Rhyme time

Cottleston, cottleston, cottleston tuna,
Make me a cake or I'll go lunar.

(As sung by five year old earlier today.)

Iced tea

It's been rather hot this week. The girls have been struggling to get to sleep in the evening but at least once they're off they're really off. Finally my attempts at blacking out just about every window upstairs are also starting to take effect in the morning so it's looking good for the moment.

Yesterday my eldest - who is about to finish her first year of school, wow - told me she had been to see her new classroom for next year. "It's next to the iced tea suite mummy." Mmmm, yes, now that would be nice.

Before I go

I know that some people have a list of things they want to do before they leave the world behind. My list is more of a 'things to be' with a few 'things to do' thrown in:

1. Learn to appreciate the things I have and not dwell on the things I have not.

2. Never hold back from saying something that could make someone happy.

3. Occasionally hold back from saying something that could make someone unhappy.

4. Stop beating myself up for things I have done wrong and learn to praise myself instead.

5. Stop counting the things I still need to do and count the things I have done instead.

6. Make time for people rather than tasks.

7. Do something nice for someone at least once a day.

8. Do something nice for me at least once in a while.

9. Get outside more.

10. Write more.

Guilt: part 378b (or thereabouts)

Doh. It was a non-uniform day today at school. Unfortunately I was completely oblivious to this fact until we turned the corner at five to nine and saw hundreds of small children of the type who are lucky enough to have parents who actually read information and retain it all dressed in their favourite clothes. Oh poo. Hmm, let's try and turn it into something fun: "hey, you could be the only one in a dress like yours" yeah right, that's going to do it. No, instead the only thing that's going to work is me offering to walk back home and get another set of clothes, and then walking back up to school with them. Bleargh.

Trying not to blame anyone else for the mistake - apparently there had been a big notice on the door the night before when I hadn't been on school run duty - I gave five year old a big hug and tried not to get upset myself at her tears.

In the end she was fine, I was probably more distraught at having made such a mistake - although there were quite a few other parents in the same position as me this time so the consensus is that it hadn't been well publicised.

I was annoyed at myself though because I think I have now got into a good routine with the morning rush, remembering most of the important things on a daily basis. So far we have never been late and I reckon my morning shouting is fairly minimal these days too. So for me this mistake marks a blemish on my personal record.

Anyway when we got home later five year old wrote "I love mummy" on the back step in chalk, so she must have forgiven me for now. Hopefully.

Doubling as the tooth fairy

Five year old lost her fourth tooth this week. The first time it happened I gained a huge warm glow from the thundering feet into my room in the early morning accompanied by shouts of pure joy: "Mummeeee, it worked, she came!", but four teeth in and I'm half-expecting her to become jaded by the regularity of the tooth fairy's night-time visits.

So much so that I very nearly almost forgot to swop tooth for coin in the night. I even got as far as getting into bed and closing my eyes before sitting bolt upright and stumbling into the girls' bedroom to carry out this essential duty.

So when she came into my room - wailing this time: "She didn't come!", I was more than taken aback. And not just because this was happening at an hour I'd rather not see. In the back of my mind I started to think that maybe I had dreamt the bit where I remembered and got back up to be the tooth fairy. Maybe I had actually forgotten after all? I went into her room to check under the pillow, leaving her to mourn the loss of her tooth in my room. After a few minutes of fruitless searching I started to work out a plan for an unnoticed run downstairs to where my coin stash would be, trying to think up my story as I went - this had to be good enough to convince three and five year old that I hadn't just popped downstairs to get another coin.

I managed to do this and carried on in a pantomime-style: "Come and just have one more look, you never know..." This was followed by her reluctantly coming back in, lifting the pillow and exclaiming: "Oh, look, she brought me two coins, I was only kidding before."

Doh. Outdone by a five year old on the subterfuge front. Now what happens for tooth five? The art of deceipt is clearly beyond me.

All ideas gratefully received.

Daytripping

School holiday again this week so arranged to meet up with a friend for a day out. As you may have read somewhere on here before I am not a big fan of driving for lots of reasons. Small children in the backs of cars scare me when I am in the driving seat, especially on motorways, and then of course there's the green factor. So we set off to Manchester, aiming for the Museum of Science and Industry, with a bus and two trains ahead of us.

It has been a while since we've done a day out of this nature, so the girls were excited at the prospect of buses and trains and of seeing my friend at the other end of the journey. First bus went well, first train was a bit hairy as I had forgotten how busy that service can be, and we ended up sitting on the floor by the doors for the first half of the journey. Eventually we found seats, with me perched between the two of them trying not to 'bother' the man next to us who was trying to work on his laptop. The girls were great though and oblivious to the potential discomfort due to the lack of seats and space.

Then there was the fact that I had chosen to meet in a city that has more than one station and crossed communication with my friend meant that we were headed for different stations... oops, my fault entirely. We met up in time for the second train across town though, to Deansgate and a short walk from the museum. Well, it would have been a short walk if we had been able to read the tiny sign perched on the opposite side of the road from the station instead of setting off in the opposite direction. Being unopposed to asking for directions we soon got back on the right track and raced each other back to the museum.

Arriving, younger child was already past feeding time and so we headed straight for the museum eatery. I was not expecting much as my experience of museum cafes told me not to. However I had decided before setting off that I would for once spend money rather than taking extra time to organise a picnic and then have to cart it around all day, so we stopped off at the second floor for sandwiches and food-related stroppiness. In between mouthfuls the girls spotted a little steam train taking people for rides outside and - amazingly given that we had already been on two trains that day - they got quite excited about the prospect of going for a ride.

Once tummies had been filled we went into the experiment gallery at MOSI. This is packed full of things to touch, smell, feel and twiddle. I think my five year old could have spent most of the day in there, there is so much to do and see just in that small section of the museum, but obviously three year old was by this point fixated on the 'little blue train' so our time was limited to the limits of patience of a three year old. Favourite for five year old was turning a steering wheel to operate a pulley which pulled a real Mini (car!) up and down a vertical board. "Mummy I moved the car!" and three year old loved the giant bubble blower. Personally, I loved the large black inverted globe which cast a 3D reflection - so you could put one hand into the globe and see an image of you shaking your own hand, surreal.

Obviously the next thing to do was find our way to the 'little blue train' as requested. It is amazing the fascination children of all ages have for steam trains (as proven by the number of grown men working as 'volunteers' on this particular service). Whilst waiting the girls were getting a little giddy and three year old ran into the little fence in her excitement. She ran back down to me crying: "Oh, where did you hurt yourself honey?", I asked, which prompted her, not, as I had expected, to show me the bit of her head that hurt, but to run back up and point to the exact spot of the fence that was responsible. Trying not to laugh now: "No, where on your head honey?" Ah poor thing, she wasn't badly hurt let me reassure you! The ride was fun as expected but unfortunately we had already run out of time for further exploration.

We headed back through the textile gallery and talked about coming back again sometime to meet up as we had only seen a small portion of the museum and it had been a fun experience.

The journey home was another two trains and a bus, this time with seats all the way. We waved goodbye to my friend at Deansgate from the opposite platform. Highlight of the journey home has to be the moment when five year old stepped onto the travelator (moving platform) that was going in the opposite direction to the one that me and three year old were standing on. She began by walking very fast with an expression on her face that conveyed complete confusion. She just looked as though she really couldn't understand why she was having to walk really fast while we were standing still. Perhaps you had to be there but it was very funny.

Arriving home I felt such a surge of pride for my girls. Apart from a few little blips they had been so good on the journeys and throughout the trip, it had been lovely to see my friend and spend a really fun day with my two lovely daughters. I spent a fortune but the memories of days like that one are priceless.

Quote of the day

Bedtime. Repeatedly asking eldest to go to the toilet before getting into bed. Reluctantly she eventually makes her way to the bathroom, from where I hear her grumbling: "I'm not your servant, you know."

Made me laugh.

Not posted for a while, been a bit down, but now I'm remembering to laugh at the little things again so things are clearly on the way back up again.