<< lays out tiny nappies and babygros >> For TYG and SKYTV

[largeginandtonic]

Mornin!

L asks for her hair to be blow dryed BTW PJ, she likes the feel of it I think and of course wants to copy Mummy who has to spend 3 hours a day combatting frizz..But she hates the hair wash part and always has.Again from the Fascist shcool of thought but I just get on with it and try not to get water on her face as far as poss..she yells, I console and its over in a flash.

Oh I forgot to say PJ - A is afraid of the hair dryer (when I dry mine). Do you dry L's hair? I don't bother with A and she has loads of hair. It's so fine that there's no need - it's only slightly damp in places when she goes to bed.

A likes to lie back in the bath, flat on her back in shallow water (just over her ears when lying down). It makes hair washing (well rinsing) really easy. Might be worth seeing if L would do that, rather than having water poured on her head?

PJ, Ella is not keen on having her hair washed but like Scoot (as i too am a memeber of that school) we just get on with it. She does like the hair dryer but only in short bursts.

WASP--White Anglo-Saxon Protestant. I'm not a total WASP because I have: English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, German, and French ancestry. You don't have to be rich to be wasps. In fact I'd think that the majority are the trailer trash that make up the Ku Klux Klan (who were all originally WASPs BTW)

Boogers--I hate that word. We use the Spanish word which is "mocos" But I guess it is appropriate to describe the nasty stuff that builds up in your nose.

SOH--I think that taffy and toffee are similar, but when we have English toffee here it's generaly caramel squares with nuts on the outside. That is one of my favorite treats.

I'm glad I amuse you with the "English" vernacular.

Oh TYG - what a bloody palaver. L pooped in the bath on Thursday night and I thought that was bad enough. Maybe she will be an only child after all...

MKG - you're teaching us so much, I love it.

Thanks for the advice re hairwashing. Will continue as is I think, and just not use the hairdryer. Actually, I may channel my fascist mummy at this point and just get on with it. She only has it done a couple of times a week. It's all good fodder for the book she writes about her horrifying childhood in later life. I associate wet hair with pneumonia for some reason.

Don't worry about me, please. I'm fine. I was just feeling a little tired and emotional and the mean bitches ladies just caught me at a bad time.

Scoot - please email the PJ dates. I am so excited about getting to meet you all!!!

Morning all.I fell asleep before London Tonight.Were you on TYG?!

Does anyone know of any supplements or food that can pick me up on a Friday?Its my one day off with the kids (without dh who frankly is as much work as another child when he is here at times) but each and every week I am too knackered to do anything of much.I need some zip.

The house needs deep cleaning.We need to pack to go away (and more importantly decide on all important festival outfits )I need to marniate the meat for tonights dinner and make the pudding.I want to do something fun with the kids.And yet have had to drink two espresso's to get me just to 9.20am.

I am devastated by GB's failure in the BMX.That was the random Olympic sport I had selected to get interested in and our girl who was favourite ruddy well fell off!

Morning all. Scoot I know how you feel about feeling knackered all the time. I've got 6 weeks off and still find it so hard to get motivated some days. This morning I have an excuse - went to a friends house for a meal and gossip last night with the NCT girls. It was lovely to sit, eat, drink and chat without the interruptions of children or men!!! I do have a slight hangover though!
Today I am supposed to be cleaning the whole house this morning, packing for our weekend away in terrible jolly Skegness, making the kids tea for tonight, doing some school work and try to have fun with the kids. We're off to a friends house later for another nct meet-up, this time with kids so hopefully the weather will stay as it is and they will all disappear off into the garden. So far all I've managed is cleaning the dining rooma dn putting the washing on - not a remarkable feat considering I've been up since 7.30!

The BMX ing was appauling scoot....could have been fun! Never mind, sure they'll find some graffitied run down mushy skate park around London for 2012.

TMAM - I'm right on your back with you, our ark type parenting skills will stay for ever. A stern NO and a sharp slap around the legs works every time from about 3 weeks old ya know. Seriously though, I do agree with the silly, excited raised voice trying to distract J, she is however with 2 older siblings wise of this technique now and laughs at me, then has a paddy until I put her down and she goes back to what she was doing in the first place with a smug looks on her face. Mummy tries all over again but gives up on the third attempt and leaves the room deciding that I can't take anymore. Hence, J wins but Mummy has a quiet life.

Hair washing.... hmm well J is ok but this is possibly because I have never faffed about with it. Mine have all had a shower over their heads and face from when they could sit up. Now she is used to it and even showers her own hair/loo/sink/towel/floor/door/light etc... She's not keen on the hairdryer, I don't use it often though as I don't have the time, it's not the noise as she's happy to be there when I do mine it's the force 10 gale thats the problem.

I am joking btw about the slap at 3 weeks old..... I'll leave it until at least 3mths.

...still joking....you do all know that, don't you? [paranoid]

MrsJB, thank GOD it's not just me that starts the discipline early.

I loved the BMX'ing I have to say. I have high hopes for DS1 in about, oh, 12 years time. What I don't get is 10k marathon swim. Why???? Though to our credit we got a silver and bronze in the women's version. And what about those funny walkers who all look like they have rickets? That looked like fun. Not.

What was exciting though was watching all the dropped batons in the 4x100m relay races. You've got to feel for them as it was tipping it down.

Are you back on fighting form today Pink? How are things moving along with dh now?

I took the two older dc to the dentist and survived, it has taken me 3 dentists and almost 7 years to persuade dd not to have a meltdown each time. She was very good today and they both have excellent teeth. (like I really have that much control how their teeth turn out really). To celebrate we went to the hairdressers and chopped off her birds nest all ready for school. 10 days to go and counting.

Now back to books please, SOH I need some ideas to jot down on presents lists for dd who is a voracious reader. I was thinking of some classics, she has Black Beauty, BFG, some god awful fairy things, Magic Faraway Tree (she is not so impressed)amongst others can any of you remember some of your favourites? She is nearly 7 btw.

Scoot have a fabulous time at the festy. Is it obligatory that it rains? Apparently exercise is a good pick me up

Ooooo yes TYG, what happened about the 'major incident'? Did dh make it through the barricades? (I feel a terrible 80's song coming on..)

TMAM, how about E Nesbit for your dd? A bit old-fashioned I know, but if she enjoys classics the series that includes Five Children and It and The Phoenix and the Carpet are a good read. And in a different style The Railway Children.

My other favourites included Noel Streatfield (maybe in a couple of years though), Joan Aiken (eg The Wolves of Willoughby Chase) and Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Lily and Mae are dong each others hair.Its so sweet

I never got to speak to DH last night as he got in and was then on the phone to his brother gossiping about all their other siblings.FGS.I will pin him down to some dates

It will rain all weekend.Its inevitable.It was bright sunshine here this morn so I put the washing out only to turn around 5 minutes later to see a deluge.There is washing all over the house..is like a ruddy laundry.

I quite like the 10k swim.No rules.Leg pulling and punching is allowed.My only question is why anyone would want to do it in the first place.I would probably drown!Im thinking L and M for the sychronized swimming in 2020.Or if there is an event involving ingenious ways to avoid going to bed, L for 2012.They can hold at the Scootini bedodrome..its near enough London.And I will be cheif judge.

Well have managed to get up and washed and dressed.And cleaned the kitchen.Will eat some cake (for energy) and then walk the girls into town for the park and possibly more cake.Hang the cleaning.All out friends know Im a slattern anyway

I Loved The Wolves of Willouby Chase.Fabbo.

Thanks Elkie, I used to love the Phoenix and the carpet, do you remember the TV series of it too? Great suggestions, right up our street thank you.

Scoot dd announced she wants to be in the British Dressage team, ds1 wants to represent Cameroon in the triple jump () and we all agreed that J would make an excellent weightlifter. Some good medal hopes between my lot and your girls then.

Sod the cleaning. Not that I do any. Just get the friends pissed quickly then they will never notice.

L is going to be a gymnast, one with the ribbons. Or a dancer. Or maybe a WAG or something, the way she carries her little handbag around.

Oh, I love Spandau Ballet.

Pink at the thought of L being a WAG.

I've always considered that the song, 'Highly Strung' was written about me.

Well while you guys are crying over BMX, I'm crying over track and field. The women's relay was a disaster.

Any of Dick King-Smith's 3 million books
Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies
Alice in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass
The Chronicles of Narnia
E Nesbit, definitely agree. Beautifully written
The Hobbit
Any Roald Dahl
The Jungle Book
The Wind in the Willows
Charlotte's Web
Robert Westall but a bit old for her atm
Enid Blyton I loved. Naughty Amelia Jane and The Naughtiest Girl in the School were fab.
Pinocchio
She might like Nancy Drew detective stuff
Judy Blume/Paula Danziger in a couple of years maybe
The Adventures of Pinocchio
Bridge to Terabithia
The Borrowers
Gulliver's Travels
Tom Sawyer
Anne of Green Gables
Peter Pan
The Secret Garden
Aesop's Fables

Enough to be going on with??

Pinocchio's so good it's on there twice.

Any of them any good?

I remember Paula Danziger being interviewed when I was well into her books. She was a pleasantly plump, middle-aged lady. Shattered all my illusions.

Oh, what would my teenage years have been without Judy Blume and Paula Danziger.

I still absolutely love reading, although I'm not sure SOH would approve of the books I read. The Mallory Towers series are fab too, maybe they'll have dated a bit now though.

FWIW - I bought the Magic Faraway Tree for L while I was pregnant. She's not quite got into it yet!

I could read when I was 3. I think my parents thought I was going to be gifted. Clearly it was just a blip.

Mathilda already has most of the books detailed above and hundreds more. I buy her some in charity shops plus she has all of my favourites from my childhood. About 4 massive bookcases full and that's children's books.

I could read and write at 3 too PJ and haven't stopped. As a child I read and read and read and read and read and read. In my first year of school I read every book they had and went with the teacher in her car twice a week to get more from the library. Reading is the biggest gift I want to give to Mathilda. I mean, chewing books is great fun but I can't wait for her to want to read.

The first Harry Potter's an easy read isn't it? It's a series that will grow with her. I like HP but I don't think it's as brilliant as its hype.

I never managed to get into Harry Potter, although I did try. My mum makes me laugh when she says I just used to constantly walk over to her and shove a book in her face and say, 'read', from being absolutely tiny. L is just starting to become interested in books, always the same one.

Mum says I used to go mad if they tried to miss out a word or a page because it was late. She said I'd always pull them up on it and make them start again.

I found Amelia Jane freakish as a child.On the fr0nt cover of mine there was a picture of her and she looked demonic.

L knows all her books by heart and pulls us up on it if we try to miss a page out.She really loves The Slinky Malinky and Hairy Maclairy books by Lynley Dodd.They are very funny.Well worth a go.M likes them too.

Cleaning done (read chucked everything in the understairs cupboard and tickled the surfaces with a cloth)

Off to power walk into town now.All of my prospective festy outfits are a little snug following holiday excesses.How much weight can I lose by tomorrow morning d'you reckon?