm in the middle of washing up, or doing the washing, or feeding ds. I'm not quite sure where the day goes, but I don't seem to spend much of it on education at the moment. What is that quote, life is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans? It seems to be what is passing me by while I'm busy doing I'm not quite sure what.

Picked up an entry form for a letter writing competition local to our library - there is no lower limit, and it doesn't say anything about dictation not being allowed, so thought I might try to persuade dd to write to Milly Molly Mandy. Would be an interesting exercise anyway.

Nearly caught up on the washing now, and beginning to make some headway (oh so slowly) with the piles of clutter around the room. Got to get rid of some stuff! I'm thinking ebay, loft, charity shops, more storage, less buying stuff. Hohum, nothing like major life changes all at once to make you feel full of life and raring to go!

Reading several books to dd while feeding ds this aft. Something that I'd always hoped we'd do, but somehow doesn't seem to happen very often. I don't quite know how my little girl and I have drifted so far apart, and it makes me sad, so very sad.

Bad mummy moments - realising that between the two of us we've killed all the sunflowers....piccie to follow when I hook up the camera. Dd was distraught when somehow she contrived to pull the leaves off one of the shoots. Another had died because it had folded in two, and despite last gasp efforts to save it, we seem to have killed the third while trying to prop it up. Oh dear, dd is not going to be happy when she realises that the last one has gone.

Ds bad mummy moment - realising that there is quite a lot of dust on our wooden floor even though I hoovered just two days ago, and now that he is commando crawling, he's picking it all up. Would it be bad to use him as a baby sized lint roller then? ;-)

so trying to get on top of the missing week of housework (and blogging, of course!). We're running out of clothes! On the upside, we've got lots of clean bedding ;-)

Dd came to me with a notebook this morning and asked how to write 'Mummy' - she'd got the first M already, which impressed me. I showed her the 'u' but she couldn't quite get it, so I rifled through the workbooks for one to practise with, and came up with an S&S early writing one. she did rather a lot of that, and then some of another one, so I feel like we've done something vaguely educational as well.

She's still having Milly Mollie Mandy at bedtime, and that's leading to lots of interesting questions - she wants to see a blacksmith making horse shoes for one. Could be a little difficult - while my sister has a horse, I'm fairly sure that her smith makes the shoes at his forge then cold shoes at the stable, so he wouldn't be very interesting. Will have to put my thinking cap on.

My Hesfes ticket has arrived, and I'm debating buying a tent for MP camp this summer - been looking at these
Vango but not sure that I'm up to camping with a 13 month old as ds will be by then.

Hohum.

Let's see - Friday last week, wasn't it? Right after I'd posted that I wasn't sure if I could be bothered to go out, I got a text plea for help from the mother of a nursery friend, so we loaded up, went out and picked him up, went to M*hell with the three sprogs, had a great time, and kept him overnight. No sooner had he been whisked away the following day than my mother rang to ask if she could drop by, so dd got best friend and Grandma and Grandad all in one day. How good does it get.

So to Sunday...
when I started with mastitis, so we'll draw a veil over that. :-(

Monday, my he friends came through big style - Barbara had dd for the morning (and apparently dd was incredibly well behaved throughout the proceedings, even the meeting at nursery) and then Sarah was waiting and carted her off for the afternoon to the park. Wonderful ppl!

Tuesday I felt much better, so we picked up Grandma and went up to M*hell again, had a nice lunch and dd got her haircut as a thankyou for being wonderful the day before.

Wednesday however, you already know about. :-(

which brings up to today. Tempers short all round due to the very interrupted night, but we've made it through the day and hope that tomorrow will be better. Touch wood that we are all physically better anyway. I appear to have mislaid an entire week! Not happy about that.

the mastitis has passed, and hopefully the nasty vomiting bug too :-(

Yesterday morning it was me, closely followed by ds all day yesterday and then dd all night. Trying to wear out the washing machine I think!

Normal service should be resumed shortly.

to say I'm not feeling well, so won't be blogging for a bit. Beginning to suspect that the bug I thought I had is actually a mastitis flare-up - have just sent dp out to find a Sunday chemist to fill the prescription I've had waiting for this eventuality. :-(

but felt that I should announce that ds has been in bed (or more accurately, cot) since just before 11 - he fell asleep there, with me just lying next to him, and has been peaceful ever since. Woohoo!

Right, off to join him. (It's a bedside cot).

Night night all.

which is impressive, considering that I was woken up at 4.30 by the batteries on the phone giving out! :-( (Would like to understand how come that only woke me up - I'm the one who is *supposed* to be deaf!)

Anyway, did manage to get up and going, got a load of washing on with dds help, got us all up and washed and dressed, and had life coaching call while dd played with her cuisenaire rods again. (They really are excellent, and the cards which came with them are a definite bonus). We also measured our sunflowers again, and we need to look up how much water they need. Bit more time spent discussing telling the time, and dd helped sort the post, which requires her to do some letter spotting.

She made her own sandwiches for lunch again, and ds is still managing to drink from his cup, but only when someone else holds it. He is full of cold today, and a bit sorry for himself :-(

Trying to decide whether I can be bothered to load up and go out this aft - bit low on inspiration where to go.

Let see, dd made a card for a friend, and we made it into town to deliver it. It was dance class, which is still going well, although I'm still hating sitting in the changing room. Ds enjoyed it though - while I was getting dd ready to come home, he was chewing the handbag of the lady sitting next to me - oops! We didn't measure our sunflowers today - although we have discussed why they are bending in strange directions.

Ds has a new achievement today - he can go forwards. He isn't crawling yet, more a sort of commando effort, but he can definitely progress in a direction of choice. This may not be good news - time to pick up all the clobber from around the house. Oh and he managed to drink from a cup as well today - which might explain why he wasn't interested in milk til nearly tea time! And I forgot to say that yesterday he fed himself his first banana.

Right, got a tiny bit of work to finish off so that's it for blogging tonight.

Heart of Gold

What is Your Heart REALLY Made of? brought to you by Quizilla

Ok, so it's soppy, but there you go. Thanks to Tamra for it.

I planted my strawberries in this pots a week or so back, and they appear to be going mouldy! Is this normal? Will try to post a piccie later....

Had the health visitor round for an hour this morning - one I hadn't met before. I only scored 12 on her depression scale, which apparently doesn't require treatment. I did mention that that had improved radically in the past week, since our sleeping has begun to sort out. Beginning to wonder if I was actually just stressed re work (or lack thereof) and the other bits of our life, but also mega sleep deprived. Did I say just? Well, you know what I mean.

Dd has spent over an hour this afternoon playing with our cuisenaire rods - they've turned out to be a marvellous investment. We've also measured our plants again, and I'm going to start a height chart for them in a day or two when we've got some more measurements to plot (anyone suggest a suitable scale for sunflowers?).

Our disappointment though is that the phone has just rung and woodcraft folk isn't on this week, as the parent who was organising is ill, and no one else can think of anything to do. If I'd had a bit more than an hour, I would probably have volunteered to do *something* but then again, I've only been to one meeting, so I'm not sure what the standard run is. Shame though, as we were also supposed to get the details of the weekly home ed meet tonight, so we won't be able to go to that next week, and I was looking forward to that. Dd has taken it fairly well though.

We've also had our photos back from the developers - including the cds, so I'll hopefully upload a couple later on.

Other notable activities, ds, who doesn't seem terribly well today (streaming cold and has slept most of the afternoon - but on my knee again!) did manage to feed himself his banana at lunch time. Definite result - quicker he can feed himself the better I say! Just pondering on what to give him for tea - it had looked like he wasn't going to want anything but he's now wide awake and much cheerier, so I think I'd better go improvise.

Oh, and I nearly forgot - dd's world book day token arrived! I'd called them yesterday on the offchance (hadn't realised that they were open to preschoolers this year) and the lady said that registration had closed, but she would see what she could do. Obviously what she could do involved a token and an envelope - nice lady!

so taking a break to blog.

Had friends over for more of that playing, drinking tea and comparing notes - a good time had by all. The kids started off a bit OTT but by the end were having a fantastic time - we even slid in something resembling education when we did little family timelines.

Before that dd and I had measured the three (count 'em Sarah!) sunflower shoots in her pot, and watered plants again. We're going to do a height chart for them as well. And after the friends had gone dd chilled with some maxi hama.

Oh, thoughtful moment of the day from dp - went out shopping today and came back with a vegetarian version of omega 3 fish oil supplement for me - reaaly touched by that.

What else? I've printed out my hesfes booking form!

And ds has slept all evening - good. But mainly on my knee - bad. Still, have just understood some more stuff about css, so getting there slowly.

forgot to blog last night - slapped wrists!

Started the day by doing planty things - the sunflowers that we planted a week or two back have sprouted. So we watered all the plants in the house, put our potatoes on a windowsill to chit (should be somewhere cool, but we haven't got anywhere terribly cool!) and talked about things growing.

Then we tried to get a bit of housework done, and friends came round after lunch. We recapped on the balloon experiment, and dd showed off her spindle box (still can't get over how much fun she's getting out of an eggbox and a pile of buttons, but there you go) and there was much playing and drinking of tea. Ds took notes when the visiting baby started walking - can't help thinking that he isn't that far off, but don't want to rush him - no idea where I'm going to put all the things he shouldn't have!

Bit of a fall out with dd at tea time - would appear that we reached her limit about 10 minutes before the friends left. But all was happy when dp reappeared from his day away.