Home Educating the Puddle Girls…

Have you upgraded my wordpress without me knowing… or have i just been away so long i have forgotten how it works?

I am a bit in love with this, it’s going to be my first ever business christmas card

Mother can keep birth a secret.

Now, the father bit i don’t know anything about really, so i won’t presume to comment but what business is it of anyones to try and force an adult woman to tell her parents about a baby if she doesn’t want to? AM i missing something? And what has it got to do with Families Need Fathers? They weren’t in a relationship, presumably they never would be, even given the advent of a child and if the child is adopted, presumably there is every chance it WILL have a father. I don’t get it.

Dunno what happened there, though the incoming DEFCOM 5 alerts by text were funny! Thanks to Sir Bean-a-lot for fixing it

I’m building up to a blog; in-between being mentally busy we are having a really lovely time. BM is hugely busy; it has already beaten last years total November sales for all sales channels just on BM alone which considering that Amazon matches BM these days and PM isn’t doing badly either, is quite amazing.

Yesterday i was briefly the owner of a 5 figure bank balance, which was fairly awesome! Last years busiest ever Xmas week sent 220 parcels; last week we sent 550…. it’s hard to believe it is possible that we do that much from here. In general, it is all running much better and feels far less stressful.

The kids seem to be thriving too, lots of changing and growing again, but they all seem happy and fulfilled. Will round up later, probably not tonight as we have 100 or so to pack but will hopefully do it tomorrow.

Telegraph Article on the pressures of modern family life.

She has my every sympathy; 4 children (well, any number of children but as Alison and i often say, you do spend a bloody long time saying the same thing over and over when you have 4!) is hard going and pretty much unrelenting.

Interesting to see another family doing much the same (in a different way) as we’ve done, being forced to stop, look, listen for a while. Since Max stopped working full time, i’ve realised that BeadMerrily is a full time job for at least one person, probably more like a full time job for 2. No wonder i’ve been gradually going under for the last little while. Thank goodness Max had an understanding employer who could see they would get more from him if they allowed him to take time out to put our family life right.

The first couple of weeks of Max being at home and extra 3 days a week have gone pretty well in retrospect, though we’ve both been thoroughly ill which took the shine off it a bit. I had a horrible dose of laryngitis and i’m still croaky nearly 2 weeks later but the worst of it was definitely the inflamed windpipe bit, viral so no abs to kill it off and i just had to muddle through. It was extremely painful indeed and did rather slow me down. Then Max got man flue and was definitely worse the wear for a few days, which got him down a bit as i think he felt he needed to hurl himself into it all and change life overnight. In the end, perhaps being forced to slow down a little as actually been a good thing.

The first week or so i worked pretty much full time just trying to get the business back into shape and Max took over everything with the children. He did maths, crafts, took them out, got them doing reading and writing practice, cooked and generally showed them a good time. They’ve been doing a great job of keeping busy and they’ve enjoyed varieties of board games, websites and various other things. We’ve both had more time to read stories and do stuff and the girls and i have had huge jigsaw fests, story fests, cuddle fests and happy times indeed. I feel like i’ve got my life back, moreorless.

Just realised i had blogged most of that already. Oh well.

Had a lovely time with The Portico and a variety of other people for Josie’s third birthday and she was highly delighted by their presence and their present, which was a walking, sqwarking penguino! We had food and a fire and fireworks and lots of playing and mulled wine and it was a generally jolly evening. Particularly enjoyed Mr Portico chivvying them all out of the house with much eyerolling at their slowness and then having to drive back for the camera he had forgotten!

Not quite sure where last week went in all honesty; Max stocktaked one day while we spent the day with Claire and Charlie, Max was initiated into parcel wrapping one night when he and i packed over 80 between us in an evening, Maddy learned some of her tables, Amelie did a good bit of Studydog, Fran was heavily into Famous Five. One day all 3 of them sat down with paper dolls, fairies for Amelie, various from paperdolls for Josie, Tudors for Fran and Georgians for Maddy, from those books i think we all bought from Sarah once. Filled a whole day beautifully. Fran also did a lot of a Dover colouring book on the Tudors. She is getting much more able to find herself things to do from our shelves, which is great. The last few days she has been working her way through an Usborne Tudors and Stuarts book, the same one as is in the top picture here (awwwwwwwww…….) - in fact, now i think about it, all this is starting to sound worryingly like a re-infactuation with the Tudors!!!! (noooooooo……. ) She enjoys the quicklinks pages on the Usborne site and does lots of those, a Guy Fawkes one today that has definitely been around since the olden days when i did things properly!

On Tuesday they started practising for Grade 2 ballet, so i have a house full of unnaturally disjointed children all in 4th position now. On Thursday Maddy was enrolled at Brownies, which was somehow particularly lovely as Fran, as her Sixer, had to take her up to do her promise. Maddy looked beautiful and said it all just right, and even said “yes please” when asked if she still wanted to be a Brownie which made everyone go “aaaaaah”. My favourite bit was possibly the new Brownie who said “A Brownie Guide thinks of herself before others” - grin….

Friday i spent the entire day being yelled at by people, mostly over Bindeez being returned (i don’t even know where to start ranting about that, there is barely an angle of it that i can’t roll my eyes at) and then by a customer who i replaced an item for when it was a few days delayed in the post and then she was angry at me when she realsied she needed to return one - yelled at me and slammed the phone down - twice. Finished off by being yelled at for offering to help someone out if it would make a situation easier and got a whole heap of someone else’s issues projected on me. I hate having words put in my mouth. Pah to it all.

However, i did have a really great time helping out at the first night of Brownie camp and did a Fimo craft with 24 Brownies, making Jemima Puddleducks with them. Was really lovely and i enjoyed it hugely. I’m being police checked to be a helper and thoguh i doubt i will have time to do anything more, i am looking forward to being more involved at times. Doing Peter Rabbit with them on Thursday at the ordinary meeting. Must say though, i found doing stuff with schooled children a vastly different experience to doing things with HE kids. It was really quite fascinating. Fran and Maddy were glowing when i got my Brownie Thank You, which made me feel really good about having put the time in.

Weekend was just lovely as we got loads of time with the little two while the big two were away; Amelie and Josie had a ball, we did lots of bonding, huge amounts of jigsaws and took them both out at different times. Fran and Maddy also had a great time, Maddy seems to have loved her first camp, which is great. Fran now a veteran of 6 nights worth of Brownie camping and one of the older and more able ones there. Just weird.

Today we have done maths, writing practice, i did an 80 piece jigsaw with Josie and we’ve baked biscuits, watched Chicken Run and had a dancing school. It’s been lovely. Now the business is running more smoothly i can get a heap of jobs done first thing and then i am free, which just makes it so much better. I love doing jigsaws with Josie, she has such a knack for them; all the others have been rubbish really, though Maddy and Fran are good now, but Josie really looks at the pictures and works things out. She seems far more able to decipher what is going on which just makes it a pleasure. She can do the 80 piece one on her own really, if you get her started (it’s an Egyptian one) and pretty much turns up her nose at the 25/35 piece Orchard Toys ones i bought the other week. But she lvoes an audience, so you have to sit with her.

Bless her, can’t believe she is 3 now.

Typically, our first week of being at home together is being marred by me having a throat infection; it started off as viral which made a nice change as my glands swelled beautifully but my tonsils stayed the same size for a change, so while it hurt, it was a different hurt and nothing like so bad. But of course, my throat being what it is, it has totally over-reacted and has actually got a rash on it now which extends al lthe way down my throat making me feel like i am mould lined and constantly choking. I’m not happy. Oddly though, i don’t actually feel ill
I also can’t speak above a whisper, which is making customer phonecalls interesting Naturally the children all recovered just in time for Max and i to get it.
Hoping i’ll be better for saturday when we hope to have a mini-party for Joey, though i have forgotten to remind the people i invited. Better do that. Hope you got my twitter okay, Alison? Helen, got yours, did you get my email? Also hoping i won’t be infectious
Oh well.

Yesterday was nice, aside from being ill. MF and i sent 60 parcels, Max taught the kids stuff again and then i took them to the farm to buy a pumpkin which they hollowed out, carved and gave carrot top hair We trick or treated with Kate and Summer again and were a bit surprised that someone nicked one of her carved pumpkins. Then we got home to fine someone had stolen out sweet bowl, though not the sweets or the plate covering them. People are very odd; i suppose those were the tricks, but i want my bowl back! I gave treats!

Maddy had done lots of creative things for the house in the morning while Max took the other 3 for a walk; she made ghosts for every window, fimo glow in the dark models for outside and a sign for the door. She had such a lovely time and did it all by herself; i love how motivated she is by things like that.

Best bit of BeadMerrily news for the day was the arrival, at long last, of my air pillow making machine. This is a big deal; to be able to rent one, you have to show usage of 2 km a month of air pillows! Eeeeek! Still, really glad not to be paying in money and carbon footpint to have boxes of air sent through the post anymore. Each roll makes 3 cubic metres of pillows, roughly the volume of my dining room. I am really tempted to try it, it would be such fun!