Category: Katy’s day

Fortunately nobody else got the nasty tummy bug from me, so Thursday found us once again at parents and tots, although J was pretty much on his own as the other HE children all seemed to be (independently) ill. They both sat and did some work (Maths and English) while I got things ready, which was great and makes me feel less guilty about dragging them along to do what is essentially my voluntary work. 🙁 Gina came along at the end with J and E (both now recovered; E kindly passed bug on to her brother…) and gave the boys a little bit of piano time while the rest of us did jigsaws. The boys are really enjoying doing this and it’s nice to see how much J has remembered from the few piano lessons he did well over a year ago, before the teacher we had found moved too far away to be worth the journey.
On Friday we had fun with buses to get to Friday club, as a mix-up of paperwork meant we hadn’t realised the car was overdue for its MOT and the earliest we could get it into the garage to be done was over a week away. It was worth the effort to get there as the children all really enjoyed the art activity one of the mums organised, doing doodle pictures with oil pastels and the using paints to fill in gaps (pics to follow, but we had to leave the pictures there to dry as getting them home on the bus in the rain did not seem a good idea!) – we’ve done a couple since and turned them into very effective birthday cards 🙂
The bus back took hours (literally!) as it went further out before it came back into town, then all round Will’s mother’s (as apparently is the local saying 😆 ), including a little trip round the hospital, so we decided it wasn’t worth coming home before J had to go out again to a birthday party and instead we had lunch at Burger King. Nobody ate much (a few chips went down, but the veggie burgers were all passed on to Mummy, who didn’t like them much either – where’s Daddy when you need him? :lol:) but the free toys were a great hit: L got a “Molly-rom CD” and the boys swapped the Batman DVD-things they were originally given for a Bat-mobile-mobile each, which they love and have played with almost non-stop since getting them 😀
When we got to the party K, L and I were invited in as well, which was lovely and gave me a chance to catch up with the birthday girls’ parents, who we know both from school and from church but rarely seem to have a chance to chat with any more.
The weekend had lots of pottering, including Bob and the boys assembling and painting a new shelf unit for the bathroom and a fair bit of SOTW happening as well.
On Monday we had planned to go to Mustard Seeds again, as L keeps asking to go, but once J and E arrived she decided she would rather just stay at home and play, which pleased the boys, so we made huge quantities of play dough and they spent ages with that, then ran round the garden for a bit letting off steam.
Tuesday morning was spent at home doing lots of Maths, a little bit of English and a fair bit of playing, drawing, computing etc, then in the afternoon we had a long trudge to the doctor’s surgery (because still no car) for m/w appointment, which went well but took ages so we were then too late to get back for J’s French club 🙁 We went to the park instead and had a long play, then got back in time to watch Blue Peter, so not such a bad afternoon all told 😉
Wednesday was Wicken Fen, which Chris has already blogged beautifully, so I shan’t bother 😛 Fortunately E was not going, but J was, with his dad, in a nice big car with enough seats to give us a lift too so we didn’t have to cry off or risk driving illegally 🙂
Then Thursday was back to P&T again, with some fun origami animals for the older ones to make (thanks Gina!) and the chance for more lovely baby cuddles as Rebecca brought baby R in to see us all 😀
B and F on Thursday afternoon – quite hard work as F very tired and not in a very good mood, but B is almost always chirpy and at home enough here now to just get on with things. They all did Hama beads, except L who tipped them on the floor 🙄 and F who drew a picture instead, then we ate early and long and their mum was quite early to pick them up, so everything passed off okay.
Should have been a nice quiet Friday, except that m/w had told me I *have* to have bloods done, even though I have declined triple test etc etc, because they need to know what my blood group is – the fact that I have had three babies already and given blood for years doesn’t tell them for certain, it seems, as it might have changed! Hmmm… Anyway, off we all traipsed again, had bloods done (the phlebotomist was great – I only have the tiniest bruise 🙂 ) and then came home, this time via two different parks and lots of playing, for a nice quiet afternoon. We’ve been watching The Secret Garden episode by episode and the children love it; it’s a great way for me to get a nice quiet cup of tea 😉
The car passed its MOT with minimal work (yay!) so Saturday found us filling the cupboards once more and also heading out to Emmaus to look for drawers to fit under K and J’s beds – found one set, but still need another. The great thing about Emmaus is the lunches! We had soup and a roll for £1 (in fact £3 for all of us, as the hcildren shared) and then the most enormous slices of cake, again for £1 each – yum! Made up for cheap lunch by spending a fortune in a nice farm shop on the way home though…

CHEF sports today, which the boys always enjoy 🙂 G brought E and J there and then left them with me so they could come back with us to play while she was teaching. E was quiet, but seemed okay and when the boys came out she played quite happily with them. A few families were going to the park afterwards, so we went along too and the boys and L had a great time running round in the woods with SB, M and a few other children, taking it in turns to be bossy and bossed Meanwhile E was sitting quietly or just snuggling into my arms, apart from a brief spell of playing with L. Then she suddenly started crying, I picked her up – and she threw up! Very neat job, fortunately, avoiding almost all of me and pretty much all of herself. Thank goodness for Bean organisation! I really don’t do sick so it was quite definitely Chris to the rescue, not only producing tissues and wipes but then offering to hold sicky child and clean her up for me – I guess seeing me retch all over the place may have encouraged his offer, but thanks Chris – you’re a star!
Fortunately she looked much better once she’d finished being sick, so I didn’t need to summon G back but instead we went for a gentle ride home in the car (and a snooze for E and L) and then a quiet snuggle on the sofa while the rest of us ate lunch, followed by an hour of Muzzy, which J and E had brought with them. The children enjoyed Muzzy so much that G has now lent it to us for a week, so I expect we’ll be doing lots of French over the next few days 😉
By the time E and J had gone home (still wanted to stay, despite illness, so we must be doing something right lol) the boys were onto computer games (good old BBC Schools 😉 ) and it was fairly obvious that dragging them out shopping was not going to go down well, so the cupboards are still bare and we had pasta and sauce for tea. Could have had pumpkin, I guess….

We started off cuddled up in bed reading (catching up on) the Story of the World, then came downstairs to do some of the activities. J did some map work, K coloured in a Roman soldier and L decorated a Celtic dragon brooch. Then J chose a sentence or two about Beowulf to do as narration (yay – writing!) and they did some charging around, with the intention of dressing up as Celts (blue eyeshadow for woad and fleece cloaks 😉 ) later – but I was saved from this by a phone call asking if we (either just boys or all of us) would like to go and play with S. Resounding yes from the boys, so we ate lunch and then set off, the idea being to drop boys off and for L and me to do some long-overdue shopping (their house is fairly handy for Waitrose – definitely a good excuse for a spot of luxury lol) but first we were delayed somewhat by L attempting to sort herself out with a poo in the loo and managing to pull half the toilet roll off – would have blocked the toilet except most of it missed… – and then when we got there she asked to go in for a little play and somehow we never left, so still no shopping and the cupboards are nearly bare 😕
I suspect I should have asked for something to eat, or at the very least drink, but natural timidity far too great and no offer made, so when I realised that the suddenly rising noise level from my children (who had been playing really nicely up until then) and my own headache/whooziness/grumpiness were probably due to low blood sugar I gave the children a five minute warning and managed to get them away fairly easily. Fortunately we discovered a bag of Snack-a-Jacks in the car, along with a half-empty bottle of water and those just about got us home…
Unfortunately I am beginning to realise that I will have to be seriously sensible about eating and drinking regularly and once I have started to feel bad this seems to get harder (for example I boiled the kettle but forgot to make the drink – d’oh!), so the afternoon pretty much deteriorated from there 🙁 We were almost at the witching hour already (it can’t be just us who experience this!) and then as I was trying to get tea L did another solo poo on the loo and this time succeeded in blocking the toilet with the other half of the toilet roll, so I had to get J to supervise her in the bath while I unblocked the toilet and finished getting tea (not quite simultaneously!) and then J and I had to try to persuade her to get out of the bath to eat and what with one thing and another I ended up shouting at them all and going out of the front door just to escape for a minute or two 😳 and then came back in, after literally a few seconds, to find J in tears because he thought I had gone out and abandoned them 😳 🙁
Anyway, once L realised tea was actually on the table and was what she had been asking for all afternoon (root vegetable mash, with just a smidge of mince mix to show willing; the boys had it the other way round lol) she got out readily enough and by the time Bob came in I was able to hand over a fairly harmonious tea-table of children and head back to the kitchen – which is when I realised I had never actually made the drink I knew I needed an hour or two ago *sigh*
Hence I am now sitting here, hiding at the PC and letting it all out!
Need to do some serious J-reassurance though, I fear 🙁

Well Monday went well – in fact J and E had such a good time that they refused to go home when their mum came to collect them 😆 The dynamics worked because visitor J and our J are very similar in age and aptitude, while E is exactly in between K and L and she enjoyed doing girl things with L (who’s just discovering girly stuff!) and playing with K (who has rather more time and patience for her than her own brother, as he likes the fact that she can do a bit more than L 😉 ). They brought surprise presents with them to break the ice, as it were; Lizard Lunch for K and E, “snow” for J and J and Touchabubbles for L. In fact they all played with all of them, the snow being a particular hit once we had put it in the freezer for a couple of hours. In fact it is still going strong – although a little more gets dropped and swept or hoovered up each time it comes out to play!

Also on Monday we got the exciting news that Rebecca (from P&T) has had her baby, a little girl 😀 Still haven’t found out whether she managed the VBAC she wanted but hope to pop round and get the full story soon 😉

In the evening I went out to a Friday club prayer and planning meeting, as usual held in a beautiful, well-cared-for, large home which always leaves me feeling conscious of our cramped, cluttered and incredibly untidy little house. Consequently have spent rather too much time on rightmove looking up houses we could just about afford which would give us enough space to have a proper spare bedroom, a kitchen we could eat and live in, a room to store HE resources and toys (and maybe also play/work in) and a proper, tidy, toy-free grown-ups sitting room. There are some, but none near enough to Bob’s work to avoid a lengthy commute 🙁 If only he could work from home – or we could suddenly have the brainwave idea for a small business which would bring in loads of money for very few hours with total financial security… Yeah right!

Tuesday was a bit stop and start, as we were supposed to be going to see my friend with the twins, but when I checked my email there was a message saying she wasn’t sure it would work logistically because of multiple school/nursery runs for her older boys, then another saying the children were all ill so visit was off. We prepared ourselves for a day of pottering and workbooks, then had a phone call from her to check we’d got the email and whilst chatting decided that we would go after all and just risk the possibility of catching the bug. In the end it all worked out well, as J and K love playing with her boys, who were just about well enough to need to run off a bit of energy then collapse once we’d gone. Meanwhile I was able to do a bit more sling enabling (I really should look into doing it as a business!) and I think we have finally found the perfect sling for her in an Ellaroo Mei Hip 😀
Despite traffic and learner drivers we made it back in time for J’s French club and a nice chat with a few other mums also waiting for their little darlings 😉

Wednesday was once again reading morning for J and K and science for J (who refuses to tell us what they do as he says it’s a secret 😕 ) then dragging the children away whilst stuffing food into them to raise blood sugar enough to avoid horrible tantrums (theirs and mine!). Amazingly the boys had done lots of English without complaint before we went, but any attempt to get them to do maths once we got back met with rebellion and sullen attitude. In the end I got sick of them both and threw all three children out into the garden with a treasure hunt which involved finding and counting natural objects – we agreed to call it practical maths
For tea we ate potatoes grown in our own garden (in the old toilet cistern the plumbers left behind when they refitted the bathroom!) boiled and served with butter (yummy!), Grandad (runner) beans cooked with tomato and coriander (equally yummy) and cabbage with almonds – then spoilt it all by finishing off with chocolate sundae from a revolting packet mix. Actually, Bob and the boys made and ate the sundaes, as L and I were both so shattered we went to bed halfway through tea…

Despite such an early night L slept through (although I did hear her wake and whimper a couple of times in the night, but she didn’t come through or ask to feed) until 7, and despite such an early night I was still struggling to get out of bed as Bob was leaving for work (and telling me I had to get up now; he had to go!) which meant that by the time I realised we had no biscuits and no milk for parents and tots and we would have to go via the Coop to get some we were already late. I did manage to throw together some bread dough to take and grabbed a carton of eggs as we were leaving, so at least we had something for the older children to do and something for lunch 😉
We made texture pictures using scraps of material like fleece, silk, bubble wrap, sandpaper, wool, fun fur and corrugated cardboard, then thought of words to describe each scrap. As usual just now K was rather more enthusiastic than J…
Once everyone had left we wolfed down fresh bread and hard-boiled eggs then rushed over to the other side of town for African drama (although it is now far more music than drama) which L asked to join in this time. She managed to maintain concentration for 45 minutes of the 60 minute class, then came running through saying “I’m tired of music now!”, had a brief feed and promptly fell sound asleep 😆
Then we rushed back across town to home, arriving with just enough time for a quick drink before setting off to collect B and F from school and bring them home for tea. F has just started in reception and is absolutely shattered; it reminded me of how J used to be and how terribly hard it was to do anything much with him in the evenings other than shovel in some food and get him to bed 🙁 Still, B and the boys had fun, mostly playing Operation, while L watched and F curled up on the sofa with a picture book. J did some great money addition to find out who had won the game, then got very frustrated when K kept randomly adding to his score so that it would be higher than J’s (winning) amount. I don’t think J minded that K was pretending to win, but it really bothered him that he was making up numbers!

I’m not even going to think about the rest of August, except to mention a few highlights.
These would have to include the christening of my friend’s twins (the ones I donated EBM to 🙂 ) which was the day after the Festival of History, the CHEF visit to Knebworth where Bob took K and L on the dinosaur trail and maze trip while J and I went round the house and did the Tudor treasure trail (and then did the dinosaurs too ) and then we all met up at the amazing Fort Knebworth adventure playground, rode on the little train and had multiple turns on the very long slides 🙂 and a couple of African drama sessions. These were more music than drama, really, but definitely giving free rein to imagination and very play-based; both J and K loved them (and even L joined in where she could) and are very much looking forward to the remaining two sessions in the series.
Bob has already blogged about our stay with his parents, including various meets with other slingers and a few imaginary friends 🙂 so I guess that brings us to September 😉

September started with “our teenager” Alice coming to look after the children for a day. I had hoped to use this time for lots of sorting out, but then realised that I was preaching on Sunday (all age worship at our home church) as well as having the last of the children’s summer picnics (brunch on Saturday) to prepare for, so it was really a blessing that she was coming, but not quite in the way I’d hoped…
Saturday 2nd proved to be rather gloomy and drizzly, but there was nevertheless a small, hardy, group of us at the playground (not as many as we’d hoped, but definitely quality, if not quantity 😉 ) – the parents huddling under shelter with the food and Thermoses while the children, undeterred by the weather, played happily and were occasionally pinned down for long enough to be fed a bite of croissant or muffin 🙂
The service, despite my reservations and with help from both Bob and the children, went well. (Muses: perhaps I should start a separate blog for preaching – or perhaps that would just be another thing to fail to keep up to date! I guess at least I could just put the services in…) It was followed by coffee (and very tasty biscuits) and then a small group of us went to the Grad Pad for lunch – just making it in time before they stopped serving 🙂 It was great to have the chance to catch up with friends – and one of them was the man who had collected our Sonlight Core K books for us, so we drove home with those in the boot and spent the afternoon trying not to get too far ahead with the reading 😆

Monday was the first Mustard Seeds of the new academic year, and both J and K decided to stay for the whole session. As part of the story activity we started to learn a new poem about Creation, which I really need to get in writing, as my memory is currently appalling (sigh). On the off-chance that someone may recognise it and correect my errors, here it is (we’re adding to it each week, so this is last week plus today’s additions):
God said “Earth” and the world spun round,
God said “Day” and the light beamed down,
God said “Night” and the sky turned black,
God said “Land” and the sea rolled back.
God said ??? and a shoot pushed through,
God said “fin” and the first fish grew,
God said “wing” and the first bird soared,
God said “fur” and the jungle roared.

On Monday evening we went round to tea with J’s friend B and had a lovely relaxing time. Bob joined us after work and we stayed far too long (having made my apologies for missing a local preachers’ meeting :redface: ) but sometimes fun is more important than sleep, I find!
Tuesday again found Alice with us, this time taking K and L out for the morning so J and I could do some things together and then keeping all three occupied so I could get started on a bit of batch cooking. Having worn ourselves out on Tuesday, Wednesday was a quiet at home kind of day, curling up on the settee and reading, with the occasional foray onto the PC and lots of Duplo building 🙂
Thursday was the usual parents and tots (this week including Roman clay pot-making for the older HE children, and meeting a new HE family), followed by a toddle into town to buy birthday presents for the parties we were off to at the weekend. Also found some K’nex in a charity shop 🙂 Since school term has now started 3:15 found us at the school gates to pick up B and bring him home for tea. The children all played with K’nex for over an hour, which meant I could cook tea and also make flapjack and pound cake for Friday Club, as well as putting together a few lasagnes to freeze 🙂
Friday club has also started up again, this week with a nature walk which ended with each child choosing a tree to draw and paint. We’ll do the same walk again in a few months’ time to see what has changed and hopefully record the changes through the seasons. Must get some decent watercolours for this, as our cheap tray of paints is really not up to the job! We finished late, which meant a bit of a rushed picnic as we had arranged to meet another new HE family mid-afternoon…

Friday evening was spent getting ready for a busy weekend, including a moment of tragedy as Bob managed to break J’s Roman cup 🙁 J was heartbroken, but cheered up when he remembered that his auntie Polly is an archaeologist and has a birthday in September. His present to her is to be a 3D Roman cup jigsaw 😆

It was the second of our “school friends” picnics on Friday; an attempt, thinly veiled as half-birthday parties, for J and K to keep in touch with their old friends.
Alice (“our teenager”) came along to help us today, which made a huge difference to my mental and physical well-being!
We were running late (as usual!) so she took the boys to the playground in her car while L and I finished off, then we took the picnic stuff along when we were ready. Not a great turnout from schoolfriends though 🙁 All of one – but he made up in quality for what he lacked in quantity 🙂 We also had a friend from parents and tots and E, O, M and F came along all the way from London. It was not the greatest of weather, but that didn’t seem to deter the children from playing happily while the mum chatted. Alice was great at entertaining too, so it was a nice easy day, all in all – just a little disappointing for J not to see schoolfriends. We’re keeping our fingers crossed for a better turnout at the last one (brunch on the first Saturday in September)…

So tired I’m just dragging myself from day to day and activity to activity 🙁
As might be expected, the children are picking up on this and reacting accordingly, so mammoth tantrums from J and L. K continues to be his usual good-natured self, with just the incessant questions which I know I shouldn’t complain about, but they do get on top of me at times! On Monday we came incredibly close to taking J to CHEF sports in just his pants, as he took so long to get up and get dressed. In the end we were half an hour late, with him finishing dressing and eating breakfast in the car on the way – and then throwing a wobbly when we got there because he didn’t want to join in. Fortunately Gina was able to intervene and persuade him while I ran round the corner and flung myself into a little miserable heap to calm down for a few minutes! Of course once he joined in he loved it and I didn’t see him again for the whole session 😉

After the sports session it was medal-giving for the Sports Day a few weeks ago, which the boys were both seriously chuffed about, then we went to visit our friend with the twins and ended up staying quite late so that the boys could play for a while with her older boys and I could help her a little with bedtime. It was lovely, but set us up somewhat for another tired day on Tuesday – fortunately nothing planned that day except for Alice “our teenager” coming to help. She’s on holiday from Uni, came round last Friday and the children were really pleased to see her again plus Bob and I found out she was free because her holiday job fell through, so we asked her to come and help out for a couple of days int he holidays. She did a great job of looking after the children while I managed to get lots of tiling done in the bathroom 🙂 She’s coming again on Friday, so hopefully I’ll get the grouting done then, although it’s also another picnic in the park so she’ll help with that too. The temptation to just leave her with the kids while I sneak upstairs and sleep is great, but not a great use of money, I fear. At least if I tile or tidy I can see what I’ve been doing! If I carry on feeling the way I do though paying someone to babysit while I sleep may become a necessity…

Good grief – just realising quite how long it is since I blogged! I find it very hard when exhausted to sit down and write/type coherently. Everything gets tainted with how bad I feel,so I’ve not been doing it. Now I can’t even remember what we’ve done, apart from not enough “work” because J throws a tantrum every time I suggest it might be a good idea 🙁
I read in a child development book that 6 years old is a very problematic age because children are just starting to see that there are two sides to an argument and this leaves them feeling very unstable. They’re no longer able to be certain of anything, because they haven’t yet learned to distinguish properly between the two sides they can see, so everything is confusing. I guess it’s therefore no surprise that they are argumentative, combative and contrary! Praise is lapped up, but criticism, even if only perceived rather than real, is unbearable, and they will fly off the handle at the slightest thing. This described J’s current behaviour to a T! I guess it helps to know it’s a phase, a developmental stage, rather than something awful I’ve done to him! The same book said that 7 year olds can be incredibly helpful and eager to please adults, so I’m looking forward to that 😆

Having said all that about being so tired, why is it that I found myself sat in front of the computer before 6 am today? I don’t seem to be able to get back to sleep once I’ve woken up, no matter how tired I am. L is now in her own bed, at least nominally – in fact she is in her own bed from when she falls asleep until she first wakes, which could be anything from 1 to 4am, then she comes in with us. I then feed her and eventually get back to sleep, then she usually wakes again and I feed her again and then can’t get back to sleep. Used not to be a problem, but it seems the more tired I am the harder I find it to get to sleep 🙁 Just can’t get comfortable and can’t stop all the things I’ve not done from running through my head. Maybe I should try keeping a notebook by the bed to write them down and see if I can sleep then 😕 Anyway, unable to sleep after L woke me up at 5:15 today I finally gave up and came down to catch up on emails, write some cheques I need to post and blog! Perhaps I’ll sleep better tonight without all that on my conscience!
I wonder how the mums at today’s P&T would feel if I just went in, opened up the doors and toy cupboards, sat myself in a corner and told them i felt too poorly to do P&T today, but they’re welcome to do it themselves?