Whose Bright Idea?

Looking around the house this morning I wonder whose bright idea it was to use the long weekend 'off work' to clean and tidy and completely turn around my house!

In principle, of course, it's a fab idea but the reality stinks when all you want to do is sit out in the glorious sunshine which has made its way back here today...  Okay so there will also be a sense of satisfaction when it's all finished and nice and tidy, but there's also a sense of foreboding knowing that by the end of my first day back working it will be a pigsty again - kinda takes the fun out of it all.  Thank goodness I have the sort of job which means I can wander the countryside or the beaches, which the children all love, during work hours! 

I need to be more organised! I feel a need for lists and tick charts etc coming on...

Sooo tired!

Either I'm getting used to the caffeine in my coffee or the lack of sunshine is having its usual effect as I'm shattered.  I even wake up tired, lol!

Yesterday I decided, somewhat foolishly, to reorganise the playroom.  I've let things slip a little bit lately and do not think I'm worth the 'Outstanding' grade I was given at inspection so time to pull my socks up and sort my 'enabling environments' out a little!  I have two major problems: lack of space and lack of storage!  Yesterday I tried twice to put an order in for some storage units but the website I use seems to have gone mad as the order won't go through..  As for space, well I can't make more of that so just have to use it more wisely...

Another reason for wanting to sort out the playroom is because this little devil will be arriving on Tuesday!


I'm hoping he will be the answer to some of my prayers but will leave you to work out what it is, for now... ;o)

Home ed:  Half term next week for the school children, which of course means I will have more children to mind during the day so we have chosen to have the week off but get back to it with gusto afterwards.  It's hard to take in that Jack would be doing GCSEs next year if he was at school and I'm getting kind of worried about what we should be doing now.  There could be a possibility that I could get him into a very good local(ish) school for the last two years but I'm unsure if this is a good way to go.  I think he would thrive there but, well I don't know what the 'but' is really but there is definitely a 'but' in my throat...

I'm a little bit cross with the boys at the moment too.  Every week they have music lessons in their chosen instrument.  Every week I have the devil's own job at getting them to practise!   Jack seems to have a natural flair, as he has a natural flair for everything, and can just pick up his guitar and sound ok but I cannot get through to him how damned good he could actually be if he bothered! Grr.  Well, this week his music teacher told them both that it's really not worth her time coming if they cannot be bothered to practice so I am making renewed efforts at getting them off/away from screens (Jack seems to be literally addicted to Runescape) and back to their instruments.  I have to say I'm in agreement with their teacher and have told them that if they are unwilling to practice then I'm not going to keep paying out for lessons. 

On other subjects, the boys did not go to their usual Thursday night youth group this week. Not altogether sure how it came about but there was some sort of altercation between Max and another lad and Max ended up hitting the other boy.  Jack said the other kids had been getting at Max all night and he'd been asking them to stop.  When I said to Max he shouldn't have hit the other kid no matter what his response was 'but you told me if another kid hit me I should hit them back twice as hard!', which indeed I did (after having four kids bullied for years and schools doing nothing to stop it!) when he was 5 years old and just staring school!  Somehow he didn't actually compute the 'if another kid HITS you' bit and just lashed out which is totally unacceptable and I made sure he knew that.  He doesn't want to go back as he says he's fed up with the other kids picking on him all the time.  When it came to time to leave this week, Jack didn't want to go either so I'm wondering if there is slightly more to it than meets the eye...

Now I must stop procrastinating and get on with the cleaning and tidying, and they call weekends 'time off'!   I'm not sure who they're time off for, possibly the men of the house (if you're lucky enough to have one that is).

Changing Names

I'm never any good at choosing blog names on the spur on the moment  and wasn't really happy with what mine was called but couldn't think why.  Yesterday it came to me that the title of my blog was the tag line for a friend's blog many years ago... Now I know why it bothered me I have changed it.

'Multicoloured Mayhem' is the title of a book I've just borrowed from the library.  The blurb says its about living with people who have ADHD, Aspergers, Autism etc which of course we do.  I'm hoping the book will give me some insight into what Max's life is for him as just lately his 'problems' (for want of a better word) mixed in with a good dose of puberty are causing some fraught moments which I would prefer to avoid...

Factor in that I also childmind for families from all corners of the globe and sometimes have 7 or 8 children here at any one time all vying for my attention and we really do have mayhem, at least life is never boring!

Anyway, for those reasons I thought it was a very fitting name - hopefully I will not change my mind over the next couple of weeks and confuse you all again!

A Bit of a Scare!

A bit of a scare is what I had yesterday...

I've had a bit of a cold, nothing serious, just an annoying muggy head cold with an aggravating dry cough.  I've had loads of colds before so didn't think a lot of it until yesterday when it began to be a bit harder than normal to breathe (I have asthma) and I kept having coughing fits.  Not good.  Throughout the day it got a little bit worse and a little bit worse and my reliever meds weren't doing anything to help.  Eventually I got myself to hospital and had a little go on the nebuliser which sorted me out.  I've had asthma since I was eleven and have never needed to go to hospital for it so was pretty scared, especially when we got behind somebody pottering on at about 30 along a narrow country lane with no passing...

The doc gave me a different preventer and things are a lot better today I'm happy to say, still not right but normal(ish) for an asthmatic with a cold.  I'm kind of glad we've got that out of the way now because I always wondered how the boys would cope if I had to go in and now I know that they will be fine.  I also know I have a lot of people who care for me by the amount of offers of help I received and the help I got which was not offered, just done.  I'm a lucky lady :)

Today I had to take the day off work as there's no way I could easily relocate 5 children to their parents if I needed to go back in (which they said I may have to).  I've been made to rest by my friend and neighbour but am not good at just sitting there so have been pottering in the garden in between resting.  Sam has barely left my side all day and keeps battering me with his cold wet nose.

Meanwhile, one of the parents I mind for has taken Jack off for the day and given him some experience in motor mechanics which he loved.  They've been busy doing something or other to brakes and callipers or something - I'm not mechanically minded as you'll have noted...  The parent has very kindly offered to give Jack some more 'lessons' in motor mechanics which I think Jack will jump on.  It's funny but I never realised they miss out on this sort of thing having their dad so far away, in many ways I'm sure it doesn't matter but in others ... well it allows him to be a boy and use tools and get oily and stuff...

Paperwork and Sunshine

The only thing I do not enjoy about my job is the amount of silly paperwork which never sees the light of day (unless you are having an inspection of course!).  This morning I was stuck inside going over and over a huge amount of paperwork whilst the boys relaxed in the glorious sunshine we are having at the moment.  Most of the parents I work with think it is pathetic and they chose home based care rather than a nursery so their little ones were not institutionalised from an early age, but hey ho it's a massive case of government knows best for us all as usual.  It will be interesting to see what this new government have in store for childminders and home educators...

Moving on... Thankfully I got most of what I needed to do by 11am so was still able to go into the garden and enjoy the sunshine a little.  We'd been planning on having a BBQ but the one we bought yesterday was broken and has to go back to the shop so that's not going to happen today. :(  Ah well, worse things happen at sea...

I've been rearranging the garden to make it safer and more fun for the little ones and still practical for us big ones at weekends.  I bought a load of rubber safety matting from ELC a couple of months ago and that has now been positioned under the climbing frame/slide which in turn has been moved as we are expecting the new playhouse to be delivered in the week and need a space to put it.  I'm hoping Jack will help me put it up, lots of DIY skills for him and huge amount of help for me...

The day seemed to zoom by and I ended up in bed by nine again, this cold has really knocked me off my feet and I feel shattered by about 6pm!  Thank goodness we have wireless internet so I can still do things online even in bed!
The boys hate when I go to bed early as it means they have to too but at least they get to read in bed.  It's a funny thing that Max, who always hated reading at school, loves to read as much as Jack nowadays.  I'm totally sure that's because I didn't try and push him into it but let him come to it in his own time.  I'm so glad they came out of school when they did, I cannot help but wonder what different children they would be if they stayed in school (especially when I see what their friends on facebook write!), they are not perfect in any sense and would far rather play on games machines or computers all day if given the chance but on the whole they are polite, thoughtful and kind.  All traits which I really rate even if society in general doesn't...

Those Crazy, Hazy, Lady Days of Summer!

 Thought I'd start off with a few pics today!  I'm sure you're sick of seeing photos of Sam but all the ones I took of the boys also had minded children in them so cannot be printed on the blog.  The munchkins love the 'big boys' so much and always want to be around them so it's a little hard to separate them...

As you can see we walked down to the beach today.  It was boiling hot, the sun was shining and poor Sam was on his last legs so I thought a dip in the sea may cool him off a little bit.  He loved it and now he is almost an adult and very strong I don't have to worry quite so much about the currents in the water dragging him off.  Did you know Labradors were originally bred to bring in boats?  Nor did I until I had one myself!  Explains why he pulls on his lead so much (ok so I know that's really slack training...).  We bought hi a halti today to see if that would help...

The trip to the beach was closely followed by dripping ice creams for the humans and a cool bowl of water for the canine.  I'm loving this weather and feel really sad to hear a lot  of people complaining about it, funnily enough it's the same people who complained about the rain and the snow and the ice...  Why is it that people are rarely happy with their lot?

It was nice to see a lot of happy smiling faces along the seafront today, clearly mostly holiday makers, lol!  There were even people swimming in the sea on the human part of the beach (as opposed to the doggy end).  It was hot (about 26 degrees) and I would have loved to have had a dip too but it really wasn't going to happen today...

But tomorrow is the weekend!

Walking the Dog

One of the things I love most about living out in the country is living out in the country! Okay so that sounds mad but with this on your doorstep I think you'd feel the same!

I love it here!  With beautiful country walks right outside the front door and some small family run shops in the town for necessities it feels like Heaven on earth to me.   That probably seems a little extreme but I'm sitting here writing this and the door is wide open, the sun is streaming through and all I can hear is birdsong.  I feel as if I was made for this kind of life and at last I have 'come home'.

Anyway... Moving on... I'm not the only one who loves it here, Sam does too (although he's never really known anything else...)

He really enjoys sniffing out rabbits!

and sniffing to see if any of his doggy mates have been along today (he just likes sniffing if I'm honest!)

He does occasionally turn around to see if I'm coming though!

He has to stay on the long lead on this walk because the path borders a nature reserve.  He's still very much a pup in his head and I don't totally trust him to come back if there was something interesting to chase.  He doesn't seem to mind though and since the night when he pulled me off my feet with his exuberance he has been a lot more careful I'm glad to say!