Monday Monday...

Bleh, that is all!!

Today hasn't been the best of mornings. Olivia should have been dressed up as a character from James and the giant peach today, but yet again, I think my telepathy skills are somewhat lacking, because no note was sent hoe from school. I wasn't the only parent not to get one either. Poor, very poor!! So she has her school uniform on, and I will need to make it up to her!!

Also this morning I saw a "friend" (reviewing that one!!) talking about me in a derogatory manner on facebook. They probably thought they would be safe, because the comments they made were on the wall of someone I am not connected with. However, due to the new live streaming, and the fact the security settings of this person were on public, the comments came up on my live stream!! It is almost funny, but oh how I see that person differently now! Outward appearances and all that!

I am bored of making an effort with people and that not being returned, and clearly not appreciated.

Today I will be taking no prisoners!!

Beads of Courage

Yesterday I had to give two Beads of Courage training sessions on my own! I love the program and could sit and talk about it for hours, so I wasn't too worried about that part of it. I did have to find the hospitals though, and they were in a place I had never been to before!

My Sat Nav mocks me, I am sure it does! It senses my complete lack of ability when it comes to directions. It never plays up when I have somebody more competent in the car.

Last week I had to go to Leicester, and half way up the motorway it just randomly decided to switch itself off, causing me a major panic, swift stop at the services and me jiggling about with it! Yesterday it kept trying to take me down the bus lane, and the wrong way down one way streets. I could hear it laughing at me, as I bit my lip so I didn't cry!

I made it in the end, and was on time for both appointments. We now have 22 hospitals in the UK enrolled, and hoping to more than double that this July. It was lovely to see my lovely friend Naomi too, who came to the second hospital to hold my shaking hands!

If you haven't watched it already, this is our video which we had made fro the Birmingham children's launch, and Ted is on there right at the beginning! <3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hzs-wSO1Gw8

Enna's 2yr check

Eleanor had her 2 yr check today, and she woke up in a foul mood which meant she probably wasn't going to co-operate with anyone!

After a fraught bath and hair wash, we arrived at the clinic and we were eventually called in for our turn. This was either going to go really well, or spectacularly not!

All of my kids have been early talkers, and always had a really good range of vocabulary, but if Enna decides she doesn't like you, (and you have about 30 seconds on meeting her to make an impression), then she will not speak to you! The HV was on to a winner as she already had brightly coloured crayons and paper out to play with, and Enna loves to draw (albeit usually on the walls).

It took me a few seconds to convince her she wanted to draw a picture, but doing so she settled down a little and found her stride.

She drew a dog and a face...

She wouldn't show the HV where her eyes, nose and mouth were, so the next bag of tricks was a doll and accessories. The HV laid out a doll, a spoon, a cup and a hairbrush, and she told Enna the baby was hungry, so asked her if she could help her out. She said "I will just brush her hair first, it's a mess" and proceeded to brush the bald doll with the brush. Then she looked quizzically at the spoon and the cup, the HV had assumed that she would just accept the cup was a bowl and use those to "feed" the baby. However, after looking at it, she declared "You shouldn't eat out of a cup, can I have a bowl?"

Next was the tower stacking which she managed her required 6 bricks, and then came the picture book...

She was asked and correctly identified strawberries, egg, carrots and broccoli, at getting broccoli correct, the HV said "Well done, they are a bit like trees aren't they?"

Enna looked at her quite bemused, possibly unamused and said "No, they are vegetables!"

She was then shown a picture of a yoghurt, and she didnt have a clue. Due to food allergies in the house, we just don't buy dairy products, so she wouldn't know what a yoghurt was. I don't think it will hold her back too much though ;o)

She is the correct weight and height for her age, and her hearing is fine but they do think she is short sighted, so she is being referred to have her eyes checked. It wasn't a surprise as John and Ethan are the same.

All in all it went well, and she quite enjoyed herself in the end!

Pensive

I feel in quite a pensive mood today, well the last few days really. When I was a teenager I had quite a lot of friends, predominantly through the Mormon church. Although I don't consider myself a Mormon anymore, because my whole thought process has changed, I still care deeply about a lot of people I was close to back then.

A few days ago, I learned that one of those people had been killed in a tragic accident; his motorbike colliding with a car. He was 33 yrs old, and although I hadn't seen him in many years, it has made me feel really sad. It is too young.

I have many fond memories of him, and I suppose it has naturally made me think back. He was one of the only people who would play with my hair whilst we watched a movie, usually round the Vousden's home. I remember driving him back to Colchester in Bob's white van singing Celine Dion at the top of our voices, but making it sound like she was under water. Goodness knows why, but we ached with laughter. I remember when he first passed his driving test and he took us out for a drive in Bob's Granada, the control freak in me was petrified.

But the boy did good. The boy was good. I am sad that his family are now having to come to terms with life without him!

Rest easy old friend. xx

Half term week.

I was so looking forward to the kids half term. Fabulous, I thought, two whole weeks of lay ins and just doing as we pleased. Hmmm that was mistake number one, I don't know why I had convinced myself they were having two weeks off. At least I realised (due to my trusty life coach facebook) before I received a phone call from the school on the second week asking me why my children weren't at school!

It has been a fun week, we took Ethan to his friends for a 2 night stop over on Monday and collected him back again Wednesday! We also took all the children to Box Hill on Wednesday for a lovely stroll in the woods. How difficult can it be for 3 adults to take 7 kids to the woods?

Well it depends if the 3 adults are me, Leah and Naomi, I guess! At the beginning of the walk the kids were buzzing with excitement. Leah had organised maps, compasses and a challenge for them as they went round and it worked really well. After looking for "The Big Tree" to climb, a very long haul, a sheer drop, a dead end and danger high voltage cables later the kids enthusiasm started to wane a little!

We eventually found the big tree, which was more by good luck than good management, and the promise of a cake and hot chocolate at the cafe kept them going until we finally found our way back out of the woods!

Aaaaachoooo!

Cough cough cough, splutter splutter splutter, achoo achoo achooo!!

These are the sounds resonating through the Drummond household this week! I think there is only Ted and me who are feeling relatively healthy, if not a little tired from looking after all the poorly people through the night :)

Eleanor is not making a gracious patient, she won't let me put her down and has even resorted to having her dummy, (which we had ditched quite some weeks ago now) and Olivia is struggling to keep her asthma under control.

We need some sunshine. I love to wake up in bed with a nice cosy warmth all over, and I don't mean from having wet the bed. It is good to have a bit of sun on your face. Let's just skip spring and straight to summer please!!

The sugar cube castle

Ethan came home about a month ago and said he had to make a castle from sugar cubes for his homework. I died a little inside, because we had already had to construct a mountain from "materials" and a replica of a cell from Jelly. My creative skills extend the same length as my culinary skills...not very far at all!

It is OK though because we had a month and that is LOADS of time to make it, right?

At about 7pm tonight I asked "Ethan, the castle when does it have to be in?"

He replied "Don't worry mum it doesn't have to be in until the last Monday of this half term"

Tomorrow is the last Monday of this half term !!

I consulted my life coach (facebook) on the best way of sticking the sugar cubes together, and after a general consensus of opinion it was decided on the trusty glue gun!

So we got the stuff together...

Could we find the trusty glue gun? Could we flipping heck!! So I mixed an entire box of icing sugar with water...NO too much water!! Gloopy glue, suggested Olivia. Perfect thought I. At this point I was feeling quite smug at my ability of solving this little hiccup without having to refer back to facebook again.

Just a little note, for anybody making a sugar cube castle in the future, icing sugar already mixed with water does NOT then mix with gloopy glue. I felt like I was sticking my child's homework together with sperm!!

Ethan's input in the beginning was to sit and eat the sugar cubes, and then he felt that I was complicating the situation and in the same breath asked me how I was going to construct the roof and doors, and did I know that castle foundations are laid in a way the walls should be curved.

I threw him a look, and we quickly agreed on square walls!!

So after refrigerating a bunch of sugar cubes, stuck with homemade glue we constructed something that can possibly be compared to, well, a bunch of sugar cubes stuck together with sperm I guess!

There are two things to come of this. One, he won't get detention and two, they will think he did it himself because surely no adult could really be that artistically challenged...