Thin Ice.

Thursday was our 2 inches of snow day; persuaded the children to wait until the promised afternoon blizzard, on the basis that it would give them that extra bit to have fun with but it never arrived. They went out anyway, with Emma assisting them ably (i hate being out in snow, too cold, too annoying, too much bending, too many children who get all dressed up, go out for 2 minutes and then want to go in) – they stayed out quite a while for a change, made a snowman

looked at ice crystals, threw snow, fed the rabbits and generally had a pleasant time. Joey stayed out nearly the longest in the end, so perhaps she is made of sterner stuff than the others were at 2 years old. Or better insulated 😆

Aside from that they made hama bead snowflakes, had stories, watched a film, did education city, some maths and a few other bits. Amelie spent ages drawing, Maddy was reading and writing in her own fashion, Josie was at the tail end of being irritating.

My dad was supposed to come down, but didn’t risk it due to the snow; my postman had said the A1 was slow in the morning but it was raining here by 2pm, though Dad lives nearer to the West Midlands though, so they still had snow there. We keep having to delay this visit, which is sad, but maybe next week. Then Brownies was cancelled, ostensibly because of the snow but it sounded to me like Brown Owl had a very bad cold, which was probably just the icing on the cake (if you pardon the pun.) Hm. Shall we finish off our Polar activities with Iced Buns?

Friday we spent a lot of the morning waiting for the student to arrive, but she’d overslept and never came. I’ve yet to have a student make it through a whole block week 🙄 Working weeks must be a bit of a shock at the end of the course! So while we waited, Fran did a load of fractions in MPH4, making things have common denominators and adding them, which she was just about getting the hand of by the time the section ended. My one beef with MPH over the 3rd edition is that they’ve cut down the practising TOO far somehow. We’ll have to go looking for some more stuff and do some hands on types of work too i think. Maddy did loads of EC and i can’t remember what the little two did. i can’t remember anything these days. They seem to be recovered though; both back to normal and i can only assume that Josie got a very light dose of it thanks to being breastfed still 🙄

During the morning i got another new stock delivery (don’t ask, what on earth made me agree to a deal with 30 odd new lines in it i can’t think 🙄 ) and it so happened to have some winter themed kids tapestry kits in it so they each had one of those (cheap enough for it really not to matter!) and settled to them. Fran and Maddy have made a good start, the other two were happy for a while but then got bored.

Max got home and took them off to dancing, leaving just Joey and i to play. We watched some spanish, danced to Dora and engaged in a “how many ways can mummy distract Josie so she doesn’t demand milk” game. Not nearly enough, it turned out, although she liked making me screech by sticking her finger in my tummy button. So i chucked her in the bath and lay on the floor talking to her about nothing in particular. I love having a conversational 2 year old.

Cooked family tea (radical departure from norm as i’m not renown for my ability to do more than freezer food, but i managed spagbog) and then did a couple of hours work putting new products on the site (which you can’t actually see yet because they haven’t sent me images, snow slowed downloads no doubt, but they will be up soon) and wondered why on earth i was killing myself running a business that just means i never switch off, never relax, never spend enough time with my kids and never seem on top of. I do a 40 hour week on BM sometimes, nevermind being a home educating mum, housewife, wife and person – and i’m not altogether sure i like it 😥 i wish i could take a sneaky peek into the future and see if it will be worth it at some point, but of course i can’t and at times i’m left wondering if there is really any point in being stuck half way between tiny business and small business 🙁

Today the kids and Max have made lego trebuchets, the big girls have sewed glove puppets (more new stock) and played Playmobil and i’ve been for a bike ride to burn off 4 breadsticks and 3 tablespoons of houmous and tried to work. And yes, if you haven’t spotted it, i’m completely miserable… but feel free to stop reading, because i’m only going to whine from here on in.

Since i gave up my pills and started eating more healthily i’ve put on 8lbs – which seems slightly unfair and just makes me want to go back to swilling anti-depressants down with vodka and eating biscuits. Business is tough and worrying and difficult and i swing wildly from loving it to hating it and never stop thinking about it. And the pressure is on; it could be our exit path from Peterborough, hell, it might even be my path to somewhere with real snowfalls – but i’ve got to make it happen and i’m worried about what passes by in the meantime. I know it isn’t like i have to earn our living, that wouldn’t suit me at all, but the future is weighing heavily on my mind.

And then.. well, i’ve overdone it. I’ve had 4 very nice weeks where i’ve either been away or had someone here all the time and i’ve enjoyed them very much but i’ve forgotten how much more fragile i am than i used to be and it’s not done me any good. I’ve gone all attachment disordered again. I’m all weepy and clingy, things are bothering me that shouldn’t be and right now i feel like i’m hovering between feeling like i have cried for 2 days and feeling like i need to. I realised the other day that i’d barely given headspace or thought to the whole April 2006 crap scenario for weeks and that made me feel utterly awful. And there we have it – the catch 22 of my entire future, right up til l the moment i die – feel crap if i think about it, feel crap if i remember i haven’t thought about it 😥 So i get to feel crap for feeling good too – hurrah. What a result that is.

I’ve got this awful feeling that when i’m 80 and my grandchildren are visiting my rocking self in an old folks home, i’m going to hear people say things like “well, her nerves went when she was in her 30’s and she’s never been the same since” and i think about my family, littered with slightly dotty women folk and i wonder what hope there is for me anyway. Maybe i’m just destined to become the next one of them, slightly distracted, slightly too grumpy and snarly, always a bit too sad somehow and needing my own space to be. And then i wonder what happened to all those women beyond the things i already know; women who were beaten, women who were the victims of bigamy, women who had affairs, women who were living with men that were worlds apart from them, women who lost children, lost babies, couldn’t have more when they wanted them, women who retreated into minor ill-health, women who soldiered on bravely through wars, brutality, leaving their homeland. What was the thing that finally tipped them over the brink so that i’ve only ever known them as just ever so slightly barmy? What possible chance is there that i won’t just be the next generation’s harmless nutcase ancestor?
I suppose 4 weeks of high baby ratios probably hasn’t helped either, plus that in that ineffable Merry-self-harming-mentality that i do so well, i’ve spent 24 hours reading birth stories, looking at baby pictures (of all types, oh yes, i really know how to do it to myself), going round the blogring and torturing myself and just to top it all, i’ve got a muscle twitching in my side that feels just EXACTLY like being pregnant and getting kicked. Joy.

So where was i with that putting it all behind me and getting on with life thing? Oh yes, well on the upside, Bridget Jones 2, with the “am i pregnant” bit last night didn’t make me cry, but then it made Max so uncomfortable that i had to be okay just so i didn’t worry him. But actually, it wouldn’t be that like him to be uptight about that, so perhaps i just imagined it.

Maybe i should go back on the pills. Or maybe i’ve got 6 months worth of PMT and that’s why i’ve put on 8lbs instead. Maybe i could just go and hide in my wardrobe.

Either way, get up my nose and you are likely to get the thin end of a viper bite, just in case you haven’t noticed. 👿