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IN THE BOYS' BED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

As I wriggled in tonight to convince Thuglet that bed was a good idea my feet crunched around in something. Biscuits? What have they been up to now?

Not biscuits. Pellets. Lots.

How had I missed this earlier when I was cuddling Rock Godling to sleep on the other side of the bed? YUCK!!!!!

Another tantrum. Still shaking in a baboon-bottomy-pink-eyed way 2 hours later. Want to leave home. Nowhere else to go. Feel sick. Will have to clean our all their toy baskets that line the walls on the floor. Burn the mattress. Hated that bloody futon base thing anyway - THE most annoying bed to make of all and the mattress wanders about all over place every day so I have to totally remake the bloody bed every night anyway and it's up against a damp wall and and and and When Are The Bunk Beds Arriving? At least I've finally ordered them. But I don't want to live here anymore!!!!!!!

Stomach in nautical knots. Head still hurts. Never felt so cold. Hate everything. Especially fucking RODENTS!!!!!!!!!!!

I know they were here before us but......... DIE YOU STINKING PERPETUALLY PISSING RANCID LITTLE FUCKERS!!!!!!!! DIE DIE DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There is no consolation that the pellets were poisoned as they hadn't bloody eaten them. I suppose they must have eaten some and stored the rest - IN OUR BED!!!!!!!!!!!!

Had to scoop little Godling out and put him 'Mummy and Daddy's' bed. Back to Daddy's and a boy's bed again then. 'Mummy and Daddy's' bed lasted 2 days. A new record I suppose. Am now downstairs, made up the settees as I was still too fire-spitting to claim The Big Bed - but I'm still ranting and Thuglet's still Peppa Pigging. Maybe sleep would be a good idea. Big day tomorrow - cleaning Cleaning and CLEANING!!!!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Less Would Be More - if only I could master this.....

At the risk (already achieved) of being the type of blog I abort after 3 words, I am going to continue in my list of tedious failures:

Wednesday - forgot an important message for Himself to do with his business - to do with something he needed to have done at least 11 hours earlier. Himself not impressed. And not civilized enough to mask it. At least I got lots of folding done. Lots.

Also levels of filth in our charming health hazard of a historic hovel (ie - it's old - for god's sake enough aliteration already - aaaaaagghhh!) plummet to the point where we now have rodents making free ON the fucking KITCHEN BLOODY COUNTERS.

Resolution to stop swearing buggered.

Full blown adult tantrum. Marriage shaky. Again.

My husband and I fall asleep on separate settees to the hypnotic sounds of Peppa Pig on telly, meant to soothe the savage (tyrannical) Thuglet. Desperate parents.

Thursday - EVERYTHNG!

Including the boiler packing up - sounded like a massacre of mechanical elephants.

And making a scene in BHS at their 'Inconvenience Store' (with thanks to The Farside - but no royalties forthcoming) peering up like Jack at the bottom of the beanstalk at their illogical and very very very high up sheets and pillowcases display - which are also bloody dangerous. Another bump on my bleedin' head. That's the third in as many days. I hadn't mentioned the second one - spared you. (It was the car boot again in the bunk bed shop car park last Tuesday.)

Python Boy took his now familiar stance of holding my sleeve and begging me to stop crying. I'm not sure if this is due to his warm heart or acute embarrassment. Bless him.

Diesel consumption has doubled lately as my sense of direction has taken a turn (sorry) for the worse. Can't find my way round a mini-roundabout lately. Not even the one 400 yards from my house.

Repeated incidents of total memory loss, chronic tiredness in the morning, many examples of lunatic driving (not speeding necessarily, just not advisable - OK, so I can't find my paper part of my Driving License to send off again since they sent it back last month), major cravings for sweet things, temper snapping at slightest blip, bloody headache......... DON'T EVEN THINK IT!

Anyone unfortunate to still be reading this please join me in prayer to the moon to send me my fucking period!!!!!

AND ANOTHER THING........... That'll be 18 episodes in already tonight of Peppa Bleedin' Pig and Thuglet still going strong. Any anti- 'Toxic Children' smug perfect parents out there can keep their 'warm milk, firm routines, clear boundaries...' opinions to themselves. He's had his warm milk, Peppa Pig is our firm routine now and I'm very much adhering to the clear boundaries he has set. I know my place.

Blimey! As I tapped that last word in he said 'All finished now', (even though it wasn't), turned the telly off and has climbed on my lap and kissed my neck. See?

Achievements? (Compulsory night-time head-patting): Did 'maths-y-like' stuff for HOURS yesterday - string, straws, coloured wooden blocks, chopped up bits of a cardboard box with numbers (0 - 144 - oh yeah) and all the maths-y-like symbols scribbled on and colour-coded - all from a vague notion whilst laying in bed (while they were trashing downstairs and foraging for 'breakfast') of a non-penandpaper approach to things. Et voila - Venn Diagrams don'tcha know. I thank you. The vague notion was to make circles out of snipped straws threaded onto the strings and to play around with the blocks - and maybe offer a few numbers for my own amusement. Full blown times tables adventures and trickier and trickier sums fitted onto a small square tray was all their doing. (And so was the demolition of precious towers, waves of violence, siblings tied to the big post with finger-knitted Venn-inspired lengths, and a return to an uninhabitable living room but a creative home is a happy home.....) Lunchtime came and went. Eventually Minx (who'd skipped breakfast - well, had slept through that bit and woke up to find a cold cup of tea by her bed and then texted me 'Where are my biscuits?' and then, when she didn't get them HAD to get up, and just joined in with our wholesome elevenses ie crisps) decided to go off and make lunch for everybody herself. That's self-motivation that is. Or hunger. Whatever. But that's more 'Living In The Moment' oh yes it is.

And today we found a recycling site that isn't scary AND takes card after only a few tours round the Business Park just down the road from the ice rink. Finally got rid of the mince pie packets, Amazon packaging, live-culture harbouring pizza boxes, newspapers from last August........ That cleared up one of the ranges. Going to tackle the larger peaks of bottles and cans tomorrow......... um........ next August probably.

And we did the ice rink. That's another one.

AND Mr Alpha Male returned with the mammoth - in lots of lovely crinkley bags - remembering all the things I forgot on Tuesday AND fiddled with the pressure thingy on the boiler so we have heating and hot water again and can ring up the plumbers and crow! And I can have coffee again! I've been wondering if my latest bout of brain-dead psycho behaviour was to do with lack of coffee. I'm recalling the scientific research of a link between coffee-drinking being a possible Alztheimers preventative because caffeine-fuelled rats remembered how to get out of a maze quicker than camomile tea-soaked hippy rats. I read this in The Mirror while I was waiting for a kebab. I've been downing huge barrels of the hard stuff ever since. Apart from the last few days because I keep forgetting to buy more. Hmmmmmnnn..... Something isn't adding up. But the kids are! You see what I did there? I hate people who say that.

And Puppy-Guinea-Pig-Python-I-Don't-Mind-What-I-Get Boy is back in his own bed after god....aeons, which means I can nestle in the warmth of my Alpha's buttock-scorchers and listen to his snorting and teeth-grinding again all snug and knowing that it just gets louder and smellier if I squeeze my head under the pillow. But it is a positive step. It is. Shut up.

And little cute squidgy fluffy Thuglet is asleep. All is quiet. Tomorrow is another day. I have coffee. I have heating. I have a new book - The Idle Parent, which looks like it is right up my unkempt garden path, (despite using 'it' instead of 'him' or 'her'). And I now have a pair of new pedestal mats to cover up the rotting stinking fermenting festering rented-house carpet around our aromatic toilet. Bliss.

All I need now is a well-blobbed on gusset.

Instead of a wee'd in one. Actually let's not mention that again.

Too Old and Too Tired to Care

I have been busy-busy-busy Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday with our customary wild behaviour (or is it called 'play'?) kingdoms, ice-skating, Nanny and Grandad's, sleepovers, gymnastics, football, more football, kid's party, grown-up's party, Holiday on Ice, sea-side shiverings, reptile demonstrations, urban hill-trekking with toddler, drama, more ice-skating, bunk-bed buying, picking up and dropping off and bloody supermarket shopping for god's sake and on and on .... and so why aren't I in bed now? Because I'm stupid. Or possibly concussed. My car boot no longer rises all the way to the top and so I hit my head on it at least once a week. Yesterday evening I REALLY hit it hard. Screamed. Stamped my foot. And weed myself.

I had already driven down myriad of dark country lanes trying to get home after missing my usual turning cos I was too busy pretending to be a human being and had come over all chatty and interested with Minx's chum in the car too. With jovial bravado (bravada?) I'd decided to carry on that way anyway........ and go via ........ where's the signpost gone? Nevermind I know exactly where we are........... oh no I don't want to go the sea we'll turn up here 'But the signpost said-' 'No I know this road. I've done this route loads of times!' (In daylight).

We did make it. Eventually. Noone appreciated my scenic tour. Just left me with all coats and bags in the boot.........

Then at about 10pm - after trying to get all organised and clever for our usual crack of dawn Tuesday run to the ice rink - discover more disgusting little lice bastards in the 2 smaller monsters' heads. Yes I did say 10pm. Yes I was getting a bit unstitched anyway. Yes I did use words normally only heard in Quentin Tarantino films. Yes I do know we had Minx's chum there too. I love having innocent witnesses to my meltdowns.

Possibly over-vigourous hair-drying...? Crying boys. Bewildered and critisising husband. Squealy girls. 11pm. Another set of Peppa Pig on telly to keep smallest shin-kicker still. Nazi fucking new bloody mobile wanking won't-work-properly phone - rocket across the room. Have you ever seen a demon-possessed windmill goosestep up a flight of steps? Have you ever heard a silence so ear-splitting? Left behind all the kids to find their own way to bed. One great big sore egg on my head.

When I get back home tonight about 11 hours of manic box-ticking, cheerful husband asks 'How's the head?' and pokes it.

Reptile Boy keeps asking 'Can I have a python?'

Can I have a day off?

Slavering Tongue Required for High Priestess of Ultimate Excuses

I've spent so long nosing through everybody else's blogs that I've now lost the will to write. But I love this connection to the outside world that doesn't involve me getting to the end of someone's sentence still smiling, or getting to the end of the sentence at all - if I've heard enough - goodbye. Next! Come on entertain me. '....and then we went to Sainsburys and-' Next! '....causing a mild rash with some discharge-' Next! '....with Graham Badma-' Next!

And nobody can see me. Obviously I am the devastatingly statuesque, 5' 11' of pertness held in perfect squelch of polished latex, oozing musk and purring over luscious home-made Baked Alaska in my pure white shag-pile Sindy house that I'm sure you lesser bi-peds aspire to.......

I am.

And texting - HOORAY. The choice to be there - or to have never known anything about it and the baby was playing with the phone and what a shame I missed it.....

Some call it anti-social. Actually I do but I'm learning to accept my condition. I'm starting a new support group for anti-social gits but I don't suppose anyone will turn up to the meetings. I won't.

But a wonderful slant on the whole phone thing came my way this evening (my final counselling session it was!) The intrusion of the telephone is not a particularly ingrained human necessity - the phone in every house thing is relatively recent (certainly in terms of homo sapiens' evolution) - and my gut reaction of 'who the bloody hell's that now?' is not especially unreasonable. This made me sit up straighter with a faraway presidential look in my finally understood eyes. (I now need purple prose counselling. 'Step away from the adjectives.') My converted love of the mobile due to the blessed text device is simply the reclaiming of my personal space. ('Move slowly. Do not touch the thesaurus. You can do this.')

Having a bit of trouble with my new swanky-pants slidey-uppy phone tho' - send at least 3 half-baked foreign language texts for every one decipherable one. But at least I could give little Rock Godling his phone back - (yes he is six, yes it was a spare from when Himself's posh one had to be mended after Thuglet used it as a golf club, no it has no Sim, yes he can play the Snake Game on it...) The trouble was, now he had seen it in action, he wanted it to work properly and suddenly knows what a Sim is and everything. Still moaning about it the next day, through my 'la la las' I still managed to hear 'I can't live without a Sim!'

Another fab thing from tonight's session came up after the usual mutterings along the lines of 'where does the day go? Three hours will have passed and I don't know what I've done...etc' And guess what? (You'll like this.) I'm not crap at time management or lazy or inneffective - I've been LIVING IN THE MOMENT.

OH YES! Worship at my unpolished toenailed feet!

Worth every penny.

Sorry - obviously not unpolished toenails. Although you'd never know through the 6" cyber-goth platform buckled thigh high fuck boots.

Real Life - over-rated

The Thaw. The resumation of Real Life. The crashing inevitability. Still late getting places. I'm still the same tedious person I was before New Year's Resolutions to be an entirely different and exciting spark. Still live in filth. Kids still got lice. So have I. Still have the same clothes on the shelf. Still hate them. And the tree?

Still not finished.

Why am I so predictable?

Everyone says they don't make New Year's Resolutions these days. I made 43. Does this mean I am a sad pedant? Or ridiculously optimistic? Or juvenile? Or so bad that I can effortlessly pin down at least 43 things about myself that I need to change?

Or just boring.

Or indeed all of the above. Yep that's the one.

It's alright for you - you need never visit this blogsite again - I have to live with me.

And lots of bits of newspaper - in neat tiny strips - kind of everywhere. For the next 3 years. I sat and studied my masterpiece in progress and worked out it needs at least another 15 hours of just construction - then there's the gesso - and the texturizing - and the painting - and varnishing? - and that doesn't include extra 7 hours of sitting and staring at it and deciding that it needs another nobble just there....... But it's on my list of NY's Res's. And I am a boring juvenile optimistic flawed pedant so........ here's to the next 3 years of tree-making. I promise that I won't mention it again - until it is finished. By then I should have learned how to do the pictures thing and I shall treat you all. ('All'? Tee hee..)

I'm sure I started this blog to share fascinating home educating issues etc but, just like my diary it has become another vehicle to blah bleugh blaaaaaaagghhhhh about me ME MMEEEE.

And that's another thing. I saw a programme about diaries and diarists fronted by Mariella Frostrup - repeatedly making the point that anyone keeping a diary over the age of 15 was a retarded self-absorbed loser with a massive ego problem - but it's kind of ok if you are Virginia Wolf. She didn't mention bloggers, Twitterers and Facebookers etc. But I'll put my hands up. Guilty as. I think it's good therapy. And cheaper than actually going TO therapy. And you don't have to read it do you?

Are you still here?

Get a life!

Are We Having Fun Yet?

Still got some tins of things in the cupboards - what's the worry?

Still got a few batteries left.

Still got a long way to go with my papier mache tree I started 3 years ago and never seemed to have time to finish. Actually it started as a lovely joint project for us all to work on - following on from autumnal themes and picking apples and making apple crumble - let's make our own little apple tree to hang seasonal 'things' on etc...... After just a few minutes I was elbowing them out of the way 'Not like that! It needs more here! Haven't you got any DVDs to watch?' ....... It has cobwebbily hung around the living room ever since - but we DID hang our little bits and bobs on it. With these extra 'holidays' due to the old snowboundiness I have found time to pick off a Burns Night tartan-clad peg doll, a Chinese New Year dragon, a couple of red felt Valentine's hearts, a Mardi Gras mask, a big Easter egg-shaped string thing plus other odd planets, bells, colourful paper boxes, party hats, a snake and some dead insects. It all helped to disguise the newspapery and gum strippy skeleton beneath but looked pretty manic. Undressing it though was like enjoying a 3-D diary of the year.

I'm obsessed with finishing the damn thing now before all the snow melts otherwise we'll start hanging this years odds and sods on it again and I'll have to wait for the next act of god to carry on. Knowing how to make the time for stuff like this when 'real' life starts again is a skill I have to master. My list of unfinished projects runs off over the horizon - and my list of 'to-do' dreams......... But I did have a little Damascan moment during this cave-dwelling time - maybe if I just do one 'project' at a time.....I might finish it. (This may seem obvious to normal people.) I'm going to try and apply this rule to reading books too. I've always got about 5 on the go at any one time - all at various stages (of re-reading).

I've been questioned as to whether my lack of finishing anything is a deep-seated problem. Am I afraid of failure, critisism, commitment etc? I even got a bit worried toying with one of those little red flappy fortune fish things that came out of a cracker this year when it revealed I was 'fickle'. Bastard! (I am though.)

I think my finishing problem has far more to do with having 4 children etc. Like - DUH! But I need to find photos of things I have finished to remind me I AM capable. I have got some things dotted around - mostly pre-children stuff obviously - but there are certain hanging-aroundy things this year that really need to get done to preserve my sanity (?) - and the tree is one of them.

I know the snow is crap and that we won't be able to pay the rent if Himself doesn't get out and do some 'proper' work soon, and the midgets will just leave footprints and be off with their hankies and sticks looking for a more stable family to be holed up with, but I do need to spend a little more quality time with my tree. Another couple of days of a slow thaw should do it.

And then, no doubt, the little bastards will break it.

Take photos take photos take photos ............

Careful What You Wish For ..... it might be good

I wanted to postpone 'real life' again - for just one week and even secretly hoped it would snow again so I could do just that and guess what....... Tee hee. Sorry everybody.

But at 10 year's old it's suddenly not the done thing anymore - snow. 'Cos you can't go to the ice-rink tomorrow, or stay over at Nanny and Grandad's. Stupid Mummy won't get in the car. And the tyre's still flat.

And everything is stupid.

Until Daddy carelessly suggests you build your own ice-rink in the garden by filling up the paddling pool. Ha ha haa...

I've never seen her move so quick. Except on ice.

It's not enough to to be playing Bach preludes of qualudes or whatever (didn't do piano lessons myself) after just 6 days of us possessing a piano again after 2 1/2 years without, or reading a whole book in a couple of days and announcing you've equalled your record of 2009 (yes - the whole of), or inventing and designing a whole revolutionary make-up range that is actually spectacularly innovative, or completing 2 painfully time-munching sequin art thingies, or knocking up about 20 new sparkly danglies for the slightly baldish knitted Xmas tree thing for next year, or starting planning out your own magazine with your equally fizzy friends, or coaching Thuglet with his little computer game thing for hours on end and dressing him, bathing him and generally being a far better mother than I, and keeping up your new stretches and sit-ups regime etc etc ...........

You have now built your own ice-rink in the garden to practice your spins.

Aren't you glad you don't go to school?

Failure, Humiliation and Near Death Experiences

So that was what the outside world had to offer?

What was I worrying about?

Going to do it all over again tomorrow.

Also the underlying thoughts brewing in my head about how I've totally scuppered my Leopard Boy's chances of reading really matured over the last couple of days. Spending time on A, B, C etc and vowels and sounds and pens and paper - 'building blocks' I thought ..... 'gently does it' I would comfort myself. Probably influenced by some rainbow-soaked Steiner-y illusion of 'the way to do it' - (ohh Fuck Off!) What is the point? It's really not relevant. It's not interesting. It's not fun. And it's completely repugnant.

My 3 year old Thuglet on the other hand - in front of whom I've deliberately never placed a written letter or number - recognizes these things and is constantly asking 'What's that say?'

I shall go back to the bosom of John Holt and my wonderful pile of home ed books filled with wise words of 'trust them' - all read with delight at the time but I forgot to trust myself.

My Cabinet of Educational Wonder can remain intact - and I can tidy it and rearrange the baskets and books as often as I like - and each time I do it I can apply the Alcoholics Anonymous 10 Step mantra thing to my reshuffle. It's purely therapy for me. Like compulsive hand-washing. I must keep reminding myself that I must not sip from the poison chalice of enforced 'teaching'. It's bogus. I must trust in that 'higher power' thing that always makes me wince - but it's like I must trust in TRUST.

It all seems so simple when it's just me and a screen and my zen-like tiredness. It's when my mother gives me another set of helpful fun Learn-to-Read with Flappo activity books I just want to tear down her anolglypta all the way to the dado rails.

Am I a bad person?

The Fear

I have to go out tomorrow and do 'real world' things. I have to speak to real people. I have to turn the ignition, manouevre/manouvre the car using the forward and backward gears. I have to find clean clothes for 5 people. I have to get a new tyre and speak to mechanical men. I have to park in front of mechanical men. I have to take something back to a shop which is 10 whole minutes away. I have to do supermarket stuff. I will have the small people with me destroying my chances of intelligent thought. Oh actually I'm one sprog down tomorrow - clean clothes for 4 people. But this does mean I have to do all this and be back home by lunchtime (whatever that is) so I'm there for his return. I haven't been up by lunchtime lately. I'm panicking. I've run out of dishwasher tabs so there's no getting out of it. The washing-up bowl is full - will stay that way until my return with the dishwasher tabs at 4 seconds to 'lunchtime' - enough time to tip the washing-up bowl into the magic cupboard and say 'Hello - have you had a lovely time? Have you worn Nanny and Grandad out then?' Note to self - find 3 cups tonight to produce effortlessly. I won't sleep tonight worrying about leaving the house before I'm ready to wake up. Maybe I should just stay up all night.

God - just imagine if I actually had to take the kids to school! Or if I had a 'real' job! Why do people put themselves through this? Maybe 'people' don't go through this. This is just me isn't it? What if it snowed again? What if I really couldn't leave the house again? I never knew I had it so good back then....

I think that's what started it though. The ice-bound incarceration. I've been allowed to wallow in my own mould for so long I can't now break out. Not as sole responsible adult. Not that. Just one more week? One more week to develop some character. I know it's a tall order. Would anyone notice? One more week!

The fresh air might kill me......

Oh god - am I supposed to be creating fun pages for nice little home educated children for tomorrow too? Why do these thoughts torment me?

Autonomy.......autonomy......

What chance have they got when I can't spell manouevre/manouvre anyway? Never could. Never will.

They're better off sticking with the Argos catalogue and the dart board. Who needs education?

(Well obviously I do......)

But look - no swearing! See!