To say i have small and niggly work related insomnia would be putting it mildly.

Juggling to the best of my ability, we managed to have a good day yesterday and get back into being a home ed family. Considering i’m not really well (did panic last night my tonsil was flaring up but it doesn’t seem any worse today) and have done nothing but sleep for long periods of the weekend, i was reasonbly back to normal for most of the day.

Josie and i played with magnetic numbers and learned their names and the order they go in. We may do that 400-500 more times. She also played on education city a lot and then on Bella Sara a lot and then on Dora a lot, then played DS and then did something complicated with playmobil.

Amelie and i did violin together; she played her half and i played the teacher half on the recorder. Discovered i have no idea how to play high F#. Really wish flute and recorder didn’t have different F fingerings. However we had an awful lot of fun doing it together. She read P&J 3a to me effortlessly and amused me enormously by having a feminist rant about how Peter thinks Jane doesn’t know anything and what a know-it-all he is and why does he always get to do the most fun things anyway? Must find her some better books to read. She also did a load of EC, moved up a level in the science and sat with me and Maddy while we did some Galore Park History, recapped on dinosaurs and started on Charles Darwin and evolution.

Oh, Amelie also got asked to go for a try out for the development class at gym. Opinion is apparently divided. The people who train her think she is good enough, the person who runs the club thinks she needs more time to develop strength. I suspect that Amelie is a child who will rise to the challenge of being pushed.

Maddy also did the history and then did some pictures of the start of the world according to the Bible and Darwin, plus a very artistically erm.. influenced… version of a t-rex evolving. Not sure she grasps the difference between evolve and grow. Might look for some Creation Myths again today. She did guitar, EC, handwriting, ETC (”i might do 50 pages today”.. .she did 5!) and read 3 books, generally showing me what a focused small person she is.

Fran faffed at cello, having left her book at G&G’s, took a very long time to do 15 maths questions, a very long time to do some EC and then managed to evade answering questions about history, though she did enjoy us reading it together. She and i talked about school again - apparently now she just wants to go for a term, she thinks. Did tell her that she could do as she liked and that even if i thought she was mad, i respected her decision to be mad and that we loved her no matter what. Mentioned i would make her work for the rest of her life to pay off uniform if she only went for a week We did manage to get through half a GP maths chapter and pay attention to presenting the work in a way that would pass muster in school without tears. We even, Fran’s personal bugbear, managed to reread the chapter and refer back to find the rules that would help her do the sums. She is FRIGHTENINGLY like me, a total procrastinator with no attention span at all; i do wonder sometimes if the pair of us might benefit from Ritalin However frustrating she is, i know Junior School would have been horribly confining for her but i do wonder what she is going to make of Senior School. I still have to stand over her to keep her concentrating and it is going to be a rude awakening not to have that. Heaven knows what will happen.

Still, she has her plus points. While i tried to talk to Maddy about the ’start of the world’ i couldn’t help thinking that at 5yo Fran had a complete and highly imaginative idea of what i was saying and loved to discuss it. They are just all different. Did watch the last 20 minutes of Fran’s gym class tonight and resolved to nag her to do her tummy exercises and practise her walkovers this week. Do like being able to watch the class; it is always my one gripe with dancing.

We’ve done some minor bits of orgo planning, but so far all F, M and i have come up with is using our French stuff, creating a recipe book for each of them and doing a book challnge. Still, it’s a start.

****Random Work/Life Waffle****

I am, i think possibly, maybe, perhaps… a bit of a control freak. And i am NEVER in control, something i find extremely difficult to cope with. I created a business that is a bit of a monster and i’ve never got it running the way i really want to. There just aren’t enough of me to do all the things i want to do. So i lie awake at night because somewhere in the midst of being mum/worker/parent/owner/wife/everything else i’ve forgotten to send out a block of Fimo or refund someone £2. And however much it would be nice if people said “no problem, no hurry” no one does, because of course, why should they? The internet used to be a fuzzy friendly place of no expectations but now it is the default and everyone wants things yesterday - and i’ve not got enough braincells.

Instead of being proud that 600 people a day got their orders and 1 or 2 people a day needed something extra, i fret about it not being good enough. Instead of being pleased with what i’ve built, i’m currently feeling a bit morose about it, gently disentangling myself from it while needing to keep my fingers in the pies till Max can take it over properly (assuming that happens) and feeling an acutte sense of failure that it needs someone else to come in and turn it into what i haven’t quite managed to achieve. It doesn’t matter that mostly it works pretty much okay and that it is huge now considering that 3 part time people run it and it has no big debts or investments tied up in it, i just find myself frustrated that when it does get to being fab and perfect, it won’t be me that made that happen.

I really can’t explain this feeling; Max rolls his eyes at me. I suppose that i wish i could look at it and say “behold this small and perfectly formed business that is totally in my grasp” but instead i’m saying “here, make some sense out of this many headed Hydra before it crashes down around my ankles and bite me off at the toes.” You’d think it would be easy to keep a business small and within certain parameters, but i think that might take more skills, or a different innate mindset, to what i have. Max would do it brilliantly and we’ll be a good team, he does well what i don’t and i’m very pleased he wants to do it - but i must admit that the letting go is hard. I don’t mind *him* having it, i mind *anyone* having it. But i don’t actually want it either right now! I want it to be doing well, i don’t mind doing the hard work as a family, but i do mind that because i tend to see glasses half full, i’m seeing myself having to be rescued from it.

There are things afoot in general for us (and we should know next week what is happening) which could change things dramatically. As someone succinctly put it, it does feel events might be conspiring to make us take the leap of faith. Depending on the outcome we may have to come up with a Plan B and i don’t think that will be easy; i don’t know what it will mean. I badly, very very badly, need to take a break from it all so i guess it will come down to either giving up or getting in a full time person who can manage it for us. However big leaps of faith can be, i don’t think they stretch to not having enough in the bank to nearly support us for a year should the credit crunch bite harder than we’ve seen so far. So fingers crossed please.

The Christmas break seems to have come and gone fairly quickly, though no doubt slower than for most. I have this idea in my head that we get 10 days of hunkering down as a family but in fact i think that happened once or twice and hasn’t happened for a while. We’ve had visitors and we’ve gone visiting and it has all been lovely and unmissable but i haven’t entirely felt i have vegged.

Still, no matter.

Max and i have done occasional shifts at work on as many days as possible, leaving aside the “painting the floor” debacle that occurred at work and we’re moving from one room to another. It’s quietly busy, as it were, so reasonably encouraging. I’ve been trying to fix some broken bits of website and come up with my own job description while thinknig about making space in my head to getting back to HE mum. I might even have to orgo-plan, thoguh i don’t suppose it will be very impressive.

We’ve all AC:CF’d together which has been nice and we’re looking forward to joining the Latinetc group very soon. Max and most girls have played FIFA on the Wii and Josie has loved her DS; Amelie mainly dances. Fran has fallen in love with Latin and has been trying her hardest (and trying my meagre recollections) to uncover some basics. I can remember the smallest amounts, just enough to get her going but i’m glad someone else will take over soon. There has been a good deal of game playing too and some rabbit worship, cooking and frequent anti0-not reinfestation grooming. The big girls are considering their ‘after-school’ options and thinking about some stuff that isn’t performance based. I’m quite up for that but we’ll see; we’re perhaps likely to need to be more careful about money soon i would say.

We’ve watched films; Wall.E, Spiderwick Chronicles, Prince Caspian, Stardust and more and today i watched Summerhill with the girls and the Doctor Who announcement… alack… what will i do for eye-candy now? Chuckled a good bit at Fran expounding on how it was wrong to try and make kids sit in a room and learn stuff ALL day and talked a lot about how Summerhill and HE fitted together. Wondering how the school thing will go now; she refuses to be drawn by me on it at all but told my SIL that she was mainly going for 2 reasons, 1) to please some people who felt it would be a good idea :(s and 2) to try it and see if it was actually worth bothering with. Kind of wish she had more positive reasons to be honest but i’m assuming it is all going to come out in the wash.

Lovely quote from Josie when i asked her if she wanted to learn to read “Actually, Auntie Sue read me a story and i said the words after her so i can read cos she has already taught me.”

Oh, okay then.

We had a lovely new year with the Beans, quiet and demure and Baileys fuelled I like having late breakfast with someone who has already delivered a baby that day too I’m really horribly rubbish with lots of people in one place these days, not to mention noise, even got a bit mooted out by having a houseful myself this week, but Bean New Year is a bit of a tradition now and we do love it. Josie and BB were not (predictably) at their best until today either but then everyone was wonderful and lovely and played all day especially when the Rainedrops turned up to.

I’m really hoping this year will be a good one here, it is full of promise at the moment but i’ve learned to be careful what i wish for. Fingers crossed that the things that seem like they would be perfect for us now turn out to be so.

Happy 2009 everyone.

The sizx girls who share a surname in our extended family are extremely alike to look at, enough so that i’ve been on my own with all 6 before and passers by have assumed all of them are mine and Lou and i have been together and people have though they were 2 3’s or the Iz, Maddy, Millie and Amelie are one family and Fran and Josie another.

Maddy and Millie are the most alike, even more so in real life than in this photo.

Without Josie’s agreement Fran is the oldest, by a year, then Iz (the tallest), then Maddy, Amelie and Millie (younger by 6 weeks than Amelie) and then of course the absent Josie at the end.

All the girls.

The other R’s.

Amelie lost her first tooth last night; rather impressively she has recently been sporting a shark like double row of teeth, having fully grown adult teeth behind still fully there baby teeth. But eventually one has been squeezed out and last night she got to put her first tooth under her pillow As a credit “crunching” (boom boom!) double whammy, Fran also lost a tooth, so the poor tooth fairy was £2 down last night

*rolls entire head in preparation for this story!*

We’ve had 2 cousins here for a few days (with parents) and before they left today Maddy took them out into the garden to play with the rabbits. The rest of us were inside; Lou and i had been chatting covering, among other things, the extent to which our 2 boy rabbits would cheerfully rip each others heads off. Fiver (easiest to have out as small and obliging about coming back… as a rule) was milling about in the garden with Maddy, Izzy and Millie and all seemed well until there were sudden screams that he had got behind the big rabbits hutch, found a hole and was now on the wrong side of our fence. We back on to the showground so, fortunately, the road is very quiet but unfortunately, the huge expanse of grass on the other side of the big metal fence on the other side of the road probably looks quite appealing to a rabbit.

All the grown ups dashed downstairs and out into the garden, Fran was screaming inconsolably that “my Fiver” had gone, Izzy was shrieking, Maddy was shrieking and Amelie was in hysterics. I, somewhat to my surprise, managed to get over our 6ft fence in one swift movement (no really, i did!) in the hope of grabbing him quickly but was barefoot, which was bloody cold. Max followed me while Joe and Lou tried to console the children and stop Izzy following us (not successfully, she got stuck on the top of the fence and then wouldn’t move). Not sure what else J and L were doing but Izzy was convinced she had seen Fiver head off down the road. Lots of rabbits out there, many tend to have the dreaded Mxy, so my heart was sinking. Maddy was screaming and utterly ignoring my requests to get my shoes for me. Max and i did a fairly despairing hunt on the wrong side of the fence (which is flat on that side, so i had no hope of getting over it to my various hysterical children) and i was still vaguely hoping i’d get my shoes to save me walking all the way back round barefoot. (I did eventually, Maddy launched them into orbit and nearly brained me!)

After a minute or 2 Fiver was then spotted in the garden, which he had presumably never left at all Joe must have managed to scoop him up and just as everyone was calming down, he unwittingly chucked him into the wrong run, not realising WHY we have 2 runs (see head ripping bit above) and then got stuck balanced half on the run and half on the fence trying to rescue Izzy. MORE hysterical screaming from the kids as Smartie and Fiver immediately start to try and rip each others heads off, with Joe looking bemused and confused, Lou yelling at him to get in and stop them and me and Max still on the wrong side of the fence.

Fortunately no harm done in the end (no mean feat as they sounded to be really going for it and Fiver has been fairly hurt by Smartie before), though all the kids needed counselling and both the girl rabbits looked like they were going to march their respective husbands inside for a good telling off!!

*Chuckle*

Despite my moaning, the run up to Christmas was nothing like as bad as last year, but it did seem to go on a long time; i spent the last 2 days manning the phone and email from home and organising last minute fixes for problems/lost items/wrongly sent/wrongly ordered bits and bobs. Considering we were still sending out hundreds a day right up to the weekend before, the actual number of fixes was small, it just felt a bit hectic. I had to go in on the Tuesday, having not really organised enough cover for those last 24 hours, but it was okay.

Tuesday night we collected Max from work and took all the kids to see Madagascar 2 at a nicer than average theatre near Huntingdon. Took the opportunity to mention to Max that while browsing the NCT Peterborough leaflet in the doctors that morning (not something i’ve been able to do for a long time) i noticed that not one of the local birth announcements mentioned Peterborough Mat Unit; apparently ladies who know in Pboro, all go to Hinchingbrooke. Says rather a lot i think. He looked politely non-committal about it Film was good enough, kids had fun and we all felt like the holiday had started.

Christmas Eve needed some shopping doing so we all popped back into town; Fran and Maddy had eye tests, the result being that Maddy who wants them doesn’t really need them but has been issued with some nearly plain glass ones to see if they help her cut out the “life noise” that distracts her. She is thrilled.

Fran, who resolutely DOES NOT want them is really quite short sighted (i was a bit shocked) and has to go back before she starts school; she just scraped through and the optician doesn’t want her eyes to give up just yet but she will almost certainly need them in the Autumn. She was cross. We did however try some pairs on her and found several purple pairs that looked lovely, so perhaps by the time it comes, she’ll have got over it. Feel a bit sorry for her though, given she will undoubtedly need braces in the next year too. Oh well.

Spent that afternoon and evening doing wrapping with the girls for either each of us or for sisters. They were so happy to have gifts for each other. F and M also did stockings for their favourite toys, which was rather sweet. I was touched the next day that they handed gifts to sisters before asking for ones for themselves and opened toy stockings before they opened their own. I do rather love the growing sense of Christmas being about giving that they are coming to. Max and i managed to have a row about whether i had overdone the buying, prompting me to suggest HE does it next year but in the end we decided that actually it was all quite even and not too over the top. I didn’t think we went mad (althoguh plenty of them were fairly pricy i suppose) but at least, except for Playmobil, we avoided endless BITS. I decided this year i didn’t mind spending but i wasn’t spending on crud, cheap tat or things i would end up shouting at people to tidy up.

6 peoples presents.

Rubens Barn doll for each child, as requested.

I swear Fran’s biggest smile of the day was for a Latin book.

Amelie is thrilled with a camera.

Maddy has a sponsor a monkey kit, Fran has a Build a School sponsorship pack and Amelie and Josie got to name a star.

Josie was taken in by the 3rd hand DS Lite and has played Mum I Did It! constantly.

Amelie got the joke when we gave her a DHL van - “I can do parcels now!!!!!”

Fran moved into AC:CF Puddley.

Josie, lover of “bits”, got a PlayMobil house that closes and carries plus a “car like ours!”

Maddy set about creating an Egyptian world complete with blue silk Nile, paper boats and temple made of white paper and boxes.

Josie.

Max did a fab job of dinner, as usual and we had a lovely Christmas Day, very peaceful and very us. I do love our Christmases; it suits us to just be together after the busy period, suits the kids to just be and we’ve amassed some lovely traditions. I love that the kids bring their stockings into our room and that we have a “one night only” twinkly tree in our room. I love that there is always one present downstairs from FC with a letter, i love that no one goes into the living room unless we are all ready. I was thinking yesterday that so many of our Christmas traditions have come from my online/become life friends. I would never have done St Nicholas without HE-Land and yet this year it felt right to abandon the Church visit in favour of talking about the truths of generosity and selfless giving and thoughtfulness as love. A couple of years ago we collected Christmas Day outfits from somewhere and this year we did Nic’s Christmas Eve pyjamas.

Boxing Day we planned to spend alone too but a sudden change of plan meant we spent it with my mum, dad, brother, sister, BIL and nieces. It was LOVELY, particularly as Josie and Rowan are now BIG MATES.

Rowan.

Ella.

Nana.

Auntie Greer.

Uncle Rich (he, me and Josie bemoaned the “huge Taylor head that doesn’t fit cracker hats” syndrome).

Grampty (he is less blurry in real life).

Professor Granny and her minions.

Josie again.

I had a lovely few days with some great presents; good ds games, the posh version of Beedle the Bard, BIIIIIG box of Lush, pyjamas and books. Loved my brother giving us a LoveFilm membership too plus a fab plant from my parents (i was asked to think of something i wanted but wouldn’t get round to buying) and lots of lovely smellies.

Tomorrow we have guests arriving and i’ll have to pop into work as after Monday the unit space is shut for repairs until Friday; we’ve had quite a few orders; bizarre really.

Happy Christmas everyone, hope it was a good one.