Sheds – stress (by sarah)

Barbara came back from holiday yesturday and I excitedly showed her the shed - but I got this sinking feeling that she doesn't remember the two or three conversations we had about putting a shed in early this year 🙁

I am now awaiting her getting really upset about the fact that it appeared whilst she was on holiday.

Good Drawing (by sarah)

Today when I went up to the school the teacher told me that Jean has been doing really good drawings and paintings - so much so that the Head Master has commented on it - she is being very careful and precise with it and generally doing stuff that is beyound her age range 🙂

I had noticed these last two weeks that Jean's drawings and colouring in have really really improoved - instead of random scribbles and things there is structure and now there is secondary, tertiary and even quarternary structures. I even found her drawing a map though she insists its not a map:

'It's not a map! It's what things look like if your up up all the way in the sky.'

Unfortunatly she has also been drawing war machines with whirrling blades on them - not entirely sure where she's got that one from!

I showed her how to draw stick men and she drew one and then added a stomach and a face and hair and things and it was recognisable as a person!

She also drew aload of circles and said they are what's blood :/

I'll try and photo some of these and put them on the blog as I think they are interesting!

But then I am her mother 😉

I was a whole year older than her before a teacher commented on my use of perspective! Plus I'm glad she's drawing and stuff becuase she had started saying she didn't want to becuase they weren't good like mummy's pictures 🙁

Abandoned Child (by sarah)

Monday loomed large at me and it was Jean's first fall day at school trial.

So I packed her lunch and dressed her and off she went with Daddy to school.

And then I got absorbed with tidying the house and writing and even a bit of gardening and drawing and then at about 2:30 when I was thinking about sorting out pick up Barbara's gardener Inga started asking me questions and then Mary Barbara's cleaner turned up to return some plants and things and started talking to me too.

And I forgot about school pick up - in my mind Jean was safe in school and it was a whole day just like pre-school and nursery except - we used to leave at 5 to pick Jean up from them.

I needed to be back at the school at 3 pm not 5 pm. At 3:15 I wonder upstairs to talk to Alaric and discover that no one has gone to get Jean - so I shout at Al and tell him to phone the school and grab dad and we drive up there.

Jean was sitting in with the teacher drawing and chatting away and I got told off - and then when I tried to explain that Barbara wasn't here and her cleaner and gardener wanted to talk to me it sounded so pathetic and some how stuck up.

They said that normally reception children would have cried and Jean didn't she was perfectly happy - they did point out this was a good thing as it ment that she's adjusted well and as it was the end of a full day as well it shows she's definatly ready.

Jean was very happy all the way home pretending to be a ghost and telling me about her day.

But then we got home and she got her lunch box out - 'Mummy you made me wait the longest and I didn't have a spoon for my yogurt' at which point I burst into tears.

I felt I'd really really let her down, I've been making her yogurt for school as she's been staying for lunches this last week but I keep forgetting the spoon or her drink or her sandwitches or to put something in the sandwitch and even the entire lunch. 🙁

I am finding remembering everything hard at the moment 🙁 She hugged me lots and then told me she had drunk the yogurt so it was ok - and then I cried more becuase I was failing and crying in front of her and then Al appeared and hugged us both.

I then spent the afternoon snuggled with Jean on the setee watching Mysterious Cities of Gold and eating popcorn - Jean was incredulous that the popcorn came out of bag and I didn't put the popping machine on :/ but she eat it anyway.

A Picture of Words (by sarah)

I have put the poem A Picture of Words on Turquoise Monster - the poem is about the structure of language and is a play on 'A picture paints a thousand words' I thought well what would a picture made of language - made of words actually look like?

I would love feed back on it 🙂

Thanks

Sarah

Chaos, Pandamonium and all the other trappins of the Snell-Pym Household (by sarah)

I awake and lo!

A cat was not turfed and instead of mewing to be let out had erm... gone in the corner of the KITCHEN!

So I turfted the Ginger One who shall remain nameless and in disgrace and cleaned it up using up the last of the disinfected in the kitchen.

This took up a big chunk of the getting Jean ready for school time and then I remember - eek she's supposed to have lunch and I start making it whilst Dad panics about her being late.

We get to the school fine and she goes in - then somehow a certain Ginger Rogue has got back into the house and relieved himself again in a HUGE sandy coloured puddle this time in front of the Fridge.

Somehow dad misses this blot on the landscape of my kitchen and walks to the fridge for milk and back to the kettle makes his coffee and walks into the living room and sits down on the setee.

I walk into the kitchen looking for the laundary basket to get the washing in and have... well kittens!

So after having to make a trip upstairs for more disinfectant I clean it all up - putting the tea towel that was too near in the washing machine for a boil wash - I shout at dad and this disrupts a certain Black Cat who jumps onto the coffee table and there by knocks my lunch plate down breaking it in half.

I am just a bit cheesed off shall we say :/