I do wish I could remember to blog more frequently about life, rather than about death. B- Must try harder. I spend a lot of time worrying about life, trying to keep things right for everyone and annoying people by going on about it, but not perhaps quite enough time living and doing it.
Right. We got home on Monday and nothing else happened. But the girls had had a fabulous weekend with my mum, among other things getting to listen to more of What Katy Did and paint the models below, which I bought with them on a pre-emptive trip to Hobbycraft. (It’s not a site that will let you link internally, but search for paper mache.) The acrylic paints came from CraftMerrily and I must say I think they covered it really well – I’ll be using more of those (coming soon, to a blog near you…. 😉 )
Amelie’s dog mask.
Josie’s cat mask.
Fran’s pretend book.
Maddy’s treasure chest.
Tuesday I mostly cried once I’d got the girls through some work and they’d had a music lesson, so was sent off to work instead and Max took over at home. He took them on a nature walk and brought home a quantity of tree, which they did identification work on.
Wednesday I mostly cried, took the girls to a gym lesson, cried more all afternoon and then, having got them through various bits of work, took Josie to hospital for an eye check. Then came home and wept about hospitals and cried some more.
Thursday was a big day; I went out for the day and we played with baby bunnies over at the Petit Haricots, laughed and cried with two wonderful women who I’d very much like to be related to quite honestly, came home, sobbed all over Max for a while and then spent quite a bit of time panicking. Then read my blog from April forwards, sobbed myself to a standstill and went to bed.
Are you seeing a pattern here?
Today however, has been much better. Kate came over and did her normal “pick yourself up, dust yourself off and squint till you see the bright side” routine and I’m trying very hard to be like her and keep as happy as I can. I think we’re both still gaping slightly at the role reversal that means I’ve ended up with the child dead from disability first. That was definitely a plot twist out of left field in a long friendship that appeared to have certain inevitable tragedies set in clear focus, if at as yet undetermined times. I don’t think either of us quite believe it 😯 She helped loads – I do so love you Kate 🙂
The girls and I had also done an excellent mornings work – we mopped up maths, did loads of music, plenty of reading (Fran finished Bombs on Aunt Dainty and Maddy finished another Naughtiest Girl book while Amelie fed us facts on Volcanoes), history for Fran and various other bits from the others. Then we all sat down and started GP Junior History Book 2 which was about the Greeks. They know LOADS about that already, I was deeply impressed and we ended up discussing the Iliad and the Oddessy (which Fran has read a child version of) lots of myths and a lot of things they know from various places. Decided to do a Greek project together. Maddy also worked on her round up of the last history book some more and did story. I got my pronunciation corrected a lot. Gotta love audiobooks at bedtime.
Josie did endless pictures from Draw Write Now – must blog them, they are wonderful. Never seen any of the girls use them the way she did today 🙂
We’ve had complicated and complex (and profoundly thought-provoking) conversations on whether anxiety produced by temporary traveller camps arriving unexpectedly is similar to racism or closer to being unnerved by teenagers collecting outside a shop, which was brought up by Amelie – talked that out for a long time – very tricky to navigate I think as it is really only when a child cuts through the crap in that way that such feelings come into sharp focus. Nothing is black and white – but a child can make it nearly so, I think. Too clever for her own good, that one 🙄
We’ve been to dancing – since Fran has lost a gym session a week due to changes there, she’s going to go back to doing more dancing so starts 4 new classes from tomorrow. She’ll be doing 9 a week! 😆 She’ very happy and I’m quite glad to be reducing dependency on one place for all her happiness.
Yesterday Fran composed (and wrote out) a little tune – today she taught it to the others using cello, handbells and glock – the tuning left something to be desired but the effort was magical – LOVE having kids who experiment confidently with music and group playing.
Amelie got Highly Commended in her Grade 1 ballet – Fran is going to try and do Grade 3 in 9 weeks with her new class apparently!
Maddy got her Green Belt at TKD
I’ve knitted more – 1/2 a week ahead now and one square 4 😉
Merry, I wish we lived closer. x
was lovely seeing you on thurs. sorry that we did some weeping x x
I liked doing the weeping together. It makes it so much more bearable to laugh and weep in unison. I’d feel a lot better a lot of the time if there was more communal weeping in my house 🙂
I’ll come and communally weep any time. It’s not hard to make me cry, I’m a wuss 🙂 Sorry you have had a bad week. Hugs
hugs for sobs, I’m with Claire – I can sob with anyone me. I casn understand you feeling that way, it’s hard to feel like you are the only person in a house who is feeling sad, more so when you are hiding it to avoid distressing children. I’m glad that there has been some better times in amongst the pain, would you give big celbratory hugs from me and Aprilia to your newly upgraded/merit-winning girls please?
I’m also great at communal weeping, even when I’d really rather not cry in public!
The Katy books are some of my faves – and the Naughtiest Girl, do you mean the Enid Blyton ones? I loved them too – the school in that is so cool, uniuque among Blyton’s schools too…
I think your blog is one of the most “life-ful” (to invent a word) I’ve ever read – and I’ve only really been reading since Freddie was born. I used to long to live in some dead baby commune where crying was accepted as part of the daily routine and everyone understood – I still do some days. (((HUGS)) Merry.
I think you are doing so well to be home-schooling your girls while also dealing with your grief. There will be weeping, and I think having beautiful friends who are happy to weep with you is the best way to deal with it. xxxh