Photographs

I was looking back at our family photos recently.

Pictures of the boys when they were small. M sitting on a blanket under the fruit trees at the end of our garden, his face lit up with a smile as he plays with the colourful plastic toys surrounding him.

S at the same age with the blank stare of the child with autism, resolutely ignoring both people and toys. Children with autism have no imagination, so very limited play skills. They often only approach people as a means of getting what they want. Some do not even recognise their parents.

Yet they can change. As he grows older, we see pictures of S smiling broadly at the camera…a short phase, like most boys he now hates to have his picture taken! He can play, in a limited fashion, with things which interest him…these usually involve music and technology. He has a smile which melts the hardest heart and gets him his own way far more often than is good for him. He has even learned to say please using Makaton sign language in his own idiosyncratic way…he blows us a kiss.

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Thank Goodness It’s Over!

"Ye gods"  (Sorry Anne, I’ve pinched this line from you!), but I have never been so glad of a party finishing  as I was yesterday.

I have always taken such pride from producing great parties at home for the children (this is measured by my children’s enjoyment factor and that their friends have always been reluctant to leave). 

Maybe it has something to do with how I’ve been feeling lately (stressed) but I couldn’t believe the behaviour of some of the children and they all around the age of six!  And to be honest, it was the girls that were the problem.

We had our customary bouncy castle and although I didn’t go to town on the games like I normally do I had some up my sleeve to keep them occupied.  Plus I always have a craft table for them to make things.  It’s usually the girls that like this but it has always been a hit.  Especially as one of my friends took over as ‘Creative Director’.

It started within the first half an hour.  The girls were pinning the boys down on the bouncy castle. But you know when you can see that although the boys ddn’t want to make too much fuss, they really were struggling.  I found myself having to ‘have a word’ with the girls over not being so rough!

This was just the start.  I made sure an adult was watching out for me while I carried on with the background preparations and if an adult had to tell them once they told them about four times. So I know it wasn’t just me.

I know at parties maybe one child can get upset over something, but I had four children, who at one time or another got upset by being hurt.  And I have to say it’s something else I’ve prided myself on that children don’t get upset (apart from the odd one and that’s over the last few years!).

The organised games were fine, but even then, it was a case of some of the children, just saying "I don’t want to play that" and not in the polite ‘no thanks’ kind of way either.

Don’t get me wrong most of these children are lovely in their own right, but, especially with the girls, they were displaying traits that you don’t normally see until they are teenagers.  My friend summed it up, girls are fine until they ‘get into packs’.

And at the end of the day as they were leaving, it was a case of (with the girls) ‘where’s my party bag?’.  I can’t repeat how I would have liked to answer those questions, but I’m sure you can imagine.

I have to do it all over again in two weeks for my soon to be 10 year old.  But even last year with his (then) 9 year old girl friends talking about sex all the time, the six year olds beat them hands down!

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What - Time to Ourselves?

It’s very late, the living room is tidy and thanks to Jackie I have been reminded to make the jelly (thanks Jackie, I would have completely forgotten).

I’ve got to the point now where I can’t be bothered to do any more house tidying.  The toilet, bathroom and living room are clean and tidy and the kitchen will be before guests arrive tomorrow for the Birthday party. 

As I’ve mentioned before, regarding my house cleaning when visitors come,  anything not nailed down will be thrown into a bag and stored until I can be bothered to put it away.  Which will be never really!

I was quite pleased that I didn’t have to order a JCB and digger to get through the mess.  Maybe I will when I have to sort out the black bags full of things I’ll have been looking for for ages . . .

I was scouting on the blogs tonight, as you do and read a really love account from Livvy called ‘Mother Has Left the Building’.  It made me giggle and did in fact leave a comment calling her the Bridget Jones of the ‘married with children’ brigade.

The reason I loved this entry tonight is because Livvy is recounting how she has been filling her time while her family have been away.  It strikes a chord as today my husband and I have been offered the chance to go away for a weekend while my mom and sister look after the children.

Of course we’ll decline (what? . . . . . only joking!).  The trouble is when I have the chance to be on my own with hubby, which is very rare, I go all girly and silly.  Yes I know I am in my forties, but it’s almost like going on a date.  I can’t look at him without grinning.  I think that’s a good sign isn’t it?

We’ll have to decide now where to go and when.  It’s strange though, because as nice as the offer is and we really could do with a bit of down time together, I am already feeling guilty about leaving the children.  Why oh why? 

My sister doesn’t live close by so doesn’t have much chance to spend  time with the children on their own and they are so excited that she is coming to visit.  I know they’ll have a brilliant weekend.  Actually thinking about it my mom hasn’t told her about this yet, so she’s got a real surprise coming!!  I’m sure she’ll think it’s a good one.

So that was a bright spot in our day today.  And I can see my living room floor.

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Did You Ever Have One of Those Days?

I have managed to get myself so stressed out today that I ended up standing still and doing sweet nothing.

I can hold my hand up and say that I have probably caused most of this stress too. 

I haven’t managed to start the accounts yet, nor find an accountant.  I have the launch of the new site www.pinkchampagneandapplejuice.com next week (which is exciting) and in between all of that I have my youngest son’s Birthday tomorrow and party on Saturday.

Normally he likes his parties in the afternoon but this time round he wanted it starting at 11.00 am.  That’s okay really, I just need to pull my finger out tomorrow and be prepared.  I am a morning person, but it just seems such a trial starting so early. 

I’ve also had eldest son at home poorly this week, so couldn’t race around today doing all the things I needed to do after having worked three days this week.  And because I’ve had a bit of a falling out with my mom last night, she decided not to have my daughter for me, which had been pre-arranged so I could organise the house and self.

So me thinks, feeling stressed is probably an understatement!

Oh yes and I’ve had to make 28 fairy cakes tonight complete with icing and decoration for Birthday boy to take into school tomorrow.  Well actually we made more than that because we ate most of one of the batches. 

I had the children all lined up in the kitchen helping.  And I have to say because they helped, even though it takes longer to supervise, we did achieve the task between us.

I now have to go and sit with hubbie for a meeting about our business - oh joy!

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Pink Champagne and Apple Juice

Friday 4th May 2007 sees the launch of the Pink Champagne and Apple Juice site - www.pinkchampagneandapplejuice.com.

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Bambi

We had a magical surprise tonight.  In what is a very stressful period of time for me and the other half, we (including the children) were stopped in our tracks tonight by a simply wonderful sight.

We spotted a deer in our next doors garden.  I have since been informed by my learned mother that is must have been a Muntjac.  Whatever it was it just made our night.  We tried to take a couple of photos but without being able to use flash and open the window, not sure how they will come out. 

If they are any good I’ll post a picture next time round.  For now this graphic will have to suffice.

My son spotted it first and shouted me.  I thought he was tricking me.  I then shouted down to my husband who was in the kitchen, who replied ‘are you having me on?’  (make a mental note for April Fools Day!).

But yes it was true our very own Bambi in the garden. 

I loved that film, it still makes me cry now.

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My Scary Hand

Here’s a little tip for you.  When you decide to close two doors together that meet in the middle, oh I don’t know like wardrobe doors, do it with the light on and keep your hands out of the way.

I really should have taken that on board before I closed a wardrobe door on my hand the other day and forgot to move one of my fingers out of the way in time. 

I was trying to be kind to the children by not putting the light on and using light from the bathroom, but something was obviously blocking the door being shut.  Instead of checking the floor I just pushed the door harder than normal.  And trapped my finger.

It hurt.  My finger had been at an angle and I not only bruised the nail but cut my finger as well.

I ended up sitting on the settee with ice packing my finger.  It really, really throbbed.  I can only liken it to the Tom and Jerry cartoons when one of them may have been hit on the hand by a hammer and it balloons up and you can visibly see it throbbing!

Luckily I’m a good healer (just as well as I couldn’t find a single plaster), but it doesn’t look too good and since I did it, the children have been scared of it.  I’m not allowed to hold them with ‘that’ hand.  If I pick them up I have to use my arm instead of my hand (not easy).

To encourage them, my eldest who is not squeamish, lightly touched the bruised nail, which the other two also had a go at, albeit tentatively.  But the cut that has blackened on the reverse is a definite no-no, so I am having to keep it hidden.

The naughty side of my personality wants to chase them around the room with it but as it’s the middle finger of my hand, this doesn’t exactly give a good message!

Sometimes being a sensible parent is no fun at all.

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4th May

With much consideration the secret project will be launching on 4th May.  Watch out for the updates on this site.

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Organisation Mania

I have just spent the last couple of hours sorting paperwork.  Only sorting mind you.  My filing system has got a bit out of hand.  Well, I call it filing.

I am having to sift through three boxes of ‘dumped’ items to sort into - Stuff that would be quite good for the Accounts, stuff that the children have drawn, written or made me and any related certificates, newsletters etc, stuff that quite frankly needs binning, stuff that should be filed somewhere and general household stuff that for some reason ends up on my desk.

I’ve uncovered bubbles, shampoo, a pair of pants, a bib and goodness knows what else. 

I’m really shattered after a few days of work (where I am so organised it hurts!) but because we have a clean desk policy at night due to confidential information having to be locked away, it’s given me the impetus tonight to get to work (again) on my desk area at home.

It’s linked into that Spring feeling that always makes me feel good and the need for a good clean out.  I also have to tackle the house this weekend.  I have a party to organise for next weekend and the only game we could currently play is, try and get from the front of the house to the back without tripping up and breaking a leg.  Not a good game for a load of 6 year olds to be honest.

I am also keen to get back into using my desk for my own projects which are well under way now.  I know I have promised that it will be any time now, but we need to fine tweak some bits and pieces and then I will introduce it to the world.

I would be working on my project tonight, but hubbie is on a mentoring tele conference call to America (show off!) which contains highly useful information for my project, so it had to be.

This is okay as I needed to start organising myself anyway and the more I organise the better I feel and the better I feel the more I organise and so on and so on.

Oh and a useful tip for when you’re filing that I learned way back when Duran Duran were top of the charts - never, never, never have a miscellaneous file. 

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Run Ragged at Ragley

Bah humbug, I have to go back to work on Monday.  I therefore decided to have a final big day out with the children and their nan yesterday.

We personally love Ragley Hall as there is so much open space for the children to run around in and they have a fantastic play area, which suits children of all ages up to 16.

The only trouble with having the range of age children I have is splitting myself between the activities they all want to go on.  Especially as they all shout out ‘look at me mom’.  My youngest thinks she can compete with her older siblings on the big slides and climbing frames they go on.  And to be fair, she has a go.  Okay, my stomach is in my mouth watching her but you have to let them try.

There is one activity which, no kidding is higher than an average house.  You walk up this wooden structure with netting  etc attached and there is a slide for the small children (which to me is still quite steep) and then it goes up to the highest point where there is one of those metal enclosed slides.

It clearly states that you have to be over 5ft to go on this part of the equipment.  The last time we went my eldest son asked me to watch him climb up and come down the slide.  As I did I blinked in the sunlight to see my other son (who is nowhere near 5 ft running along the equipment behind his big brother laughing).

I held my breath but he came down the slide safely and proceeded to run back round again. This clearly is not in the guidance books about being a parent.  Should I have stopped him or should he have the freedom to try it as he looked confident and was (as far as you can be on these playthings) safe?  My own thoughts after seeing him were not to break his spirit.  Plus I couldn’t have caught up with him and I’m a bit scared of heights myself so would probably have been putting my own fears on to him.

Having said that he had no inclination to go on it this time round.  He’d tried it and that was that.

Suffice to say we had a great day, playing badminton, flying a kite, having a picnic and enjoying the freedom.

Then my eldest son asked if he could have some time out with me on his own in the adventure playground.  My other children were happy being with nan and collecting bags of stones, so we snuck off.

We ran to the playground like naughty children and then my son said "right, now for your challenges". 

He ‘made me’ go on the smaller slides first (which I don’t particularly like as they hurt your back on the ridges in them), but I did it.  He then took me to a tower that we had to climb, walk across a net, climb through a narrow hole down some steps onto a platform where there was a rope you could monkey climb to get to the other side.

No problem then.  After overcoming my wussy fear of heights and getting to the rope, my son just raced across it (show off) and then waited for me.  I clung to that rope and started to pull myself across when my son suddenly stood under me and lifted my feet.  I got almost to the other side but didn’t have the strength to lift my legs up to the other side.

I dropped on to the mat and thanked my son for his help.

Challenge still not over.  He then pulled me over to a platform that you just throw yourself off onto a mat.  It must have been at least 60 ft high.  Okay I am exaggerating but it could have been for all the churning in my stomach.  It was as tall as an adult, so not that high until you are standing waiting to jump off.

I ashamedly admit that I had to wait for my son to come and hold my hand so we could jump off together!

He was building me up to a big finale here.  My next challenge was the massively high equipment that my then 4 year old had run across laughing.  I was shaking inside but I knew I had to do it for my sons sake.  And you know what, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was.  Climbing across at the height we were was a bit stomach churning for me, but the slide wasn’t that bad.

After that everything else was tame but my son enjoyed the time we shared.

The last highlight of the day was having a go at steering nan’s car on our long way out of the park. They each took it in turns to steer the car across the grass which they thoroughly enjoyed and finished the day off well.

Today I am aching in places I didn’t know could ache, but it was worth it.

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