Lump in the throat

Sometimes I curse the kids, they disturb me when I'm trying to work, they fight with each other and they get up way too early but then I realise I asked for this. I chose to have them, warts and all so have to put up with all the disruption and paraphernalia that comes with them. There are times however, when I get to sit back and count my blessings. Monday evening was one of those times. Heather had come home from school, her homework was done and she was at the table, doing one of her favourite things drawing. I was getting on with the dinner when she appeared beside me, piece of paper thrust towards me. This is not unusual, she has been gradually filling my bedside table drawer with pictures of butterflies and people and cars for weeks, but this piece of paper was special.

She had drawn a lovely flower and hopscotch game but all by herself she had written;
for mummy youur m bste frenb youur byotful anb happe anb good love Heather. (for mummy you're my best friends, you're beautiful and happy and good. Love Heather.)
I was impressed that she had tried to write such big words without any help and welled up.

She has her first play date tonight, we have had friends over here but last year she missed out on a lot due to Lucy coming along in the March and me not being able to have lots of her friends over. This year we have made more of an effort and so today she is going to a friends straight from school. She is very excited, I am a little nervous, will I be able to find her friends house? will she eat her dinner? will she be polite? will she be OK without me or panic? Will she refuse to leave when she realises how much fun it is to play at other people's houses? I guess I'll find out later.

Lucy is now very mobile and caused her first breakage yesterday, I was cooking dinner and was momentarily distracted by the screams that accompany Heather and Matthew having a fight! In the time it took me to sort that out, Lucy who was in her walker had managed to grab the pestle and mortar and shatter it over the kitchen floor. One thing is for sure with these three working against me I'll never be rich, or bored!

Matthew and I are working hard together over half term, I am trying to keep him entertained and he is doing his best to outwit me! We had a lovely day on Monday and he relished the attention although yesterday he was tired and it showed as he was more interested in whinging and winding Lucy up than looking at his Peppa Pig magazine. Still we did manage a trip to the library and post office with no accidents, expensive purchases or losses of temper. I think the key to harmony with him is to keep him busy.

Half term take two

This week is the beginning of Matthews half term, Heather on the other hand is back at school! Typical, poor Heather was cooped up in a week filled with snow and rain, dragged to Tumble Tots to watch her siblings and not a lot happened. Now the weather is brighter and all the groups have joined the half term break, we still can't go anywhere for the whole day as traffic worry will set in and and I will be racing back to collect Heather.

I am determined to get back on track with the writing, I have spent quite a lot of time recently promoting the book and writing to people to try and get it stocked. I have managed to draft two short stories and sketched out the plot for my second, slightly more serious novel and now need to do the research to back it up.

Matthew has had other ideas of course, he has seemed to be determined to make sure that I get no work at all done by taking every opportunity to hurt one of his sisters. Friday was awful. Lucy who is now semi- mobile, (commando crawling, beginning to pull herself up) happened to pull on his trousers whilst he was colouring at the table, his response was to take the pencil he was using and drag it across her eyelid cutting it open. Lots of blood and calming an hysterical four year old down later and I was able to see that the cut was not too terrible and that Lucy would indeed be OK despite Heather's assurances that she needed to go to hospital!

Anyway harmony has since broken out, Mr T took the Heather and Matthew to build a snowman as we still had some at the end of the garden, I was rather miffed as I was in bed with a migraine, and all my attempts to get the kids to make a snowman had been spurned. I guess there are some things which are just better if Daddy does them!

I have also managed to find a gym with a crèche which means that I can get some exercise when Heather and Matthew are at school and start taking Lucy swimming during the day, just have to join now!