Ooops.

“4 girls and no blogtime” might be a better title really. Oh dear. However, i can at least qualify this by saying that education has been happening, albeit not particularly directed education.

Wednesday was AWFUL. The trouble with life at the moment is that it is so finely balanced that anything different throws it all to the wall, so our truly lovely day on Tuesday in the company of Claire and Charlie (just throwing that in so Claire doesn’t think i’m doing an inadvertant rant at her for accepting my invitation to come over!), did mean that Wednesday just started horribly. I made no less than 3 parcelling mistakes (argh) there was HappyMais and Hama all over the floor, i had something like 12 boxes to unpack and just ARGH. And it was blooming hot. Children were ridiculously tired and needy and it all just went pear shaped. Max had to use the car in the morning and when he reappeared at lunchtime for 30 minutes quality family time, all her got was an earful from me on how hard life can feel at times.

Most of this, if i’m honest, is the WAHM thing; in fact it was some consolation to discover later in the week at at one point me and the web designer had been crying at our desks separately while trying to get the site up and running with endless children in tow. Trouble is, it rings all the wrong bells with me; i was the child of a pair of parents always working at home and i hear myself saying “in a minute” all the time and i just hate myself for it. I need to replan my weeks somehow and claim different bits of time.

I love my business and it is important to me and to the quality of life the children have in terms of groups, but it impacts on their quality of life in other ways and i need to sort that out somehow. Work smarter is what i somehow have to do. If only i was a naturally organised person….

Anyhow, we rescued Wednesday when we’d taken Max to work by me sending them all to lie on beds and sofas with books again and making them relax and rest and it worked a treat. By the time we needed to go to swimming, everyone was calm. Both girls did really well in their lesson, particularly Fran this time and we were refreshed by some time in the cars air-con. Think the evening may have ended badly with Amelie being awake till midnight and me not getting enough sleep either, but oh well… could vbe worse. Wonder when my children will realise that the art to getting to stay up and play till later is to employ the “not seen and not heard” stay in the bedroom approach. They’ve turned into shocking evening wanderers. 🙄

Thursday and Maddy indulged in BrainPop again; she is obsessed with how bodies work. Fran and i spent ages discussing the concept of “margin of error” and cost effectiveness. We talked about old methods of farming where every seed counted due to costs and labour and up to the current notion of growing too much on the assumption that not doing much maintenance will mean some dies but is still cheaper than buying less seed that requires total care. Interesting stuff. This led on to a conversation about my business and how sometimes i have to go down the “quit while i’m ahead” route because spending money and time tracking lost/damaged/mis-packed parcels can be less worthwhile than just replacing something. We talked about the notion of customer care and business reputations and how a bad reputation spreads faster than a good one but that treating a customer decently will be more likely to bring future business. Weird how that conversation evolved, but it did 🙂

Other things have been lots of computer play by Amelie, lots more Hama and HappyMais, Fran has been reading about Pompeii this week on her own and did a great cut-away picture of a volcano out of Mais; Maddy has been using them to print as these ones have particularly strong colours and transfer onto paper really well. She is very much enjoying quiet time with piles of books; i’m not sure what she is reading but she is managing to type/decipher in Animal Crossing very well – today she typed “Hello Belle i love you” to me 🙂

They’ve also been watching a Learn Spanish dvd a lot which is good; must get on to languages with them; i’ve also faithfully promised to set our keyboard up for Maddy this week. Some EC has gone on and some normals but honestly what is the point when it is so dreadfully hot? I can’t work, so why should they be able to? Besides, we’ve had dog and horse shows out the back all week… “And now here comes Harriet on Scooby Doo/ Veronica on Pirate/ Lara on Wellington” has been booming out over the speakers. Currently we have a worrying quantity of Japanese car enthusiasts camping out back; and why not indeed…..

Yesterday also involved watching some CBBC robot wars type thing; big two now want to make one, so we’ve promised to attempt that this weekend along with the fruit clock and some looking into evolution with Fran and some body stuff with them all.

Today has been lovely as Hannah and Linzi came over with their lot and much princess playing went on. A perfect mix of girls (and a small boy) really – and no one to be threatened with marriage either! When they’d gone we lay on my bed together and gamed, then i read from How Your Body Works and we made a basic start on body functions from that.

Not much other big news except that Max has bought me a bike which we can pick up tomorrow and then i’ll be able to go off for rides with the girls!

(Oh yes, and is it only my washing machine whose drawer gets gunged up with congealed powder and fabric conditioner? 15 lovely minutes i spent defurring that today… i don’t recall my mother ever doing that. Is this some delight of adulthood that got missed off that sketchily drawn job description for the slavery that is 3-loads-of-washing-a-day parenting????? )