Happy Hippy Madhouse.....

Generally i love it when the kids're off school, we can spend more time together and most of the flashpoints aren't in use then, you know, like getting up, washed, ready for school, kitbags, homework etc. We still get up pretty early BUT the good thing is that we don't need to be anywhere ar organised for anything (organised is NOT my middle name!) so theoretically life should run more smoothly, but no. We still find things to stress over, just different ones. R and i have gone to bed early a couple of nights (Yippee!) as i've been having a really bad week and have been practically immobile for two days. So, there we were all nicely tucked up in bed watching Pocahontas when along came..... Nell! This might not seem like much of a problem, she is a wonderful daughter who i love dearly, BUT, add Nell to a tired R and what do you get? Bedlam!! Within minutes of her arrival they were trying on fairy costumes, tutus, and heaven knows what else, all thoughts of quiet snuggles...

The kids're off school this week so of course i'm feeling off kilter anyway (you may remember that B goes to his dads during school break), not helped by the fact that everyone else seems off kilter too. R is really feeling it, we've had a couple of crying sessions today, one quite major as we descended from slight disagreement to the screaming banshee from hell! She wasn't happy either! No, really, most of the time i can keep calm and as she gets older the 2 second warning has extended so much that most of the time quick thinking on my part can avert disaster - not today! To be fair i wasn't as calm as usual, i'd had a bad night and was in a lot of pain and wasn't very mobile at all. I was supposed to go shopping today but that went out of the window much to R's displeasure. She had it in her head that she wanted a tuna sandwich so of course we didn't have any tuna. This was thankfully resolved by going to Kayleighs house for a tin of tuna - problem...

Just how bad has the weather been? Absolutely dreadful! No need to worry about global warming then eh? Much! There has been lots going on but it's been one of those weeks when yu're flapping around all week in a tizz but when you look back you're not quite sure what you spent all that time on? One thing i have done a lot of this week is spent time exploring Blogger. Not a bad thing to be doing, i've discovered that i much prefer blogger to t.v.- well, thats not strictly surprising as i prefer watching clocks tick to watching t.v" - but like most things with me i always go at it gung ho for a while and then the novelty wears off. It's a bit like reading a book thats so great that you just can't put it down until it reveals its thrilling end. 'Nothing wrong with that' you might be thinking, 'uses the old grey cells and keeps them active', however i have found one quite significant flaw in this philosophy - There IS no ending! The 'book...

Another day, another drama! Why me this week/month/year??? Of course it all started so well. We got loaded into the car and managed to get to Jeans only a little late and this time it wasn't even my fault!! Lee decided to order some food for us all to be delivered - fabulous!- but surprisingly-not!- it took nearly an hour for it to be collected even though they said it'd be ready in 20 mins! Then of course it took ages for it to be eaten due to our new arrival (x-box anyone?) which kept on distracting them whilst they were supposed to be eating. Not their fault at all! So they kept on saying anyway! We finally got to Jeans, piled in abandoning hats coats and shoes in the process. (It's so cold wet and windy here right now that i was toying with the idea of socks for everyone, including me!) The kids quickly settled into doing some crafts that they'd requested for this visit, at least R and Heather (Jeans lass) did. B has been very unsettled recently which is so sad to s...

I think that friday is, in some ways, my favourite day of the week. The sense of relief i feel when i realise that we don't have to get up and organised by 8am is almost (but not quite!) spiritual. As we all know kids have their own little body clocks going which seems to work along the lines of :- fuzzyheaded, sleep deprived exhaustion and on a go slow all week through monday to friday where you're practically weeping before they'll get up BUT come saturday, when you don't have to be anywhere - or dressed for that matter, they're up with the lark and full of the joys of spring by 8.30am! WHY?? Do they do it to punish us or is it just my kids whose body clocks work that way? So, up we got this morning, B and i (R and N were at sleepovers) not in a rush to be anywhere. Lee was up before 10am and we were just lazing around for an hour or so. L's boss arrived with his wages, thankfully!, in which he found a lovely surprise. This led to a hasty get...

Here i am, waffling on about various bits and pieces of ur life when i forgot to tell the best news i've had all year! Lee moved home at the end of july!!! Yipee! T be fair whilest i'm selfishly doing a jig in celebration of his return it was in fact a very hard time for him. He had split up with his girlfriend and had no where to live so he came home to his Mam, it was sad 'cos he'd had to give up his job which he loved and had been in for 5 years and enjoyed. The job situation being what it is he struggled to get another but has finally found something that he seems to enjoy. I f course wish that he hadn't had to go through the heartache at the time but would be a liar if i didn't admit to being over the moon that he's back with me. It hasn't been the easiest of times, he's not lived in the madhouse for 5 years and has had to get used to the general uproar that is us, he has needed some quiet time alone to think which isn't the...

Today is an odd day, Rowanne has gone to stay at her daddys house tonight. He's off work with a damaged elbow so is doing midweek sleepovers as well as friday nights. I'm not sure that it's a good thing. I know her dad loves her and does his best but she's been under the weather recently, a water infection, and has been upset over a few things that he said about me. I know he's very self centered and generally doesn't think before he speaks but i feel that he really should be careful when he's talking to her. We haven't lived together since before her 2nd birthday so it's not like she misses that, however earlier this year he made murmerings about moving here with us. I must admit that my first thoughts were what was he after and why now. I know that him living with us would be an incredibly difficult thing for us to adapt to but i did give it a little thought;i think the concept of two parents together appealed to me until i did a reality check ...

After all the excitement of yesterday, staying up late to halp J and do this i overslept a bit this morning. It's at times like this that i often wish that my kids were homeschooled. I hate hurrying them to get ready when they're clearly tired, they must be 'cos i know i am! I've often thought about it but my biggest fear is that i wouldn't be able t teach them all they need to know in this age of technology and computers. At the ripe old age of 41 i've finally plucked up the courage to try the world inside the screen. If my kids only had me to teach them then we wouldn't even have the flipping thing! (even though i have to admit to enjoying parts of this- blogger for one!) We're always being told that we need this or that and our kids're deprived if we don't provide it for them. Try telling your (then) 3 year old that she can't have the Bratz super duper delux pop princess fairy compound for the one off budget price of your soul plus the yea...

So, today being sunday i'd planned to not do too much, well, actually that's not quite true. Initially we were due to go to "Apple Day", a one day festival that celebrates everything and anything remotely to do with apples - the clues were there in the title people! Anyhoo, to cut a long story short (Yeah, like i EVER do that!) it was cancelled earlier this week due to the fact that the field was most likely under 6" of water. Shock horror! So, we had a few let down kids - and mums for that matter - with not much on. I then foolishly envisioned a relaxing sunday morning with a lazy breakfast and maybe even building up the enthusiasm (or courage might be more apt) to do "the bedrooms". You may wonder why i wrote it like that? In fact 'bedroom' is quite a relative word in this house. 'Why?' you may wonder. Well, it's like this, when most people think of the word bedroom they imagine a room with a bed in it, maybe a wardrobe and/or...

So much for fervent regular blogging then! The summer (if you could call it that!) sloshed by and there it was gone before i'd even blinked. It was, of course, my own fault; if i hadn't rushed out in a fit of enthusiasm and bought garden furniture it would've been a flipping heatwave! As it was my major investment over the actual holidays themselves were new wellingtons and waterproofs, i kid you not. Earned their worth ten times over i can tell you! There are some parts of the holidays that i find really hard, B goes to stay with his dad which i find more and more painful every year. He doesn't see his dad during term time as he lives too far away so he spends the entire hols with him. I know he has to spend time with his dad, he loves it, he gets the best of both worlds; being part of a big, noisy tribe like us where we all have to muck in and share and also the chance to be an only child with his dad who does lots of "boy" stuff with him. It's just that...