Toys Galore

Well I had to tackle it some time.  And by that I mean the children’s toys.  They have so much stuff it’s shameful really.  But if you add up the number of Birthdays and Christmases and times by the the people who have bought them presents, it adds up to a lot.

I set up a load of boxes and spent the best part of the day trying to organise the toys into types.  Vehicles in one, soft toys in another and so on.  I was doing pretty well until tea time and the night time routine and have now hit a halt.

I have to concentrate on other things now like accounts and so have the residue from my efforts scattered all over the floor.  It should only take another couple of hours to do, but not tonight.

I also hit my head really hard on the door frame of the cupboard under the stairs where we keep some of the toys.  It still hurts now!

It was a good day to spend in the house as they all seemed very tired today.  Not the kind of day to take them anywhere.  So I have reserved their energy for tomorrow and will let them loose in a public place tomorrow.

So I shall be brief tonight as numbers and spreadsheets beckon, even though I have a thumping headache.  Oh to be a martyr!

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A Good Day Had By All

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.  Parenting is not easy.  Well that’s it really - blog finished.  It’s very much like being a Manager except in an office you can walk away at the end of the day and the people you are dealing with remember every last little word you say especially if it involves a promise of some kind.

You know all the common sense basics about trying to reason with children, being calm with them, not shouting and taking them to one side if you ‘have to have a word’. However, the books never tell you that this is okay if you’ve had plenty of quality sleep, no additional stresses and don’t actually have to do anything else other than be a parent.

Some lessons I feel I have learned the hard way and in some ways, too late.  I’m sure I’m not on my own there.

One of the hardest things I find about being a parent is balancing the personalities of the little individuals you have.  I am totally aware of the work I need to put in with my own children and now is the time that I have to put thoughts into actions.  Today was a really good example of that.

I decided a while ago that each of my children needed quality time on their own with either myself or my husband.  In theory this isn’t a problem, in practice not so for whatever reasons can be put in the way.  And that is the crux of the matter for me.  I have woken up to the fact that you have to ‘make time’ for the children.

With all the stresses we have in our own life (which is another story for another day) I feel as though I have, at times, worked my children around my own schedule.  When quite simply, it should be the other way round.  Don’t get me wrong, you have to have a balanced approach and find ‘me’ time, but, like I’ve been told by many people before I had the children, they don’t stay as children for long.

I started to re-dress that today.  My eldest child had an invite to a friend’s house with a sleepover, which he was excited about and gave him some ‘individual’ time.  I then decided to take my ‘middle’ child out for the day on his own with me and with the added bonus that my mother said she would have my youngest for the day, it seemed like a perfect set up.

I decided to take my son to a safari park as he’s interested in tigers.  We took a picnic and I allowed the day to be completely taken over by what he wanted to do.

As we drove through the enclosures, he became chief photographer which made him feel really important and he loved the fact that he could climb about in the car without any restraints.  (Okay, I think this was the biggest pull!)

He even managed to attract an animal to eat out of his hand which was a big confidence boost.  I then let him decide what rides and shows we would go to for the rest of the day.

Without going into all the ins and outs of our day, he thoroughly enjoyed himself.  He laughed, he smiled a lot and I had no whining or whinging from him at all.  Even when he got really tired.

He had had my total and undivided attention and it was worth every penny I spent to see him happy.  Even when we came home, there were no arguments with his sister and we had a very happy camp.  If my eldest had been home, it would have been a lot different, the dynamics change and not always for the better.

For today, he was in charge, he was the big brother and I know the day was special for him as he asked if we could go out on our own again tomorrow!

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Spring Cleaning

I wonder if Argos knew just how useful they were.  If you are wondering what I am talking about, then check out todays entry on A Parallel Universe.

Had a busy day today with it being school holidays.  I have to say I love them.  No rushing about in the mornings, can stay unwashed for longer and don’t have to go anywhere we don’t want to.

While my brood went and played with a neighbour I started on the spring cleaning,  namely trying to find my desk under the piles of rubbish and mountain of boxes surrounding it. 

I’m afraid I’m of the school of thought that if I need to do a quick clean up because we’re having visitors, anything loose on a work surface  gets shoved into a box or plastic bag and ’filed’ in or around our ‘office’.

A good ploy until you actually try to find something you really need.  Especially not good if that thing you’re looking for is a crucial piece of accounting information.

I need my desk now to get the end of year accounts sorted.  Oh yes and find a new accountant.  Plus I have to start, in earnest, getting my projects off the ground so I can stop working after May.  So no pressure then.

One good piece of news is that we are well on the way with the secret project which should be unveiled in the not too distant future.

Don’t you just love a mystery? . . . .

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T - 7

The secret project will be let out in about a week’s time.

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Holiday entertainment

What keeps your child happy in the school holidays? Theme parks? Movies? Football?

In the case of S it is quite simple. Lots of DVDs, CDs and videos ( he still loves the old technology.) The CBeebies website on his computer. Most importantly of all, a huge pile of Argos catalogues.

You are probably wondering about the Argos catalogues. Well he doesn’t just like to look at the pictures, he likes to tear them up. Every evening we have to clear up a huge pile of shredded paper from the floor. He chews on pieces of paper and occasionally swallows them by accident, he tightly twists up long shreds of paper and tries to poke them into his ears, as he often suffers from the pressure of mild glue ear. Thankfully he has finally stopped pushing the paper up his nose, after a nasty infection and the need for Mum and Dad to use tweezers on a regular basis! We have to keep an eye on him all the time.

If we can’t get Argos catalogues then glossy magazines, travel brochures and even telephone directories will do, the thicker the better. He is quite fussy.

Oh well, it’s cheaper than theme parks!

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Surreal Moments

Do you ever have moments when your mind and brain just work in opposite directions?  As I get older it seems to happen more often and in particular it happened the other night and involved my husband.

One of my children wanted to kip in with me, so my husband said he would have their room to give me more space.  When I actually went to bed one of my other children had been scared by a noise outside and had also crept in to be with me.  No problem, still enough room for me.

I went to bed and left it to my husband to lock up downstairs.

I was just dozing off when I suddenly remembered that the back door had been open.  I sat up and shouted out loud "Have you locked the back door?".  I then realised that neither of my two children would actually know this, I had just forgotten they were in with me.

I jumped out of bed, went to where my husband was sleeping and without a thought shouted out to him "have you locked the back door?".

As I thought he had just come to bed and wasn’t asleep I was thrown when he said back to me "what about the laptop?". 

I hadn’t realised he was in a deep sleep, therefore woken him up and had confused him completely. 

Especially as we don’t even have a laptop!

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Happy Easter

A big Happy Easter to everyone.

Another landmark for the year has approached, so we are now well into 2007 already. 

I don’t know about your house, but in ours it doesn’t take a genius to guess what was on the breakfast menu this morning.  Yes, chocolate, followed by more chocolate with a side ordering of chocolate. 

Even sadder is the fact that I have been begging the children for some crumbs of chocolate, forgetting that I had been bought one by my boss.  Oh well keeps mine for longer.

I don’t have a problem with the children pigging out on chocolate on Easter Sunday.  My own mother reminds me of the time when she couldn’t find me on one said morning.  It had gone that ‘danger quiet’ you get with children.

She found me behind the chair having opened ALL my eggs, surrounded by foil and plastic cartons merrily stuffing the chocolate.

I decided, as a parent, that any rules about chocolate on Easter Sunday have to go out of the window. 

I must admit though that apart from the initial unwrapping of eggs and cramming in the first few mouthfuls of chocolate my children have never really pigged out like I used to.  I even have an Easter egg left over from last year that they never ate. 

I only found it last night - chocolate going to waste, what a crime!

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Cosmetic Surgery

"I was going to have cosmetc surgery until I noticed that the doctor’s office was full of portraits by Picasso".

Rita Rudner

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A Smile on My Face

I have asked my husband to help me put a smile back on my face.  I am normally a positive thinking, happy person but this last few weeks I have struggled with even this simple task.

Quite simple I have lost my ‘va va voom’ and have to force myself to be happy.  I had every reason to be happy this week as it was my Birthday.  I had some lovely presents bought me by the children, had a day girlie shopping with my mom for clothes (my annual treat) and with the promise of my husband taking me to do the same.

Even a Birthday meal with my two best mates couldn’t lift my spirits.  I just wanted to be at home.

What is the matter with me?

I don’t think I’m having a mid life crisis but I do feel as though I am in a solitary place.  I have a sense of not belonging.  I know what I want to be doing, but struggle to put it in to practice.  I know what needs to be done, but can’t quite muster up the enthusiasm to get it sorted. 

And yet I am full of good ideas that even my husband is enthusing about. And in the brief moments that I become enthusiastic I know I could work miracles.

Am I going through an early menopause?  Two doctors don’t think I am,  they both thought I was suffering with stress/anxiety but having recently experienced the ‘monthly cycle’ four times in two months I wonder.  I will go back again now this has happened as it needs sorting. Maybe this is is causing my hormonal influx and making me into an emotional yo-yo.

I feel invisible sometimes even though I don’t want to be in the spotlight.  Does that make sense? 

And yet this week I was asked at work about my future plans, with a view to me staying on even longer as their temp.  I don’t like letting people down and I really don’t want to work past the end of May, but it was nice to know that I was obviously doing the job well enough to be considered to stay on. 

I did feel a little sad at having to say that I didn’t want to stay especially as my boss gave me an Easter egg when I left Wednesday night.  That was a really lovely gesture.

I also know that by saying no I have just put the pressure on myself to get really stuck into my projects, to make them work and to know that when I leave in May I will have started bringing income in without temping.

I don’t even know why I am putting this on the blog.  Maybe it’s because sometimes when I read things back I can look at it and think to myself ‘get a grip’, there are people out there who really are having problems. 

In comparison I just need to ‘pull my socks up, tighten my bra strap and start working those miracles’.

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Driving Up The Wall

A wife was making a breakfast of fried eggs for her husband.

Suddenly, her husband burst into the kitchen.

"Careful," he said, "CAREFUL! Put in some more butter! Oh my GOD! You’re cooking too many at once. TOO MANY! Turn them! TURN THEM NOW! We need more butter. Oh my GOD! WHERE are we going to get MORE BUTTER? They’re going to STICK! Careful . CAREFUL! I said be CAREFUL! You NEVER listen to me when you’re cooking! Never! Turn them! Hurry up! Are you CRAZY? Have you LOST your mind? Don’t forget to salt them. You know you always forget to salt them. Use the salt. USE THE SALT! THE SALT!"

The wife stared at him. "What in the world is wrong with you? You think I don’t know how to fry a couple of eggs?"

The husband calmly replied, "I just wanted to show you what it feels like when I’m driving."

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