The musings of a juggling mother

Rants & raves about life as a woman today, juggling work, home, kids, family, life the universe & everything.

© Mrs Aginoth. The right of Mrs Aginoth to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents act 1988

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

The doctor did it.

It was all going so well......

The presents were opened. We had made it to Nanny A's without mishap, and with the trifle, lemon merrangue and meat al in one piece and still hot/cold as required. The dinner was cookeed well, on time, and not in ridiculous amounts. The children had even eaten some real food:-)

More presents were opened when the adults were fully stuffed, and Mstr A was quietlplaying with his 20Q, LMB with her new DS and LMD with her bouncing tigger while the adults watched Shek2, Shaun the sheep and half of Nemo. why we watched the kids films is a good question - but we did. LMd was a little sick on all the sweets, but that is par for Xmas when you are 2:-) And i was only a litle.

I had intended to head home at about 5.30 to ensure we were home in time for Dr Who, but Grandad J was off to work just about that time, so we said we'd stay with Nanny A and watch Dr ho with her, then head home late, so the kids could sleep in the car. 6.45pm arrived, and we sent the girls pstairs to watch children's TV, and us older people settled down to the only really important viewing of the day.

Unfortunately, 10 minutes later, the girls reappeared. Beebies finishes at 7pm! Usually this is good. They sing "night night"and everyone goes to bed knowing they are missing nothing important. Today a 7pm finish was bad. Very Bad. "shhhhh. go play in the back room" I shushed quickly, fixated on the Titanic.

Bang. crash. Whinge. cry. cuddle. bang. argue. bang the door again. I watch Kylie break down in tears and suggest they shut up and play upstairs instead. Off they go. back they come. hey bounce in front of the TV a few times. "GO UPSTAIRS" I yell, and they scamper up to Nanny A's bedroom, where I leave them to their own devices and settle back down to the telly. All is well until 8pm. just as kylie is acting all eroic like, and the whole word is about to be destroyed there is an almighty thump and as I leap up in alarm, the first siren wail of real pain.

I get upstairs to find LMB crying her eyes out, while LMD looks on quite contentedly from where she has tucked herself up in bed. Eventually I get out of her that she hit her head on the radiator. It hurts "all over". Unable to confirm exactly how she did it, i calm her down with lots of cuddles, and have a good feel. I find a couple of large lumps, and cuddle hr some more. Finally Dr Who finishes and the others come up to see what happened. We move into the bathroom to give her some calpol, and I spot the blood:-(

We clean her up, and there is a 2cm cut. Quite deep. She must have hit the corner of the radiator. I put my professional head on, and decide there is not need to stitch it and she is showing no signs of concusion, so calpol and cuddles are all that is required. we bundle all the children up and head off home .

Not the finest end to Xmas day. But I blame the doctor for the whole thing. And I still don't know if the Earth surived!

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Merry Christmas

It's gone quite well so far:-)

Mstr A ws the first awake at 6.30am, but he was content to come and watch some TV in our room until we got the girls up at 7am. They opened their stocking presents properly, with little fighting, actually looking at the presents (and stuffing as much cholcolate in their mouths as possible). We tend to buy useful stockng presents, so they got new toothbrushes (Mstr A had one of these things that plays music through your teeth! and LMB a fairy one), new wash mitts, and a leotard & ballet shoes for LMB, recorder and book for Mstr A and dressing up clothes for LMD. That was plenty to stuff into the rather large stockings we hng up.

Mstr A has spent the past few weeks telling all and sundry that santa isn't real and it's your mum and dad really, but this morning when he came down to see if santa had come, he said he tought he had as he had heard a "thump" on the roof and seen a big shadow walking past LMB's room:-)

Now we have managed to get them all to eat some proper(ish) breakfast, and get dressed with the promise of big presents to come. the pork is in the oven, the desserts are made. We're off to Nanny A's for dinner, so not a lot of work to do. And back in time for Dr who, so opefully not a late night:-)

oh, and Aggie's got another chest infection, so he's on antibiotics again, and ges to be my chauffeur all through the fesive period. shame.

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Sunday, December 23, 2007

But why?

LMD is very confused about this whole Christmas thing. She doesn't remember last year at all, but at nearly three she is able to vocalise and discuss it this year. And it's been a fairly long run up for a toddler.

She saw Santa a few weeks ago when we visiting my mum. While totally bemused by th whole thing, she went along with her brother, sister & cousin. He asked them what thy wanted, and they were all pretty mute tbh. Mstr A finally chatted a bit in his incoherent way, but all the girls just looked, accepted their present and left. LMD was ever so pleased with her hand puppet, and has shown it to everyone since.

So last week when we started talking about Christmas to her, she said she knew all about it. Santa gives her presents. Very nice, thanks ,and it all sounds great mum. I asked her what she wanted for her present from mummy & daddy, and she told me that she didn't want anything -she had everything she wanted. Which is, of course, true, as she has unbelievable amounts of toys!

Today, I was trying to explain that santa will come and leave some presents tomorrow night - and she pointed out that she had already got a present from Santa! wha would she need another one?

Perhaps we shoud all try looking at Christmas from a two-year-old's pov every now and then:-)

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Thursday, December 20, 2007

Bah Humbug

It's feeling positively Dickensian at the moment.

First, It's bloody freezing! Thick, thick frost everywhere, all day. brrrrrrrr. I know that it is December, and I know that other places are much colder, but last year I got quite used to the dea that Weston should not dip below freezing for more than the occasional 5 minutes. Bring back warm and wet. Global warming is welcome sometimes:-)

Also, There is no heating at work. It didn't come on when fired up last month, and they never got around to fixing it. Now we know why, so obviously it's not going to work all winter. I did make them cough up for a little electric heater for my office, cos I personally won't stand for that kindof behaviour from my employers, but it's not really man enough to heat up the whole ofice from below freezing every day - I was onl yexpecting it to be a "top p" for a couple of weeks! and every time I leave the office - to walk to the photocopier, toilet or front office, I freeze again.

On top of that, I just don't like the run up to Christmas. I like the real thing well enough. But all the preparation is just dull. I don't like decorating the tree/house, I hate wrapping, all the false good cheer drives me nuts and I just don't see hy I should have to spend twice as much time, effort and money to do normal things!

Bah humbug!

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Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Bugg'rit millenium hand & shrimp

As foul ol' Ron would say. Some days are just downright depressing:-(

Today I discovered that Terry Pratchett probably only has a "few more books" in him with the onset of Altzheimers killing off one of the greatest literary minds of our time. I love his books, which are usually laugh out loud funny, with an added dollop of wry wit and observtional humour thrown in to keep it interesting. Plus he just seems like a jolly nice chap from the things I have read about him.

although it is his fault me and Aggie got together, so perhaps I shouldn't be too praising;-)

Then at work today we all got called into a meeting and told that the company was closing in June. But the Family department would be gone by February. So it's job hunting for me again.

And despite it being the 12th, and therefore the draw date, I didn't win anything this month:-) Nor did we get our working tax credit for some unknown reason, so I'll have to chase that up. Hurumph! And I spent the last bit of my car money on a trailer - which will be very useful, and will make our summers much easier, but it is still depressing to say goodbye to a big bank balance.

Some days are just shit! lets hope tomorrow is better.

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Sunday, December 09, 2007

Northern Lights, camera, action...

We went to see Northern Lights on Thursday - off to another preview showing I hear you ask?! I don't know, anyone would think we were real film buffs:-) We went down to Taunton, being unable to cope with even the thought of going to Cribbs Causeway during December;-) I have to say, Taunton Odeon is MASSIVELY better then Cribbs. We'll be going back out of preference from now on. Firstly they still let you book your actual seats so (should the cinema be busy) there is no need to arrive an hour early to queue up. Also, the staff seemed to have worked out that they were sorking in the service industry, and were visiable, cheerful and helpful. Pretty much the opposite of the cribbs staff!

Anyway, the film. There were only a dozen or so of us thre - which I always find amazing for preview showings. We were obviously all fans, and I was earwigging a few conversations about the merits of the books and the cast choices before it started:-) I loved the books when I read them a couple of years ago. I have re-read the set about a ear ago, and Northern Lights again last month, just to remind myself of exactly what was written. I said originally that I was amazed they were ever published, and they would never be made into films. I still think that any US studio that bank rolls the third book as it is written is likely to be burned to the ground... but we shall see.

Overall the film was good. It was over-simplified imo. It was made into black & white/goodies and baddies very quickly and with no questions asked about it as there are in the books. Obviously, large chunks of the story and particularly the back story are missed out, to the detriment of the narrative. But to did stick to the main aspects of the book, and did not shy far away from the religious aspects. the acting was good, the Daemons were great. It ended abruptly 3/4 of the way trough the book which caused everonein th cinema to exclaim simaultaneously "it doesn't end there!" and we left thinking that it was a good enough film. But not great. Definitely not another LoR. Oh well.

Monday, December 03, 2007

Say what?!

We all went up to London this weekend just gone, to visit my family (well, some of them anyway) and let the kids play with their cousin G. On Saturday, the children were all playing rather nicely after lunch, while the grownups chatted round the table. As my sister is an Occupational Therapist working with people with mental health issues (I don't know, she doesn't really know! Nobody knows, but it's sounds like a tough job whatever!) she's a useful font of information for me, seeing as an awful lot of our clients have mental health issues (the sad thing about working in family law is mostly all your clients have major problems in their life. They wouldn't need a solicitor if everything was hunky dory, would they?) so we were discussing some people in generic terms.

Of course, she calls hers patients, and I call mine clients, but basically, in most cases we're trying to get the same things for them. At one point the conversation turned to the perceived difference between deliberate and unconscious self-harm. I said that one case I found really sad was an addict who was the most fantastic mother most of the time. But then she had a relapse, and the baby was in real danger and was taken away. i said I did not see that she would ever get it back, and it was sad, because when straight, she did everything right. Sister S asked if it was as sad when the mother was a fantastic mother except when she had a psychotic episode due to a mental health problem. I said it wasn't, because it was quite possible that mother could be reassessed later, and would have at least some access to their child. Sister S pointed out that shows a decided bias from the courts in what the consider to be involuntary behaviour (psychosis, disability etc) and "voluntary behavior" like drug addiction and prostitution.

I was about to agree that in most cases theses people were not voluntarily doing it when Master A piped up from the other side of the room, "Prostitution? That's what i am"

My sister, other and I all looked at each other then almost simultaneously asked him what he meant:-) He clarified for us, "in the school play. I'm the prosecution" (he is doing Goldilocks in court this year - how cool is that? I always thought it was a bit of an iffy story!). he then went on to tell us how exactly to say it, and spell it, and that we had got it a bit wrong:-) fortunately he did not ask what our word meant, since he hasn't quite got to grips with sex yet, never mind that!

Poor Mstr A. He's good at getting it just slightly wrong enough to be completely wrong in adults eyes. At the beginning of term, all the children in his class had to do a poster of why it is good to be me. They were put up outside the classroom for all the parents to look at. It had a picture of them in the middle and lines off to descriptions of what made them individuals. Mstr A's 1st line went off to "What I like" underneath he wrote "my friends, Tom, Robert, John*, call girls, smiley. For weeks I watched parents go over, look at it, double take, and look worried. I did ask him what it said (obviously). he read it out to me. People I like: Tom, Robert, John and all girls in brackets! Mstr A's writing made the first bracket look just like a C and the last one just like a smiley!

Silly mum!

Still, good news, kind of. We saw the educational psychologist today. She was quite convinced that he showed many Aspie behaviours, and congratulated us on having done such a fantastic job of managing him. she even wrote down some of our techniques for future use:-) She said that it was good that we had spoken to him about it, and that it would be fine to use the word "asbergers" to him, even if it was not actually diagnosed - which is the opposite of what the paediatrician said! Although she was not upbeat about getting an actual diagnosis still. partly because she was very keen not to diagnose. she kept saying it would not get him any extra help on its own and he was managing well enough at school without the formal diagnosis, and it would follow him through life. But also because she said we have managed it so well, some of the behavioural issues are not much of an issue with him, since the management techniques keep it under control. Huh, so we were supposed to let him ruin his life just to get the diagnosis? But a full report from her will go a long way and hold plenty of weight. It's certainly made me feel thatI am not just being a pushy parent anyway, which does worm it's way into my mind every now and then:-) After all, all 7 year old boys are pretty difficult! In a way it's comforting to know he is abnormally difficult;-) Weird huh?

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