Mish mash of bits.

It’s been a very quiet weekend; everyone is ill now, except Maddy and i’m not HORRIBLY ill and hoping it will stay that way. Amelie has had a temperature for a week, Josie has had one on and off but now mainly just has snot and Max is REALLY unwell. In fact, i’ve wired him up to the central heating system and we’ve been running off his body heat for 2 days. Fran is just generally droopy with a sore throat, but not too awful. Bit cross though 🙄

The odds and sods that come to mind are these; Amelie decided to stop wearing pull ups at night once she realised Buttercup didn’t and did really well, till she got ill. Josie then did the same and has been dry at night for 2 nights running, so long as we lift her. Josie is just being adorable, she and i seem to be having endless mornings (and occasionally middles of nights 🙄 ) where we just lie nose to nose talking about all sorts of things. She’s doing that “waking up” into childhood thing that is now so familiar to me and i just love watching it. We’ve been chatting about lots of things, my favourite this weekend was trying to persuade her that the plural of foot is feet, not foots. She told me i was “just silly.” 😆 She’s never particularly been a toddler for tantrums (mainly because we just laugh, or worse don’t really notice!) but she has been fairly demanding, though not in an annoying way just in an ‘i’m no wallflower!’ way. Suddenly i’ve noticed that she is much more openly sociable and is forging relationships with other adults (Alison and my family members being the ones that spring to mind) but she’s also much more determined to be heard. This week i’ve had 2 occasions where i’ve got cross with her, told her to go downstairs and she’s stood and yelled back “NO I WON’T!!!!!!!!!!!” to which i have done no better than yell back “YES YOU WILL!!!!!!!” I quite like it though, the relationship we have is changing and it’s fun. We’ve even begun to negotiate a “no groping mummy’s milks unless we are still in bed” standpoint. (Did i roll my eyes already?)

Fran has been reading the “Naughtiest Girl” books; she’s finished the originals, which she loved and has started on the Anne Digby follow ons, which are ‘okay’ – however she has decided we should have a monthly family meeting to dole out pocket money and air any problems 😆 Must get her on to the Chalet School ones, that should solve room tidying and wanting to learn languages! Earlier today we were sorting their room, packing it up ready to decorate it and talking about getting new furniture and she suddenly told me exactly how we needed to plan out the room, how to draw it, scales it and how to make sure all the furniture they wanted would fit. Weyhey – practical real life maths without me even asking!

Fran looks frighteningly grown up all of a sudden; she has been wearing a pair of very slim fit jeans that Alison gave her, which give her curves and make her look leggy and the result is she suddenly looks all of her nearly 10 years old. Where’d that little small girl go???

Maddy is deep in a pile of books we bought her for her birthday, I Can Read Level 2 and 3 books and mainly Amelia Bedelia, who lives her life in a highly literal and very entertaining fashion which is right up her street. She’s been drawing lots and playing far more with the younger 2, which is nice to see. She’s a bit quiet at the moment but being very creative, which suits her extremely well.

Amelie has mostly just drooped all week, with no energy or effort for anything, sleeping through the days and nights and zonking in front of the tv. She does play scrabulous over my shoulder at times and she and Josie have both played Reader Rabbit and Jump Ahead Phonics lots. Josie is a whizz at it now and it’s great to see them playing on it (we need more computers though!)

I worked on Friday again and am beginning to feel much more at home with that. I think, in all honesty, that after 10 years at home i needed a change and the children are getting more of me than they were when it was the 5 of us 5 days a week. I’m almost a happy mum again now, instead of feeling weighted down by it all. This weekend i’ve taken stuff out of their rooms and the dining room and we’ve altered the shelving in the old stockroom so it is now a toy/resource room, with lots of floor, lots to do and all of it easy to get to. We need a desk in there now and then it will be ideal as an extra space. It’s a bit amazing having an extra room.

Oh, in rather remarkable fashion, all the kids have packed their suitcases with clean clothes ready for Melrose – a week early! Good or what?

Tags: packing, school stories, reading, computer time, tantrums, illness, growing up.