Catching up again

I seem to have got out of the habit of blogging lately, mostly due to just not being 'in the mood' for it. Maybe because I feel we're not really doing much. My most productive and energetic times (mentally and physically) are 8am - 11am or noon, and we only actually have one morning a week (Saturday) when we're home at that time. Four mornings a week Tamsin goes to playschool (three of them because I'm at work, one to give me a break), one morning we go out to my women's/young mums support group and Sunday we go to church. So we only really have afternoons, by which stage I'm tired, grumpy and short of ideas or the willingness to put any into action. I have all these resources, books and ideas lying around, and they rarely get touched or looked at.

So, not a great deal to report, except the gathering of more resources. Last Thursday we went to the Library and changed all our books, and chose some interesting ones for Tamsin which, as well as the story books, included "The Age of Industry" (her choice!!), a good age-appropriate book about science which I hope to go through with her and do some of the activities, and a nice one about trees which is really aimed at older kids but has some activities in it that she could do.

On Saturday I went and helped out at the Stratford-on-Avon NCT second-hand sale, which is lots of hard work but means you get first choice of all the stuff on sale. So I grabbed 2 DK videos - Eyewitness Human Machine and Eyewitness Weather, a Hieroglyphics game for if and when we ever do that stage (I'm sure we will), a couple of Usborne books for Isabelle which will also be useful as demonstrators ;-), a cash-register and shopping basket for playing shops with Tamsin, a push-along walker toy for Isabelle, and some other toys and clothes for both of them. Total cost under £35.00. And then I got a parking ticket - £30. :-( Dashed home from the sale, had an hour for us to ooh and ah over all the stuff, and then took Tamsin to her dancing class. Had the teacher questioning me as to why I was staying. All the other parents having taken her strong hint not to stay, but me deciding that Tamsin would still be happier with me there, and also as we are being ecologically friendly by walking there (10-minute walk -v- 1 minute drive) there's no way I'm walking home again and then walking back to pick her up 45 minutes later. It didn't occur to me at the time, but I must ask her *why* she really doesn't want parents to stay. There's certainly nothing dodgy going on and she's a very nice woman and seems totally fine, but I don't see why leaving should be compulsory if you don't want to! I have no intention of leaving until as and when it suits both me and Tamsin. Dashed home from the dancing class, fed Isabelle and then straight out again to do our film showing for the 'Rural Cinema' that Kate and I run once a month.

On Sunday morning I found a red mite in the chicken house, so in the afternoon after church I went off to the Domestic Fowl Trust to stock up on foul chemicals to nuke them! Haven't yet done the application yet, though, which as it involves grabbing each chicken and dusting it all over with powder makes me a little nervous.

This morning I was in a foul mood (hmmm, same as last Monday!) after being woken a zillion times in the night mostly by Isabelle but also by Tamsin. It feels like things are getting worse because some of the time I used to be able to hum or sing Isabelle back to sleep, instead of feeding her, whereas she's now twigged about that and just starts *screaming* if I start humming. So, apart from swearing at her, my only tactic is to give in and feed. I don't know what to do about it. She is still so little, and has very little frame of reference yet, so not being fed when she feels she needs it probably feels like she'll never be fed again, and that's obviously majorly traumatic. If I go into the spare room for a week and leave Bill to sort her out, she might feel that Mummy's abandoned her and is never coming back. But I can't go on feeding her 6-10 times per night. Well, maybe I can, because that's what I did with Tamsin till she was 2.5, but at least in those days I could sleep in the day. So, anyway, I sobbed in the shower about that, and then again some more when I was getting dressed, and Tamsin was very solicitous as she always is when I cry, and went and fetched Daddy and then tissues. Isabelle fell asleep when I drove home from taking Tamsin to playschool, so thankfully I was able to catch a half-an-hour snooze. Thank God, literally, because it totally changed my mood and my outlook on the day.

Then had someone come over for a chat about cloth nappies. She's pregnant for the first time age 39 after infertility and IVF, so am quite anxious for her, but apart from measuring 4 weeks ahead (loads of fluid, or mammoth baby? scan next week will tell) things seem to be going fine so she's just done all her equipment shopping and was ready to get to grips with the nappy issue. I've recently treated myself to a couple more wraps and a fabulous set of multi-coloured and patterned fleece liners, so was able to show her some of that up-to-date stuff as well as the boring plain white I've had since Tamsin.

I've just remembered that one of the reasons I didn't feel like blogging last week was the news that my brother Martin, on his return home to the USA after his trip here 2 weeks ago, was made redundant. Rather a shock, as although the Science Centre he works in had had financial troubles, they'd had some help from the local government and all seemed to be much more secure. But apparently not. But he is an internationally-regarded planetarium astronomer, and offers of support and work/jobs have come in from all over the place almost immediately. He'll be fine, but it's still a bummer of a thing to happen. Esp. when he was just divorced a year ago and doesn't want to leave his kids.

Anyway, I have a ton of tidying up/Usborne parcel to distribute/money to sort out so this will have to be it for now!