Somewhat snoozy sunday.

Ams had an okay night and seems a good bit better today, thank goodness. She got woken up by Josie at the unholy hour of 6am (old time) who i eventually persuaded back to sleep with huge quantities of milk of varying types. I lay in till much too late, no idea why i was so tired really, but i could have gone back to bed within 2 hours as well 🙄

The girls have been doing “jobs” for us, to earn their theatre arts outfits. I’m loathed just to shell out £50 on more dancing stuff and shoes, when we already spend so much, without them having some input into it, so we agreed that they needed to do a series of jobs, paid at 50p a time until they had each saved up the requiste amount of money in kind. Each of the big two have a chart, they can’t do the same type of job more than once a day and the jobs can’t be ordinary things like helping to cook or tidying up mess they have just made. However, clearing the table and sprucing up a room, putting the top floor to rights properly, garden or kitchen jobs and washing sorting etc do count. They’ve got a long way to go though 😆 I’m in no rush, given it will be more things to lose and shout about but apparently they have to have them to do an exam they want to take.

Fran and Maddy have done more Zookis (Fran uploaded hers on to CBBC) and they’ve spent a lot of time playing Chess, either on a board or on the lego chess game. Amelie has been moderately droopy but has enjoyed lots of stories and Playmobil and Josie has just been gorgeous, though she hasn’t lost her slightly odd “can i?” or “did i?” or “will you?” inflection that she’s been sporting for a week or so!

I’ve been busy yesterday and today setting up a sale on BM which, combined with a decent offer, will hopefully rake in the sales i need over the next 10 days or so. After a conversation i had with Em last week, i’ve also been considering music for the girls and myself a bit more; debating cellos still, but SO expensive, thinking of violins (Amelie wants to learn violin) and deeply tempted by purple flutes on ebay for myself. I’ve not played in ages and wondered if i might enjoy it more as an adult than i did as a child. Maddy is keen to have a go of it anyway so i might get some fun out of that. I’d love us to be a music-y household.

Fran and i spent a long time lying on the floor using her French materials today; she started a vocab book, we discussed genders for nouns, began the sticker dictionary (useful dictionary work there in general), played with flashcards and went through the greeting and naming pages of the book. Like the Usborne stuff a lot, very easy to use. She enjoyed getting some one to one time too and i really think that languages might be good for her; talking to J&J the other week, it occurred to me what a “do-er” she is, so fidgetty, always talking, always moving, dancing, ready to be at something. I’ve a feeling that studying something that requires speech, interaction and the dynamics of the opportunity to actually go and use that knowledge abroad (holiday plans, not exchanges!) might be just her thing. Later on, she and i took a bike ride out too and had a real giggle and lots of races. She’s very fast, beats me hands down a lot, even with my bigger wheels! I got her on stamina at the end though 😉

This evening Fran and Maddy sampled the delights of “playing out” – they spotted the close kids outside and i suggested to Maddy she go out and join in; she went like a flash and Fran went too. they had a ball, which was great for them – and i was really happy for them and barely watched out of the window at all.

And now for next week. Tomorrow starts a month of the very worst kind of “on this date last year… x number of years ago…” types of anniversary for me, combining two of the worst events in my whole life. One particular date actually manages to be 2 anniversaries all in one go – i’m assuming it is going to be a really shitty month. The atmosphere here seems glum, not least because Max’s gran is really quite ill again, but it just seems like it is hard to be happy, even thoguh the sun is shining. It almost makes it worse that i get through the winter only to get triggered by spring 🙁 This time last year i was conceiving an accidental baby; i can’t really imagine how i’m ever going to get through a March/April again without wanting to burrow into the ground and never come back up. Oh to go back and change history; if i could just go back to this time last year, or a few days earlier and take better care of what i was doing. If only; what luxury it must be to have only grief and no guilt and no shame and all the rights to be sad in the world. How i’d beg for that.

Oh well; on the upside, Jax helped me fix BM so the checkout is now covered by an SSL certificate (and i managed to implement the change without killing anything; always good.) I’ve had a rubbish weekend of sales and the end of the tax year is only 10 days away but then i can get on with planning new things to do and i’ve got a couple of weeks of reasonably interesting things planned for the girls. AND now the clocks have changed, i can cycle every night. It could be worse.