It's all a bit like a Bucks Fizz song.

Although in general, people don’t remember the come back song called New Beginnings. But i do feel a bit like i’m living in The Land of Make Believe because life has taken a dramatic change. And no, no one ripped my skirt off… yet.

Friday was a day of high stress indeed; Fran went off for a routine check up with her cleft team and they decided they would have to re-do her operation from last year so she has to go through the whole bone from leg and into mouth thing again. With again, i suppose, no guarantee that it will work. Argh. She is being very stoical about it, so we’re following her lead and not making a fuss, but she must be cheesed off – and so are we. Blech. This is the first real setback, the first time something hasn’t worked as it should. It is very disappointing. We expect her date to come through in March, which will potentially mess up 4 dancing exams, a gym comp and an Easter school for her as well as all the general recovery. Pants.

We were also waiting for a call to decide the fate of Max’s job and all our future.. which sounds far worse than it was, but the waiting (an extra 1 1/2 hours more than we were expecting after a 2 week wait!) was a killer. Max applied for redundancy at the beginning of the year and on Friday we found out that he had got it. We’re incredibly lucky that for us this was a great opportunity and not a terrifying death knell – although now of course the race is on to make it work. He leaves work (he has been part time for about 15 months) at the end of the month and will then take over running the business full time, doing all the bits that i find hard and leaving me to go back to a more creative and customer focused role (and spending money!) while concentrating through the day on being a home educating mum again. It is like having a huge weight lifted off my shoulders and even the fact that we have no income other than people buying things now isn’t enough to scare me!

I am slightly worried i may have to start cooking and cleaning again though…i definitely Can’t Stand the Heat of that!!!!!!

Friday felt a bit of a write off with all that, so we just let people get on with what they wanted, except for music and dancing. In fact they gamed together, Fran is now obsessed with Civ 2 and Amelie with Junior Brain Training… i did have some lovely time with Josie, so i took her picture. She had her hair up in a way that i do often and she just looked lovely.

Looking much more like her sisters. I seem to be able to see a bit of all of them in this photo.

Reminding me of Maddy when she looked like this…

(Can you believe it was EVER okay to dress Maddy in pink?!?!?!?)

And then this weekend in the specs she and Amelie made together.

And last week… after Gymmies.

Adorable child. The Camera Never Lies 😉