…been playing games like this.

I’m preparing to become a grandmother; at least, i think that must be what i am doing. I can’t see me using up this supply of exercise books any sooner than that! The website didn’t have quantities on it (duh!) but i sort of assumed i’d get about half as many as i did.

Yesterday was fairly hectic as i had lots to do at work, helping my newest new lady and then had to dash home so that Max could go out for our weekly “communicate like adults” session. Seem to be doing better now; i’m well aware i like instant decisions and instant plans but i’m trying very hard to work the process a bit and relax. Coupled with some other stuff i’m doing, i’m gradually beginning to feel a little less lost in a sea of stuff i can’t make sense of and slightly more like i’ve got a map and a log book. There are better ways of handling things that just repeatedly smacking yourself over the head with them and i’m beginning to let go of some guilt and look back with a bit more reason - and look forward with a bit more rationality. That’s not to say i think i’ve been unreasonable or irrational, i don’t think i’ve been in a fair position at all for nearly 3 years, but i’ve got a bit more of a handle on the why and how of some stuff.

Today the kids had to come to work with me again but brought bits to do and behaved well, particularly some good gaming in the office while i hared about trying to help L get going with todays packing. It’s gone quiet today but it has been a MENTAL 2 weeks with 100+ parcels going out a day. Not quite perfect timing given one thing and another. Part of my day yesterday was spent boxing stuff up so we can re-shelf the unit and then prepare for the Xmas onslaught. I want to cut out something like 600 lines that don’t move fast enough anymore. That should leave about 1500 that i can manage nicely.

We were home by 12 and i fed the kids then we’ve done some decent work this afternoon. Max and i had time to talk over something mathsy that Maddy had struggled with, which made me see what she must be missing - so today i worked on my theory with her and it all seemed to fall into place. So now she seems to be able to simplify fractions okay; the squared paper really helped as we were able to draw “cakes” and see if things worked visually once she’d done the sum. Maddy, like me, needs to physically understand what she has done with maths - her early ‘computer like’ skills have not progressed and she finds it hard, much harder than Fran does. Once she’d done that we looked at some GP English - she is going to write a story about nocturnal animals so we discussed it a bit, came up with a cast list and then she drew a garden and “played out” her story with some little wild animal figures. We’ll write it tomorrow.

Fran started the GP maths and did a load of that; Roman numerals, multiplication squares. I think Singapore got a bit busy and repetitive - so we’ve taken a break and can use it for extra practise. I like GP and i’d rather use something English if possible, just in case she does suddenly decide to go to school. She spent some time looking up English birds as she’d found some model ones and did a bit of creative writing from GP English - probably one of the best bits i’ve seen from her. Did some joined up practise too and read more War Horse.

Amelie did some addition with carrying over and got all 20 of them right and then practised writing and reading some Dolch words (thanks Helen). Then with minimum help, she wrote a story about a man - a complete story in one sentence

J & J have come over and they’ve all been holed up Sim-ing, drawing and petting the rabbits and doing something else i’m not sure about - i think they are all off to bike now. It is lovely to see them having such fun out there.

I can’t remember who i was with when we watched an interview with Keira Knightly and thought it wouldn’t be long before she did a Diana film… and now she has! Or hasn’t, if you believe her.

Last week was really unpleasant. MF was on holiday, PTF had to leave the establishment precipitously and people seem to have started Xmas shopping on Amazon. Added to the special on BeadMerrily of free postage if you spend £35, it was a hectic week and there was only me to do it. I had a HORRIBLE week and got completely overwhelmed and thoroughly upset. I need more space in my head than i have at the moment, there is just too much going on in it.

However, i did get through, managed to lay my hands on another (really lovely, going to be perfect) part timer who started this week and am now catching up. I’ve decided i need at least one more person part time though for the next 4 months, so i need to organise that. Fortunately the big three girls were at their musical theatre workshop all week and Josie had several nice days with one or other of us and only one boring day at work with me; even then she got spoiled rotten by various people. So it could have been worse.

Got to see the girls do Oliver! on Friday which was this time performed in the drama dept of a school that would probably be our first choice (out of not a lot of choice) for Fran should she choose to go to senior school. She is thinking about it and is working on her handwriting so that if she does go she feels like she can manage. She’s still umming and aaahing about year 6 (honestly….) but she has a week, they don’t start till Monday. (Grumble) I think seeing inside the senior school interested her, but it is a brand new, as yet unused, building which i think always seems quite appealing!

Lovely time at the Beans on Saturday and then on Sunday Fran demanded we attended the CLAPA Summer Garden Party. A slightly surreal experience; about a million cleft babies who i found it very hard to associate myself with. All that just seems like a million years ago now, hard to imagine why it ever felt like a big deal. Which only goes to help understand why not everyone DOES understand why it felt like a big deal; even i felt like saying “it’s not heart surgery, is it?” And yet, at the other end of the scale to that, i chatted to just one person with a little one, very little one, who had had a horrible time and i could see how completely traumatised she still was by the whole surgery/feeding/c-section thing. And i DO remember that.

Fran loved it and was full of herself; good for her i think, to see teens with clefts and be among people “like her” - only the same as being with other HE’d kids i suppose. Josie was terrified of the hired Stormtroopers and Amelie thought they were police coming to get kids without clefts. Maddy had assumed you had to pretend to have a cleft

We saw her surgeon, who still shows all new cleft parents the angel photo of her and is still clearly very fond of her. Mind you, as a piece of walking talking handiwork, who wouldn’t be?!?!?! It was a pleasant afternoon, i was glad we took her, even if it isn’t my cup of tea really. For some reason, i never felt comfortable with getting “support” over it - it always felt like a very personal thing while we were in the thick of it.

Monday was mainly me at work and the kids playing/doing bits of work at Sue’s. In the evening they went to gym. They told Fran they wanted to assess her for the squad training sessions which surprised me as i assumed she was just too old but i suppose she is small and fit and fairly supple so might be in with a chance. Not totally sure whether i want her to though, the gymnasts i knew at school were always under huge pressure over their weight and it is a big commitment. On the other hand, the coach says they have their eye on all three, certainly Amelie, so in for a penny…. we’ll see anyway, may come to nothing.

Off out now; have just had an email back from a very old school friend (though not quite as old as the one last week) and very excited about that!

My sister’s husband drew these for us at Christmas; we’ve finally got round to framing them and they are up. They really are SO beautiful.

Josie.

Amelie.

Maddy.

Fran.

A very talented man, i am sure you will agree.

One of my favourite authors is Eva Ibbotson and of her books, Madensky Square is probably my favourite. Always has been. I’ve been avoiding it the last couple of years, unconsciously, but i read it this week. There are 3 or 4 paragraphs that say so clearly how i have felt for the last 2 1/2 years that i thought i would put them here. I’ve been meaning to do it for a couple of days and i’ve got 5 minutes as the girls are trying to avoid bedtime.

The book is one about a woman who gives up a baby born at the wrong time, even though she knew it was the wrong thing to do; she is ill and afraid and everything happens so fast that she seems to have no control over it. The book is set many years after the event and deals with how she has lived her life since. She goes on to have a good life, a successful life, with many friends, a good business she builds herself and people who love her. But the legacy of that moment is threaded through the book and everything that happens to her has the tiniest flicker of a thread back to the child she doesn’t have. It is a very positive story, full of light and blessings, but you’d not have to know me very well to know how strongly the quote below speak out to me.

After this, the waters closed over my head. I don’t know the name for these attacks: depression, despair, panic… I only know there is nothing to be done; they just have to be lived through. I used to curl up under my quilt, trying not to exist, but now i walk. I walk all day through the city and out of it and by the evening the worst of it is over.

All 6 of us had a lovely day with friends at the Beans annual themed party. I didn’t take any photos, so you’ll have to do with the costume Maddy made for Chimpbone the Monkey.

She kills me