All Change

We have been despairing in out house, Matthew doesn't sleep well, the kids have to sleep downstairs because of the layout of the house and none of them seem to have enough room. Mortgage deposits make it difficult to move and so we are stuck, so it seems! Well while we are away all five of us had to share a bedroom, we feared it would be hell on earth! It turned out to be OK!

This gave us an idea, we now after lots of heaving books, furniture and beds about have all of us sleeping upstairs. It seemed the two older children didn't really like sleeping downstairs so until we can afford to move, we now have a sleep room for the kids. Heather still has her own bedroom and we were even able to shift the sofa bed into it so she has somewhere to sit and read, she now has loads of space to do her dancing and we have a spare bedroom should we need it.

Matthews room still has all his toys but is also equipped as a study so Mr T can work from home, I can write in peace and Matthew can build train tracks and play with his road map to his hearts content. It is not an ideal solution but it is the best fir at the moment, we are hoping in a couple of years we will be able to move and then have a more conventional layout and individual bedrooms as the kids get older and less able to share.

They love it, perhaps a little too much, they each still have their own space and even in the shared bedroom the different areas have been personalised according to their preferences, Winnie the Pooh for Lucy, Thomas for Matthew and fairies for Heather. The house suddenly seems to have opened out, just as well as the children are on the school holidays for another five weeks!

The rain now seems relentless and the garden is sodden, thank goodness for libraries where the kids can while away an hour just flicking through books, often the same ones they have at home. The sibling rivalry seems as relentless as the bad weather and I am hoping that is just a phase. The games they play are now focussed around the holiday, they are taking Mickey and Minne mouse somewhere or saving them from some terrible fate.

School will be with us again soon and we seem to have a fair few sheets of homework to get through, as well as trying to encourage Matthew to get used to the idea of going to school every day wearing a uniform. Still next week we have our appointment to get said uniform, could be interesting, watch this space...

Back to Reality

Yesterday we touched back down into the UK, all three kids safe and sound despite their best attempts to lose themselves, injure themselves and stay in the US.

The flight out was a nightmare, the first are we nearly there yet coming at approximately 5 minutes after take off and continuing for the next eight hours despite lots of little presents. Still we were there and through customs, negotiated driving the 'wrong' way and arrived at the hotel. One room change later as the first lacked the requested bunk beds we were oohing and aahing at giraffes and waterbucks raoming free outside.

The kingdom of Disney awaited and the next 14 days were filled with queuing for rides, to shake hands with characters, watching parades with characters dancing, walking, thunderstorms and wonder for the children. I discovered that Disney with kids is very different from Disney with adults, no longer could we fast pass our way thought the thrilling roller coasters, instead we spent hours waiting to be greeted by Captain Hook and the princesses. Neither could we stay out all night and visit all the restaurants, Matthew spent far too much time running about and causing general disruption to venture much further than the Rainforest cafe or new T-REX place. Yet despite the exhausting nature of it all and the frequent thunderstorms we had a great time.

Lucy perhaps found it hardest to adjust and jetlag was biting as she slept for 15 hours! Hopefully we have now reset our body clocks and can look forward to six weeks of school holiday. I am hoping to return to my writing targets and am chuffed that the early nights on holiday did mean I could read 2 and a half books!

The final Countdown

Is it really only twelve more sleeps until I have to summon the courage to brave Gatwick airport with three littlies and what may well be a grumpy Mr T? Now the reality and enormity of the actual getting there is starting to dawn on me!

It isn't as if we have a relaxing lead in to the holiday, this week alone is Matthew's final week of pre-school and then we have parent's evening tomorrow, sports day on Thursday and a dance performance today as well the usual toddler groups to attend. Next week is even worse there are haircuts to be had, a day out for me at Wimbledon (v.v.v.v. excited about that one!!) and a three foot festival filled with children and entertainers to wade through as well! Not to mention getting Matthew sorted out with shoes and trying on his outfit for my friends rapidly approaching wedding!

I have optimistically pencilled in times to pack and do the washing and ironing, but who knows? This weekend I took care of all the school related things that needed seeing to, the teachers have presents and cards ready to go, I have handed in my CRB form so that I can help out at the school next September and the forms for the poetry collection and extra curricula activities have been delivered to the right places.

I have to admit I nearly cried with relief when a friend told me we would be able to retain the buggy until we got to the gate, and that we might even be able to be reunited with it as we leave the plane at the other end. That will save my back and my patience no end. I have to be honest though I do not really like flying, I am a control freak it has to be said. I will stubbornly insist on driving the entire six hours plus to my Mum's in Cumbria just because I don't trust anyone else to do it, and so eight hours on a plane over which I have no control is not a great prospect for me. Added to that is the anxiety of not having flown with any of the children and having no idea if they are going to scream 'I want to get off as soon as we start to taxi!' (if they do it may mean less queueing on holiday I guess!)

I have prepared for the flight, each child will have a goody bag and I will have enough snacks to feed a small army so as soon as the moaning starts I can bribe them with food, very bad I know but I expect the other 200 people on board will be grateful, Matthew alone is piercing enough to scale kettles and when you add Lucy in to the mix I think everyone would have a headache by the time we were an hour in!

Then when we do get there, we have to locate the car hire place, drive on the right side of the road and then try to contain the hundreds of questions that will be coming our way as we try to navigate to the hotel and check in! Still once we are there I can start to relax, let the kids enjoy themselves until it is time to come back again!

One sad little story, over the weekend we found what appeared to be a birds egg which Heather immediately christened EggBert! She wanted to take it to bed which we refused and this morning she wanted to say Hello, and you've guessed it EggBert turned to yolk all over the floor and Heather dissolved into tears all over me. We have managed to convince her that she hasn't murdered a baby bird as we are fairly sure there was not much in there this late in the season and at the bottom of the tree.

Lucy is not a toddler and it seems an expert climber, stair gates have had to be put in place to keep her safe as she climbs ever upwards unchecked!

There goes another weekend

Why is that weekends are a blink and you miss it kind of affair whereas weekdays with their seemingly endless parade of appointments and chores seem to stretch endlessly into the future?

Anyway enough rambling, yesterday we had Heather's pre-birthday party for her school friends, luckily we went in with two other families who had planned badly and had children with August birthdays! We had the entertainer, the food, balloons and the cake and all the kids turned up. The entertainer was a blast and he mentioned how quiet he was in August, apparently us parent's all have the same idea and party before the holidays begin proper. One of the drawbacks of lovely fee paying schools is that people go away for a month at a time in the summer, well except us, we have a long weekend in Somerset and a uniform fitting to look forward to. I may even push the boat out and venutre to Legoland or the New Forest! Having a 3 month old does not make it so easy.

Having partied the kids were tired and ratty and despite Murray being on centre court I was tied up cooking tea and running baths. I love Wimbledon, with the tradition and the green being less offensive to the orange of the clay but alas I am watching less and less, next year, I promoise myself the kids will be bigger and I will watch it. I think back to the halcyon days, when still pregnant with H I settled into maternity leave with plenty of strawberries and tennis, starting at the reasonable time of 12pm meant I didn't even have to struggle out of bed early. But I digress.

Mr T venured to Bluewater today with Matthew, I had the job of being home with the girls, a useful day as we have noe made the thank you cards for the various teachers and finished the years homework. We now have Ls hands and feet forever immortalised in clay so they can now join the others on the wall. Good job we are stopping at three as it is looking rather crowded up there now!

As Sunday hurtles towards Monday I have to wrap the teachers' pressies, 8 weeks of little distraction begin on Friday, any ideas what to do with a four year old, two year old and 15 weeks gratefully received as I am sure the I'm Bored chorus will begin by 10am on Tuesday!