Where We’re At

So, it’s been an exciting couple of weeks- really starting to feel like we have big kids!

On the Home Ed front, Henry was offered a place at a school I wasn’t so excited by, (when I visited, each of the 3 reception classes were sitting in a group, on the mat, being taught, the playground is rubbish- tiny and concrete, and I was told effectively not to worry, they don’t waste too much time playing, anyway!) so we’ve turned that down. Hooray! And, I bought tickets to HESFES, the summer festival for home schoolers! I am way too excited- last festival I went to was Burning Man. I wonder what similarities there will be…

And yesterday was Lauren’s last breastfeed. I’m feeling quite mixed- love love love breastfeeding, for all sorts of reasons, and would have happily kept going if I wasn’t so fed up. Night weaning had repeatedly not worked, and I just wasn’t appreciating it anymore. She’s 2. She was okay with it, a lot better than I expected. And one day I’ll sleep a whole night in my marital bed! Though it may be when I can convince Dave to take them away for a weekend without me. Anyone want cute visitors?

Things I learned at the hospital yesterday.

1. It’s not measles.

2. That idea that your body pushes the temperature up to kill the germs, and you shouldn’t bring it down unless unbearable, is out of favour. To maybe knock a couple of hours off the end of an illness isn’t worth the extra suffering.

3. Give paracetamol, because it’ll tell you whether the problem causing the high temperature (39.9! Sheesh!) is a big deal (paracetamol wont help) or not.

4. Lauren has a definite preference for medicine which is pink.

5. Our local hospital rocks. No Accident & Emergency department, but an Urgent Care centre, which is nurse-led, and awesome.

6. Henry is ready for dress-up clothes! Hooray!

Today Did Not Go Well

So, it was supposed to be a nice easy day, nothing planned, and Dave had an early doctor’s appointment for his sore foot, so he could even drop Henry at nursery school. (Dave is not part of the badness of the day, don’t worry.)

Hmmm, let me try and remember what order these things happened in:

1. There was a wet bed, (whose bed is a secret,) so there would be a couple loads extra of laundry. No biggie, though the machine was on it’s last legs, and I’d been keeping an eye on eBay for a replacement. (Got a small freezer recently for £32, and it’s perfect!)

2. The washing machine poured large amounts of white smoke into the kitchen. I turned it off, and all the electric things off, and opened the windows, at which point there seemed to be a significant increase in the amount of smoke.  I was afraid it was going to catch fire, and stood there like a panicked fool trying to plan what I would do. Would wet towels be a mistake, if all the power was off? And where the heck would I put them, anyway? The thing lives under a counter, jammed in between the sink and the dishwasher, and the smoke was coming from the back of it somewhere. Anyway, so, there was no fire.

3. My friend texted to say she was throwing up, and could I pick her kid up (with mine) from nursery? Her husband’s also working late tonight, though that wasn’t yet significant.

4. My other friend, who is 91, phoned to say she’s been sitting in the cold for 2 days, (it’s been snowing,) without hot water or central heating, and is having a new boiler fitted tomorrow. Could I please drop round my key to hers, today, for the plumber?

Hmmmm, okay, so I did those, but in between that and all the normal (crazy) day stuff I was looking on the internet for a washing machine, and finally about 5 bit the bullet and ordered one (and a tumble dryer- hello luxury!) It’s coming Friday, and I paid extra for installation, but you have to have disconnected your old one entirely before they arrive. So here I am, with Dave away in Cornwall for the night, (and he is going to be late home tomorrow night too, and we also have to take the door off to the stupid little side room where the fridge used to be, to get the new (front-opening) freezer in there so these delivery guys can put the tumble dryer on top of it. (You can do that, right? I was intending to have it fixed to the wall, a little higher up, but not yet.)) and I figure, I have a few minutes to kill before the kids’ bedtime, so I’ll just phone my father-in-law and find out whether I’m supposed to undo the tube-things at the machine end or the wall end. He’s away, but I’m chatting to Linda, my mother-in-law, and I just try (one-handed) to unscrew a thing that looks like it’s made to be unscrewed and

5. it comes off in my damn hand. And a nice little spout of water shoots out about 2 feet towards me, and starts making a big puddle. Fast.

6. Then my brain turned completely off, as it does. I grabbed buckets and sent Henry (who was awesome throughout) running for towels, and started trying to keep it a bit under control, but that didn’t leave much time for figuring out how to turn the water off. Or who to call. I had hung up rather abruptly on Linda, and so I’m making these crazy phone calls to my local friends, but nobody’s answering, and their husbands aren’t going to be home yet anyway. I got my friend Kev, who is brilliant and sensible, but lives a half-hour away and has a ten-day-old son, so I really didn’t want to hassle him. Funny conversation, as I kept having to put the phone down to empty buckets. He found me a plumber, and sent him my way, and in the 10 minutes before he got here I managed to raise the neighbours-but-one, the second lot I’d tried- can you picture me running out of the house in my sodden slippers, ever so glad it’s stopped snowing, ringing their doorbell and rushing back into my house because the bucket’s already overflowing, then running back out to find them standing in their doorway looking puzzled, and just shouting, something about “please help me, my kitchen is flooding!” And running back in. And all this while Henry’s under strict instructions not to lock me out and not to let Lauren out the door!

I am so damn lucky that my phone didn’t die in my wet hands.

So, where are we? The neighbour came in and took over the bucketing, so I could pick Lauren up, (poor kid had not stopped crying since it started, and I just kept running past her,) and clear my head enough to figure out where to turn the water off. (It was a thing I’d looked at earlier, and been too nervous to try- I could not deal with flooding the garage as well!) Aaaah, wonderful water off! Lauren had plenty to say about that, too.

And then Kev’s excellent mate came, and laughed at me for offering him a cup of tea when I had no water. He was brilliant, the kids loved him, he totally replaced the dodgy part that had caused all the trouble, (yep, he reassured me that it was all the dodgy part’s fault, not my own- I loved him a little bit, too.)

And all is well. The kids went to bed without much hassle, and less than 2 hours late. The kitchen is dry enough and ready for the deliverymen on Friday. I have had a nice cup of tea, and texted everyone that I alarmed. Can’t be bothered to proof-read this again- I know I changed tenses somewhere in the middle. That must have been the point where it all got too much. I hope it makes sense. I’m going to bed; this day’s done.

Self-Portrait at 23 Months

Second Story, Untitled

In the first place, the child was sitting outside because his Nana and Grandad were coming. But it took a long time for the child to see the car. But luckily his Dad was walking outside in the yard, and said to his little child, “Would you like to go to the movie studio?” And the child said, “Absolutely, I would!”
And so they gave the fire truck caravan a new coat of red paint and they were ready to drive. By accident they saw the road where builders were digging a patch in the road by the lever. (sic- do you write sic to show that you didn’t screw this up- that’s really what he said, even if it makes no sense??) But the driver needed to get through. He saw a sign for the movie studio behind them.
But then the child had a great idea. They could actually try to make a little patch themselves around the two builders and then they would fall in. (Again, with the sic.)
And that’s the story completed.
But there’s one more thing- the movie studio was closed. But when they arrived at the movie studio, they saw the arrow pointing to “closed.”
But there’s one more thing- they wanted to go for a swim so the truck had to turn around and drove to the swimming studio. But when they arrived at the swimming pool studio they saw the arrow pointing to “open.”
So they got their swimming costumes on and they swam and swam and swam.
But there’s one more thing- they saw a volcano getting ready to erupt in China. So they needed volcano killer, and luckily there was volcano killer right in the back of the truck!

by Henry Miller
Scribed by Mummy
11:30 am, 18 February 2013
Albury, NSW, Australia

Illustrations to follow…

The New Office of the Sick Child

Henry wrote a story!

I have been offering to write his spoken stories down for a while. (And turning cereal boxes inside out, and other potentially fun, writing-inspiring activities. Wait til I tell you about the awesome book I’m reading!) This one he had just finished telling me, inspired by Duplo, and decided yes he would like me to write it down, so started again. And made some changes, of course.

The New Office of the Sick Child
In the first place, the child was sick and then the fire engine caravan had to drive to the doctor.
The wheel pulled and went to make the truck drive the wrong way. And then the fireman fell asleep. And then the child ran to the back and got out the medicine, and made himself better.
When they were at the doctor the fireman woke up! And then they both walked in, so that’s the story completed.

Henry Miller
Scribed by Mummy
11 am, 18 February, 2013
Albury, NSW, Australia

“There was music on this story, so write a music style on all of these words.”

Happy December!

It’s all going on around here! Crazy November family birthday good times, and chicken pox, and holiday flights purchased, and we had to take the kitchen door off to finally bring the fridge in from the utility room. How much do I love having a refrigerator in my kitchen?!

Just before the chicken pox Henry made me some “pictures” at his beloved Nursery School.

I just wanted to share my funny little advent calendar. It was inspired by this loveliness, though I didn’t read her instructions carefully enough, and made mine much more complicated than it needed to be! Definite modifications to make for next year, not least finding somewhere a bit wider to hang it!

So, yesterday we opened the first little paper, and it said to go in the afternoon to the town centre for the turning on of the Christmas lights. Well, chicken pox got in the way of that, but we turned it into a lovely after-dinner drive to look at the lights, complete with a petrol-station stop for Mummy to run in and get cartons of apple juice- our favourite treat. (We also needed bread and milk. That’s how smoothly things run around here!)

December 2? Bust open the chocolate tree…