storbarnsförälder

My mother's siblings - M(f), P(m), herself (f), M(f), E(f), D(f)

My mother's children, all female - D, O, G, A, N.

My mother's grandchildren - 6f, 1m.
2002 D-> O(m)
2003 D-> S(f)
2004 A-> L(f)
2005 D-> O(f)
2006 A-> E(f)
2008 O-> F(f)
2009 D-> C(f)

There's another one due in 2009, September time, so that will make up for 2007 nicely.

I must get photos of everyone and make a family tree picture for my children.

It's a lovely day for laundry - I've done the handwashing, even - and swinging on the swing and seeing on the saw and bouncing on the trampoline. And it's a lovely day for mowing the lawn, ish, and raking the winter's leaves off it, and finding all sorts of toys hidden in the long grass.

If this continues we'll have a usable garden by the end of the week - one people could come and sit in, even.

It's glorious weather.

Poor Linnea will be FORCED out into it shortly. She'd rather stay in the front room looking at books. Why she doesn't want to look at the outdoors is beyond me. But she has to come to the dentist with me - no choice there!

Rob and I are both doing better today - he slept almost all night through and I had several chunks of more than an hour each. Which, compared to Sunday night, was brilliant.

This morning Linnea woke bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and pottered about on her computer while I stayed in bed with Emer. I got up before Emer properly woke and did laundry and dishwashering and tidying, and then when Emer woke we all had porridge. Linnea and I were dressed to go out by ten o'clock but Emer wasn't until closer to eleven, but that's ok. She doesn't like being dressed.

We went to Lidl for orange juice and bananas and carrots and other things which are available in organic, fair-trade, or British (ie kinda localish) cheaper than the market sells them. I also caved in and bought silicate grapes (ie nonorganic) imported from the other end of the planet. Bad Environmentalist No Biscuit.

After that I compounded my sin by eating in McDonalds, which I'm always ashamed of because of their international eeeeebil, and then we came home and I finished doing laundry and tidying the bathroom, kitchen, and dining room for the BfN people. I put the stairgate in and cleared the kitchen and got coffee on, and it was almost ready by the time the first person arrived.

The lesson went well.

Rob arrived during the post-lesson chat, and so I could leave for the True Food market without waking Emer. Linnea was just as pleased to be left behind too. I got a lot of useful shopping done and had two cups of tea and several interesting-to-me conversations. I absolutely have to get out more - this is really important. Maybe if I take up yoga it will help.

All I ever think about are money and babies, babies and money. Oh, and environmentalism and politics.

I think this third week of PMS is doing a number on my self-perception because I am not in a good place right now.

I crept into Linnea's bed in the night because I had persistent anxiety about her continued breathing.

Rob was up all night with Linnea. I was up all night with Emer. Both children were hot, sweaty, and scratching like loons. And peeing like rivers.

Today they are both cranky and not hungry, but apparently well. I'm cranky and starving and grouchy and clawed.

The cats were sick in the night; Rob cleaned up two parts of a dead animal from under one chair, in the middle of the night, and I cleaned up a heap of undigested catfood from under another chair this morning. I'll also have to wash the coats which were on the floor, as they were affected too. Yuck.

It's an absolutely gorgeous day and my children are wiped out by either a lowlevel virus or the party and sugar from yesterday.

On the plus side, I got their clean laundry put away, the wet bedding in the washing machine, dinner is on, the dishwasher is running, both children are dressed, and I had a coffee.

I think I'll get myself dressed now and have another one. (I do my housework in my pyjamas. I'm not sure why).

I got up, put the nappies on to wash, and started sweeping floors. I got yesterday's dishes in the dishwasher and cleaned the dining room. G and two of his children arrived about ten, and I got the dining room floor clean shortly after that, and we had tea and coffee and talked about Pleasure Town is Invite Only and Heathcliff and Borth and then they left and I cleaned the kitchen, hung the nappies up to dry, and fed the children lunch and was almost done when the BfN people started arriving at 12:40.

I was tremendously pleased G called before visiting as I usually do Big Housework in my pyjamas and would have hated to open the door unwashed and not yet dressed properly. This way we were all three dressed when they arrived.

We spent the first hour of the session working out which assignments were which, which ones we'd done, and which ones we had yet to do. We were all confused about this.

Now I know how much work I have yet to do I can start planning how to do it. But first I need to find my USB memory stick and listen to my taped role-play from Saturday.

Strange, but nice₁₈₃. I'm incredibly tired - we had kids other than our own here from 2-7pm. And their parents. There were several last-minute cancellations, which is just as well, because I was unwell enough yesterday that we basically had to do all the prep this morning and I spent the first hour and a bit of the party washing dishes so that people could have something to eat off.

Also, I was up for four hours in the night with Emer, who napped for a chunk of the party and is now awake and eating a large apple.

We have quite a lot of food left. I think I will eat lots of it tomorrow, though.

Oh, and we're going to run out of coffee. But I like coffee and so do my friends.

We know a lot of nice four-year-olds₁₈₄. Most of whom will be five in a few weeks' time.

We also are beginning to know nice two-year-olds, so Emer will have a social circle which overlaps but is not reliant on Linnea's social circle₁₈₅.

For my next trick, I'll see if I can't find my own again, but the kids' social lives do eat a lot of my social energy. And, truth to tell, I like it that way - I'm not willing to sacrifice that for the other.

Perhaps I need to set a goal of one non-kid social thing every other month, or something. I dunno.

(Also, I keep wanting to smoke. No!)

Well, we haven't eaten breakfast yet, but I have scrubbed measles off both children in the bath, using a scrubbing brush on Linnea's body and a facecloth on her face and Emer's body. While I was upstairs listening to the death toll in Australia Linnea was downstairs climbing chairs to find the permanent markers.

She didn't like the scrubbing brush.

Anyway, now all three of us have washed hair and the worst of the spots are off both girls. I can't get them off the bathroom wall.

And the dishwasher is running, and the laundry is on and the other laundry is hung up and, at last, the porridge is cooked, so here we go.

A few minutes ago the doorbell rang and Maria handed me a cup of coffee from the Workhouse Coffee Shop₁₆₉. She didn't come in as they were on their way to the post office and we are grossly antisocial today, but she is my hero.

I just finished mixing today's bread₁₇₀ and now I'm sitting here with the coffee, feeling luxurious and liked₁₇₁.

Today I have mostly been feeling ill and really, really tired. Rob and I swapped out about 6 am and I went to sleep and he dealt with Emer, who is also ill and really, really tired. I am staving off a painful sinus infection, I think, and this close to succumbing and buying a Neti pot.

I want to book train tickets but don't trust myself not to be really stupid while this ill.

And both children need their feet remeasured. Again. Maybe tomorrow.

₁₀₄In spite of PMS I didn't actually injure anyone. This is a major achievement. I spent yesterday sizzling with rage and today incredibly, mindbogglingly tired. Also, I had to de-weekend the house; it pootles along ok Monday to Friday and by midmorning on Saturday is well on the way to squalor. I'm used to this, but it's hard work. However, ₁₀₄the cleaning lady came and ₁₀₅I've had a lot of junk food.

To improve our cashflow I need to move the account the child tax credit and child benefit gets paid into. So I need to find bits of paper and phone the guvmint.

₁₀₆I've been reading The Audacity of Hope and mainly enjoying it, though I'm a bit surprised to see that Obama's not wholly opposed to the death penalty. He does at least say it's not an effective deterrent. Sadly, it's a book which takes more brain than anything else I'm reading so I'm working through it very slowly, but I'm kind of grateful it takes brain.

₁₀₇The toilet did not get blocked at all today even though Linnea saw fit to play with loo roll again. The damn stuff unwinds so temptingly.

₁₀₈I managed to stay technically awake until Rob got home, though I couldn't stay upright. Then I passed out for over an hour and woke feeling exhausted.