In the end?I decamped downstairs with her, as that seemed to?be what she wanted. We spent sometime on the (to small for stretching out) sofa in the playroom -’ reading’ a book in the dark. Then we decamped to the sitting room to watch TV (though the was? a mega screaming fit when I went back upstairs to get duvet and my glasses :roll:)

Snuggled down, she was quiet and happy, she did fall asleep at some point and I dozed on and off. Managed to extricate myself when I woke at about 2.30 am. She didn’t wake up quite amazingly, so daren’t not move her – I could not face more screaming. didn’t want to leave her alone down there, so slept on the floor on cushions from the sofa – to to bad actually – but don’t think I slept well. But BB slept through to 6.30. which?is the best nights sleep she has had since probably Friday (last few nights she has been waking at about 3 – 4 and not really going? back to sleep properly

So far today she has been better though really (so that will do it…..). Played with SB’s leap pad, watch Cbeebies, done some painting, spent as much time washing up afterwards, now playing with the Brio trains.

And because we didn’t go out we didn’t buy the new camera

SO with that as the background, we have survived remarkably well. We didn’t get to the CHEF meeting today – which was a real shame as sounded really fab as in the archaeology museum, and I had been looking forward to it.

So, we made a start on th XMas cards. actually, we first did painting – which was the first word of BB’s we understood. so having allowed paint to go everwhere in the name of peace we moved onto xmas cards, and SB was very understanding of the concpt of BB got exactly what we could understand her to want. They made 20 between them. oh enjoy muddlepuddlers! Not too much in the way of glitter, but definately a 2 and 6 year olds take on how to stick/print as much as poss on a card. Of course more mess everwhere, but 60 mins screech free, so worth it!

BB then screeched continuously and went of for a walk in the buggy. SB read me a book and then did education city. Actually, she did loads, cos even though BB came back asleep, she soon woke up. So I went off into the garden and carried her around all the plants. Deciding the neighbours may call SS if she screeched any more outside [though a lower volume than indoors] we came back in. Eventually she settled with bucking bronco and then SB’s leappad [which she really loves, and Merry has given us a first leappad she can get for Xmas] SB made up a complex game about greek gods, including various of the legends – she was heard to peck livers out etc.

More utter screeching later, and we managed to develop some peace watching the makings of walking with beasts not for as long as we would like, so some desperate offerings of books/activities etc, and a book became suitable. BB did some colouring. Chris is cannabalising an old computer to try and set it up for BB, who otherwise tries to perch on SB’s lap and ‘do the puter’. Fine when SB is welcoming… this also distracted BB from screeching for a short while, so I hid.

cowardice finished with, and I returned to help make pizza, and then we all watched? robin hood together while eating it – a short break though for me to take BB up to a bath whcih she was desperate for, sat in for 3 secs and came out.

She has then screeched so much, and nothing has been satisfactory, which was the reducing to tears bit, as we have had not a great deal of sleep. It really is the torturing wail business. It IS a shame she finally gave in on the sofa though rather than in bed, as we will have to move her…

BB has been very poorly the last couple of days. She has had a cold for a littlewhile, which seemed to turn into something more Flu-y. Yesterday she had a very high temperature (high 38′s sometimes 39+ – even 40+ at one point – eek!), and spent all the time pretty much snoozing on the sofa or in someone arms, she isn’t eating at all, though drinking plenty of milk – though sicked that up  afew times – curds anyone :-). Lots of doseing up with Paracetomol and Nurofen (Nurofen always seems to be much better at bringing down the temp – but only 3 doeses a day, but she can have both so alternate them for maximium effect )

Still a high temp when she got up this morning. So took her to the docs (luckily, literally just round the corner). checked her chest, ears etc.  – as expected he said just to carry on. Kind of unneccessary really, but some how having someone else confirm that things are ok helps – sorry Jan if we were just one of those time wasters Of course as soon as we got there, the magical doctors effect took hold, and BB got off my lap and was  playing with the bead frame toy there

They are both now watching TV – I am going to try and sort out some of the disater zone that is the kitchen – but right now am zoning out a bit. BB has basically woken at 4 am or so the last 3 mornings and not really gone back to sleep properly – poor little Bean. And as Helen is working she has been in the spare room while I have BB.

SB has been very good really, and mostly very helpful. She did get a bit grumpy yesterday afternoon/evening with lack of direct attnetion for her – combined with knackered parents. We even got some HE in.

She did one of the sheets to go with the SOTW 1 chapter on Romans, Some maths – numbers to 100  – tens/units etc. Easy stuff for her really, but she seems to like workign through all the bits in the books, so just going with it – i’m sure it’s all good practice. She found some dinosaur stickers that came in the paper a couple of weeks ago, so she started on big picture to put those on. Played on BBC Jam and Ed City. Measured our temps with the thermometer. Watched a couple of episodes of the Trials of Life. – so not so bad I guess.

Missed out on going to the library this morning, but my parents are coming round this afternoon, so I can take her to her swimming lesson.

Now – about that kitchen……

Edu – SB very into Education City, on a trial, but will finally convert to the realy think this time – if anyone has a code they wish us to use, let us know. she is level 1+ for the english as 2 is a bit hard, and level 2+ for the maths. at least this time you are allowed to have different levels as this has been something that has put me off in the past.

we have played with the nursery bit with BB too, though won’t be buying it as a lot for nursery rhymes.

BB has been desperately under the weather for past few days, and last night and today def ill – nurofen/calpol the works. I weaned her this weak – actually without much trauma in the end – so suffering pangs of my faultiness about it as she no longer has my antibodies.

Other than that she has enjoyed playing with her birthday presents a lot, and playdough [which she does whilst SB fimos] SB fimo-ed today a lovely angel. i forgot to add any holes to hang on xmas tree so it may be a cake decoration

SB and i did lots of reading today with BB semi flaked on my lap [wanting to watch her bring me back on a loop - so we need to video her doing something else!], we story of the worlded the romans, read some ORT and usbourne farmyard books, she did lots of colouring and EC.
We were going to make a pegdoll fairy/angel, but BB wasn’t well enough to let us do it without her, and not sick enough to ignore us doing it with her IYSWIM

SB has enjoyed playing with my mum this weekend as well, and they enjoyed wathcing strictly come dancing together, amd planet earth. what a good mix! SB has been doing a lot of ‘interpretive dance’ about the place, and suddenly informed me their ballet uniform has changed to a lilac one with a ribbon belt? Why don’t the teachers let us know these things, as she saysd she is the only one still in the old uniform. and we need a character skirt as they no longer wear the blue polka dot one – sigh!

oh well, she has enjoyed some ‘trials of life’ as well today. SO although I feel I have mostly held a grumpy sick 2 year old, I guess we have done HE as well. SB has been very good at fetching things so i don’t have to jiggle bb too much. what a fantastic older sister she is.

Having finally got around to sorting out the insurance claim for the stolen bag, just awaiting the arrival from Jessops of the vouchers to get a replacement. The amount we got was fairly generous I guess, but we do have to spend them in the Jessops shop, so can’t go hunting bargins on the net. But we will easily be able to replace what we had with something  bit better so I guess that’s what matters.

I liked the A80, some am tending towards Canon again. At the moment I like the look of the Canon 710IS . In particular the 6xzoom (35 – 210mm 35mm camera equivalent) and the optical image stabiliser, which seems to work pretty well from what I can see. Both of which would help things along for the sorts of things we take photos of. The OIS ought to make taking photos sans flash indoors in marginal light a bit easier. 7MP is possibly verging on the side of too many really – you increase the risk of noise in the image as you squeeze more and more pixels onto the same size image sensor. but Canon seem to have got away with it (no worse than similar cameras anyway). – There is 10 MP camera further up the range, I thought the camera makers had given  up on the megapixel race  but obviously not.

One or two things missing from what the A80 had that I liked, but nothing major.

Morning was mostly playing with BB’s birthday presents – traintrack, etch-a-sketch, building blocks and some play food, as well as her ‘den’. Some reading aloud of various library books as well.

The a race to the painting session Merry had organised. We thought we were going to be late, but were the first – total shock horror! Poor SB was travel sick when we got there – nicely decorated the carpark. SB was really happy decorating her mug and had a clear idea of what she wanted to do, and how i should help her. BB was a challenge to keep happy – and Chris mostly did that, as with migraine in hot room I was better holding head still. I’m sorry Merry, but I am going to have a little rantlet here – I feel a bit bad doing it, as SB really enjoyed the activity, and the place was nice, and you organised it, BUT…

1. Why did she go on SO much about not being able to pronounce some people’s names, and saying she was going to give them numbers? She didn’t even try SB.

2. She made a huge deal at the beginning of being [to my view] slightly snide about HE – could they tell her anything about winter, did they know anything, did their mummies do all the work.

3. The huge deal at all having to draw a thin neat line before they were allowed to paint on pot. SB started to get nervous about this, so I got her to just start [which earnt me a frown!] And SB then asked me if we were going to get told off!!! We did actually, for using ‘the wrong colour’ SB had wanted to do snowflakes and stars at night. We were told she couldn’t use black – fair enough – so she chose a dark blue. OK, so maybe it isn’t going to look like the others, and perhaps the colour is overpowering – we will have to see – but after all it is actually what SB wanted to do, its never going to be in ‘work of art’ category, but I and she will be proud of it anyway, so whats the big deal? She didn’t come round to us after that, but was cross that I shew SB how to add rays to her star, and then did a bit of line that SB was worried she couldn’t do thin enough – I was told it was no longer SB’s mug as I had helped/done it. It was her design, her choice of colours, and I scaffolded at times so we had fun doing it together. What is so wrong with that?

Hmm, actually reading that, I am more pissed off than I thought. One girl nearly refused to do the thing altogether she was so worried about not being able to do a thin enough line! At one point I found myself getting worried about the state of SB’s lines – FFS! At least she was trying. The older lady when she came round was much mellower and encouraging.

I have to say, in case Merry doesn’t boast about it, Amelie did a really stunning snowman. But SB loved doing it and wants to go back and do more.

on the way back we picked up a freecycle microscope, which SB is going to have great fun with. We had a preliminary play after Chris cleaned it up and got it working again.

For bedtime story, I am reading SB charlie and the chocolate factory. However, I feel an overwhelming desire to call them the bouquet family, so TV sets about its insidious corruption!!

edited to add. Actually, migraine prob making me partic grumpy. I think the place was v nice, and prob it was this ‘I shall educate them’ thing that was narking me – my autonomous mothering coming though! Those that did do it the ‘envisaged’ way though were helped very well. They had loads of things to choose from, loads of paints, we were never hurried a long, and were made to feel very welcome, in spite of nearly as many non painting children as those painting! We got lots of 1:1 care as a group.I am still narked about items 1-3, but at the end of the day, SB said she’d had a lovely time, and her and Maddy were going round wondering what they could do next time, so = success from her point of view!

‘Oooops’ said Butterbean ……..

[italicised spell checking by Helen!]

My sister and her family arrived on the sat, so SB and M ran away to play, with BB and E trailing after. Mostly played well! my family is not particularly convinced with my sanity over HE, and prob faintly discouraging. So it is always good to realise that SB and M are reading roughly the same books [well, so my sis says] and covering roughly the same maths. M is a clever lad 7 months older than SB [but in a different school year], so although I hate the fact that I am measuring for parity, still I do so, as that gives me the opportunity to say – see it is fine! I am crap at being anything other than totally passive in family dynamics.

my Dad and mum and Little Nanny came on the Sunday for playing and birthday tea. BB like all her presents – some brio, an etch-a sketch-alike and a pop up tent from tesco sales to be a den. She had fun palying with everyone, her cousins managed [just] to remember to let her play with what she wanted [E is only a year older, so I think she did very well]. As Chris said, she was rather bemused by the whole singing/candle/cake blowing thing [so we did it again today]

i enjoyed me and my mum playing the piano for little nanny – and so did she. I think it all felt a bit fin-de-siecle though as it was a selection of Mendelssohn’s songs without words, a lot of which are very wistful. So SB cheered up the proceedings by singing nursery rhymes with her own piano accompaniment [yep videoed that too!]

Little Nanny is doing remarkably well considering, but aargh I wish she was closer to one of us. She needs the regular visits, but they are such a huge commitment. I am both ready to give that commitment, yet secretly heavy about it. I think that is the same for my mum and Aunt as well. Little Nanny though has been such a stronghearted family committed person all her life, she really deserves more from me. I confirmed the offer of a home here again, but she is keen to stay where she is. This is a photo of our visit just before operation.

they went, girls in bed and Chris and I collapsed in a heap to battlestar galactica. I need to be a bit more brain active in the evenings though, as lots of jobs to do!

today is BB’s Birthday, thanks for all the birthday wishes. She is 2 – woohoo! I might even do a sentimental blogpost. The beans were at group this morning all about Africa. Chris’s parents popped round just before teatime to bring pressies for BB, and say hello.

Best bit was probably BB’s face when we brought in the cake. We all sang Happy Birthday, and then she was told to blow out the candles. She then looked around the room totally bemused by it all

‘all this fuss about? a cake’ ?

i have tried to suggest all sorts of more authentic wooden castles, expandable ones, or just plain nicer solid wooden castles, but she wants a scary one! However, may wait until one comes up on ebay [she's happy with that]

So thanks Merry for the excellent suggestion, but I think SB has a mind for scary!